The case for urgently training 400,000 Canadian teachers on AI

”Why didn’t I learn how to write code in school?“ Indra Kubicek asked herself that question when weighing the decision to launch a digital startup a decade ago. It changed her career trajectory, from working in finance to starting a digital literacy not-for-profit. Today, she’s the CEO of Digital Moment, a Montreal organization that trains teachers on how to incorporate AI into curriculums in primary and secondary schools. In a conversation with Jaxson Khan, CEO of the technology consultancy Aperture AI, Kubicek shares her vision for getting the next generation ready for an AI-powered future.

Earlier this year, the federal government pledged to train 3,000 teachers on AI, yet your organization alone had already trained many more.

We were a bit surprised by that initial target, part of the National AI Literacy Initiative. Since 2023, our organization has trained 8,000 teachers on AI, and many more in earlier years combined with general digital literacy. But that’s still nowhere near reaching all of Canada’s 400,000 teachers. We believe the ambition needs to be much higher and are pushing the government on that.

It seems the message has been heard. On Sept. 9, the feds announced that $13M will go to Amii [the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute] to provide free AI education with the goal of training 50,000 kindergarten-to-Grade-12 (K-12) educators in AI. What did you think of the news?

It was great to see the federal government taking action and recognizing Amii's leadership. That was a welcome boost. There are a number of organizations like ours that have been doing this work for many years, and I think this is the opportunity to build a nationwide strategic model.

Will your organization tie into that effort in any way, or will those be parallel streams, focusing on different regions of the country?

Looking at both regions and language, among other differentiators, is a great way to think about it. We have a wide francophone reach, since we’re a Quebec-based national charity. We also serve niche groups that many might not think of immediately, like francophone education systems outside of Quebec which have come to us for many years, given the lack of access to French resources compared to English.

We also give attention to pre-service teachers; we work a lot in universities and teacher colleges to reach teachers before they even get to the classroom, which we love as a model because it builds confidence early and provides a strong likelihood that these teachers will build their learnings into their classroom plans from the start. 

Can any teachers in Canada have access to your AI training?

Yes, teachers, schools and school boards in any province or territory can contact us, and we take each inbound inquiry on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes we can point teachers to an upcoming open live webinar or in-person training, or we can start to build something specific for a large enough group of educators. Depending on the time of year and the topic, we may have waitlists, but online training allows for a much larger audience.

Is the training taught by AI or do you use human instructors?

We have never used AI to train anyone. We pride ourselves on our human approach because we believe it is so important to have access to a trained professional who can understand a teacher’s reality and adapt to their needs. Do I think we can optimize AI to improve elements of our lesson plans and activities to be able to bring more free resources to educators? Absolutely. But AI will never replace our facilitators.

What sort of skills can AI training give teachers?

Our target is mid-career teachers who don’t have a background in STEM and may feel uncomfortable discussing technology in their classrooms. We don’t want AI to be intimidating. We try to demystify it, helping students understand that it goes beyond Generative AI and large language models to include machine learning, data models and computational thinking. We also teach critical thinking, guiding youth on how to interact responsibly with AI, how to understand user rights and responsibilities and how to question digital media. In a module called Data, Privacy and Ethics, we look at how training data shapes technology, where data is sourced and how bias enters AI models. And of course we look at real-world problem solving, like using AI for environmental conservation or flood forecasting.

AI is advancing rapidly. How do you keep the teachers’ skills up to date?

We’re trying to be agile in adapting our content, but we take the temperature of our audience. What teachers are really struggling with is how to translate what they learn into something tangible in class. So last summer, we worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation [a U.K.-based AI training organization] on developing cross-curricular content. AI isn’t a separate subject but something that can be taught in any class and will impact all fields, so whether they’re teaching English or geography, we provide teachers with activities that fit into their existing curriculums. For example, for media literacy, English or social studies, we show teachers how to run a social media simulation: using a safe, enclosed classroom simulation, students interact with a mock social media feed to discover exactly how recommendation algorithms drive engagement, capture user attention and shape digital habits.

How can parents and schools keep kids safe when they’re using AI?

The age we need to be thinking about is when a child can use a device unmonitored, without safety controls on AI chatbots. We believe the best way to tackle this is by helping parents talk about AI around their kitchen tables. In schools, the conversation is more about how AI is changing the way educators teach and how kids learn, and the concerns about cheating, but we need to invest in building critical thinking skills for young people to help them make decisions online. If a 14-year-old has no understanding of the potential risks with chatbots, just turning a year or two older won’t make them any safer. Parents do need to have some knowledge about AI, but I compare it to whether you’re teaching your kids to swim because you want them to be competitive swimmers or because you don’t want them to drown. Ultimately, you want them to be safe.

It sounds like you’re saying that training in schools is about how to use AI, but safety training should happen at home. Is that right? And if not, does Digital Moment work with teachers, school boards or even the education ministries to create some guardrails to protect harmful AI from getting through to children’s Chromebooks during school hours?

I think we need to start with education and literacy, and this must include parents along with educators. This is why we recently released a parent guide as part of an AI literacy campaign we launched with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. As soon as a child has access to a device that they can use unmonitored, parents need to understand the implications. We just launched our first AI Youth & Family Pop-Up during the week of All In in Montreal to raise awareness of the need for AI literacy in families from trusted organizations, and it was fully booked. In schools, we also need to be preparing educators to teach kids how to be safe online and to provide a safe learning environment.

Do you think the provinces, which have authority over education, are converging on the right approach to AI in schools?

It’s hard to say right now whether they’re converging or diverging, or even whether they’re talking to each other. We recently launched a draft of a national K-to-12 school framework for AI because we don’t think all of this should sit on teachers’ shoulders. Provincial governments, the federal government, school boards, IT departments that determine what tools come into schools – all of these components of the system need to play a role. My biggest concern is equal access to AI education, whether you’re in a remote town in the Prairies or in downtown Vancouver. For math, we can say, “At the end of this grade, we expect a student to be able to do X, Y and Z wherever they are in the country.” We don’t have those types of targets for AI.

You partner with various technology organizations, including Google. How do you keep Digital Moment’s content independent?

That’s a hot topic right now. Organizations like ours that are independent and not-for-profit are best suited to support the education system. We don’t promote any products. None of our content has a funder’s logo. No funder is telling us what content to build. But ultimately, we need to work with industry: they’re at the forefront of this technology.

What does the best-case scenario look like, as far as AI in the classroom goes?

Five years out, I hope that every young person in Canada has had some AI lessons and their teacher has been trained on AI. We can’t not talk about it at school because we’re worried about kids using it to cheat. They’re using AI before they even know what it is.