Hackergal: a self-paced AI literacy course

The problem

Hackergal engages girls and gender-diverse youth across Canada in technology. For their Hackergal Hub learning platform, they wanted a self-paced course that would take grade 6–9 learners beyond their introductory Python course and into AI concepts — real ones, not just warnings or hype.

The approach

I designed and built “Build a chatbot that gets you” end to end: a seven-lesson course where learners build a rule-based chatbot in Python that handles typos, detects the emotional tone of a message, and remembers things about the person it’s talking to.

The design bridges Python fundamentals and AI concepts deliberately. Learners import their first external libraries, use fuzzy matching to forgive typos, and apply sentiment analysis to respond to feelings — each technique introduced through what it lets their own bot do. The course runs on free tools with no API costs, which matters for classroom equity.

Ethics isn’t a final-lesson add-on. Learners design their bot’s personality and purpose in lesson one, decide what their bot should not say in lesson six, and finish by reflecting on the difference between their rule-based bot and the AI chatbots in their lives — what’s lost when emotional complexity becomes a polarity score.

Self-paced design for this age group is unforgiving: there’s no facilitator to rescue a confusing instruction, so every step has to stand on its own.

What came of it

The course launched on Hackergal Hub as part of their AI course offerings.