AI Literacy for Kids

Role: Researcher & Designer • Duration: 2 Years • Year: 2024-ongoing

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Overview

The GIANT Remix is an AI-powered literacy platform developed by The GIANT Room in partnership with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and funded in part by the Robin Hood Foundation.
The platform combines hands-on creation, safe AI tools, and personalized publishing to help children strengthen writing skills while developing AI literacy, critical thinking and creative agency.

Context

  • Introduce AI tools in ways that support diverse learning goals across subjects
  • Preserve student voice, authorship, and creative agency
  • Build a system flexible enough to adapt to different themes and curricula
  • Design for both in-person and remote programs

Solution

  • 3 semesters of in-school classroom codesign and pilot programs (NYC Title 1 public schools)
  • Remote library programs in partnership with Connecticut State Library
  • Community workshops, bootcamps, and educator sessions
  • Curriculum-based scaffolding aligned with learning goals
  • Prompt transparency and human-in-the-loop AI

Outcomes & Growth

  • Stronger use of subject-specific vocabulary and overall increase in writing across drafts
  • Educator confidence in integrating AI responsibly
  • Successful remote library programs with returning participants
  • 50+ publications codesigned with kids, teachers and librarians

My Role

UX Designer & Researcher (5-7 member team)

  • Co-designed classroom pilots across 3 semesters, moving from early concepts to tested prototypes
  • Designed learning missions, support materials, and publications across programs
  • Designed educator scaffolds and feedback systems
  • Iterated workflows based on classroom and facilitator feedback
  • Created frameworks and templates to maintain consistency across program outputs
  • Collaborated with developers during testing and quality checks prior to releases

Core Experience

Mission

Each “Remix” begins with a GIANT Mission based on the learning outcomes and publication type. They include:

  • Trading Cards
  • Postcards
  • Comic Books
  • Chapter Books

Participants begin offline with pencil and paper.

Step 1
→

Feedback

Photos of their work are uploaded into the Remix platform, where AI tools:

  • Generate multiple AI avatars
  • Show the prompt evolution
  • Create a protptype of their publication
  • Support revisions before publishing

Participants learn how to provide feedback.

Step 2
→

Publication

Students then publish their final work as trading cards, comic books, or postcards.
The AI is positioned as a tool, not the author. The creative agency stays with the child.
These publications can be used as educational materials by using them as reference for educational writing, storytelling games, activities, etc.

Step 3

Part 1 — Classroom Co-Design (3 Semesters)

In NYC public school classrooms, we partnered with teachers to align Missions to active curriculum units for grades 2 and 3 in bilingual classrooms (English and Spanish). Examples included:

  • Plant and animal relationships
  • Inheritance and traits
  • Vocabulary-rich interdisciplinary writing

Key research insights shaped product decisions:

Constructive critique is learnable.

Students initially struggled to give feedback. Teachers modeled sentence starters and feedback prompts that we embedded as scaffolds directly into the app.

Choice increases engagement.

Students shown four avatar options that are revealed in a playful manner were more excited to choose a favorite and give feedback. Showing multiple options also helped students come up with more ideas due to comparitive critiquing.

Transparency builds understanding.

Students struggled to connect their ideas to AI outputs. We designed visualizations to show how a prompt is transformed into an image while reinforcing "AI makes mistakes" and that students have agency.

Part 2 — Library Programs (Remote Implementation)

In partnership with the Connecticut State Libraries, the Remix methodology expanded into theme-based programs. Examples included:

  • Discovering a new animal hybrid
  • Creating joke postcards for April 1st
  • America 250 - Civics themed program

Program Overview

  • Fully remote implementation (facilitated by librarians)
  • Multiple rotating themes (civics, community voice, author celebrations)
  • Different timelines, participation structures and deliverables

My work involved:

Designing program frameworks and facilitation guides for librarians

Part 1

Creating visual overlays and consistency guidelines across publications

Part 2

Managing and leading development of final publications

Part 3

For more details on the project: