Finland brings 'anti-fake news' into schools

However, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) is creating new challenges, forcing education systems to adapt to maintain an edge.

In a Finnish kindergarten class, Marie asked her class to write a horror story with the help of AI. Children chose the characters, plot, and genre, while the teacher inputted the suggestions into the AI system.

As a result, the AI not only created a story, but also illustrations that the children enjoyed. This exercise is part of the educational content to introduce children to AI and form critical thinking with information on the Internet.

Finland has been teaching media literacy to kindergarten and high school students since the 1970s. In 2014, as misinformation spread online, the Nordic country updated its curriculum to include social media and smartphones.

At the core of Finland’s educational philosophy is the idea that media literacy is a life skill, not a separate subject. From math to language to history, teachers incorporate lessons on how to analyze information, evaluate sources, and identify hate speech.

According to the Finnish National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI), from the age of 3, children are exposed to the digital environment through observing images and sounds. By the age of 7 or 8, they begin to learn to ask questions: Is what they see online trustworthy? As they get older, they are trained to synthesize, select opinions and verify them with many different sources.

While fake news used to come in the form of exaggerated news stories or articles, AI is making things much more complicated. Deepfake technology creates fake images, videos or audio that are increasingly difficult to distinguish from real material.

These materials are difficult to distinguish from factual material. This means that students need not only the skills to recognize emotions, but also the ability to verify multiple sources, cross-check with tools, and maintain an attitude of positive skepticism toward any information.

Finland’s approach goes beyond “teaching tips on how to spot fake news.” Teachers are encouraged to be creative in integrating critical thinking into their subjects, from analyzing algorithms in math class to identifying manipulative language in literature class.

Some schools even require students to do handwritten assignments to limit the misuse of AI, or allow AI to be used in the idea generation stage but not for the final product.

The Finnish government has also issued AI guidelines for teachers, including recommendations to be transparent about the use of AI in the classroom, explain potential biases, and clearly indicate what AI-generated results are. However, experts admit that integrating AI into formal curricula has been slow, as education evaluation cycles typically last a decade.

“The EU is developing a common framework for AI literacy for students, which is expected to be published in 2026,” said Kari Kivinen, education expert at the European Union Intellectual Property Office. “This framework will provide specific guidance on how to use AI, how to be transparent when students use the tools, and how to achieve more reliable results. The ultimate goal is to assess the AI skills of 15-year-olds in 100 countries.”

According to Euronews

Source: https://giaoducthoidai.vn/phan-lan-dua-chong-tin-gia-vao-nha-truong-post745144.html