Inaugural 'Hour of AI' Event Includes Minecraft, Microsoft, Google and 13.1 Million K-12 Schoolkids

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Last September, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org pledged to engage 25 million K-12 schoolchildren in an "Hour of AI" this school year. Preliminary numbers released this week by the Code.org Advocacy Coalition showed that [halfway through the five-day event Computer Science Education Week] 13.1 million users had participated in the inaugural Hour of AI, attaining 52.4% of its goal of 25 million participants.

In a pivot from coding to AI literacy, the Hour of AI replaced Code.org's hugely-popular Hour of Code this December as the flagship event of Computer Science Education Week (December 8-14). According to Code.org's 2024-25 Impact Report, "in 2024–25 alone, students logged over 100 million Hours of Code, including more than 43 million in the four months leading up to and including CS Education Week."
Minecraft participated with their own Hour of AI lessons. ("Program an AI Agent to craft tools and build shelter before dusk falls in this iconic challenge!") And Google contributed AI Quests, "a gamified, in-class learning experience" allowing students to "step into the shoes of Google researchers using AI to solve real-world challenges." Other participating organizations included the Scratch Foundation, Lego Education, Adobe, and Roblox.

And Microsoft contributed two — including one with their block-based programming environment Microsoft MakeCode Arcade, with students urged to "code and train your own super-smart bug using AI algorithms and challenge other AI bugs in an epic Tower battle for ultimate Bug Arena glory!"

See all the educational festivities here...

No need to learn just depend on our AI

[oldgraybeard]

Indoctrination!

Re:

[allo]

Name checks out (maybe).

You have a point as in one should still learn to code like before, but your argument is no good point. You depend on electricity. You depend on micro processors for your traditional coding. The "you won't always have a calculator" argument has a base, but on the other hand we have to see that we indeed depend on a lot of high-tech infrastructure.

What do you think would happen when we have a global internet outage for 2 weeks? Not even computers being down, just no network anymore. Mo

Re:

[allo]

Or a short power outage: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

Re:

[noshellswill]

Hope you gagged in the stopped traffic. Teach you to depend on  electrified intelligence that is indeed artificial. So get out and walk, to your grandfathers garage. Where a rusty 6-speed 1982 Pony with a 409 is waiting for new spark-plugs, and change of an oil filter.   It hopes you will save both it and yourself from irrelevance ... 

Re:

[troff]

> but your argument is no good point. You depend on[...] we indeed depend on a lot of high-tech infrastructure

You miss the logic. You miss that his argument is an *extremely* good point.

We indeed depend on a lot of high-tech infrastructure. According to you, we should keep adding layers. Moreover, layers that are increasingly abstracted and impossible to follow the working of.

The more you add to the infrastructure, the harder it would be to function when it's taken away. You want to push us even further

Re:

[allo]

I talked about both sides. I said we need to still know the basics, but we need to be also aware how much we depend on technology.

And we have already (too?) many layers. You may be able to produce electricity, but can you really restart our other tech that enables our luxuries? If we would lose all microchip factories at once, it would probably be very hard to rebuild that, throwing us back by decades of modern tech. So if we rely on microchips we cannot produce if current high-tech dies, how would it make

Meet a new cause of human suffering

[BrendaEM]

Joblessness, homelessness, increased global warming and the proliferation of nuclear plants, the making of billionaire tyrants, and the pollution of the overall human knowledge base. Kids, there it is.

Re:

[Misagon]

"Program an AI Agent to craft tools and build shelter before dusk falls in this iconic challenge!".

It's right there. Important skills for the future that the AI can teach you. /s

Re:

[drinkypoo]

If only you could get wood by punching trees

A.k.a "Hour of Stupidity"

[gweihir]

Those poor kids.

AI

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

AI is a tool of the devil! This is nothing but state sponsored witchcraft.

Re:

[Brain-Fu]

Starting the Butlerian Jihad [fandom.com] just a bit early, aren't you?

cracking along

[noshellswill]

So it's come to this ....  I thought giving/selling krak to kids was unlawful. Even for one hour !