“What sets Ken Kahn’s book apart from most of the other books on artificial intelligence in education is depth. This is not a sprint through current tools, or shallow coverage of important concerns, or an empty exhortation that AI is here to stay. As we would expect from Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, this book is an extremely thoughtful examination of the ways that we might use AI to complement and enhance humans’ analytical and creative work. Kahn includes numerous practical examples and scenarios that are deeply rooted in research and historical constructivist understandings of how learners and technology can partner with each other. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.”
Dr. Scott McLeod; Professor, Educational Leadership; Founding Director, CASTLE
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“The Learner’s Apprentice: AI and the Amplification of Human Creativity masterfully blends the practical and the visionary. Drawing on Seymour Papert’s groundbreaking ideas, Dr. Kahn paints an inspiring picture of how AI can transform learning into a process of co-creation. With over 100 real-world examples, this book offers teachers and administrators both the tools and the confidence to spark creativity and foster deep reflection in the classroom. It’s a must-read for anyone passionate about unleashing the full potential of learners in the age of AI.”
Keith Krueger CEO, CoSN – Consortium for School Networking
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“I love this book so much! Finally, a book about creative AI written by a true constructionist! I’m already using some of the strategies and ideas from the book in my own creative work with AI and with my students. I can’t wait to share this book with my colleagues and peers. Thank you, Dr. Kahn and CMK Press for such an inspiring and practical guide!”
Jaymes Dec, Director of Innovation, Franklin School
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“Ken Kahn’s The Learner’s Apprentice is a must-read for educators ready to embrace AI as a force for creativity and innovation. Packed with clear explanations, practical tools and inspiring examples, this book shows how AI can empower students to think critically, solve real-world problems, and express themselves like never before. It’s not just a guide, it’s a call to action for transforming classrooms into hubs of meaningful learning powered by technology!”
Michael Furdyk, Co-founder & Director of Innovation, TakingITGlobal
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“Ken Kahn is a pioneer in computing education, reaching back to the first days of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. The Learner’s Apprentice brings this perspective to the latest advances in Generative AI, where student creations result from active collaborations with AI partners.”
Hal Abelson, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, MIT
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“Ken Kahn’s depth of knowledge and clarity of expression makes The Learner’s Apprentice exceptionally valuable. I especially like the continuing emphasis on programming and creative thinking. This book is going to be a key resource.”
Cynthia Solomon, co-creator of Logo
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“There’s no point in getting upset about the challenge AI poses to the conventional curriculum-and-testing model of education. Instead, Ken Kahn’s book, The Learner’s Apprentice, shows how AI can open up new directions for project-based learning. The book comes with detailed sample projects, and a wealth of good advice for teachers and for independent learners.”
Henry Lieberman, Research Scientist, MIT Computer Science & AI Lab
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“AI is changing at an unprecedented rate and changing the world right along with it. As a newbie, I have mostly felt intimidated by the idea of using chatbots and other generative AI with my students. This book provides an excellent overview of what can be done and delivers creative constructionist project ideas I plan on using immediately with my students. What I thought I wanted to know about AI was blown out of the water by what I actually found fascinating, such as how to chat with chatbots to improve their problem-solving and how to construct constraints in prompts so my students can have productive chats when creating stories, games, and apps. I highly recommend this book to teachers who want to help their students use this ever-evolving technology as a thought partner and collaborator.”
Kristin Burrus, NBCT Innovation Program Manager Global Center for Digital Innovation, STEM School Chattanooga
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“Dr. Ken Kahn, an insightful and prolific AI developer, combines his love for learning with his expertise in technology to explore the power of Generative AI tools in education. In this book, he uses clear language and real-world examples to show how these tools can enhance, not diminish, learning. This book is sure to become a cherished resource, filled with bookmarks and notes, as readers explore its insights again and again.”
Ted Selker, former IBM Fellow
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“The Learner’s Apprentice will be a helpful tool for educators trying to make the case for exploring creative AI in the classroom. It acknowledges the pros and the cons of AI technologies while providing a lot of practical examples that can be used right away.”
Mary Beth Hertz, Author, Digital and Media Literacy in the Age of the Internet: Practical Classroom Applications
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“The Learner’s Apprentice is going to be one of the most valuable books that people get their hands on this year! It is based on so many playful, rich experiments and deep reflection.”
Prof. Margaret Minsky, Kyoto University, Visiting Professor, Academic Center for Computation and Media Studies HKUST-Guangzhou, Adjunct Professor, Computational Media and Arts
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“This is a very refreshing approach to teaching AI to kids. We need more of this. Kids need higher order thinking skills in order to use AI well, and they also need to understand its underlying principles.”
Lucy Gray, Actionable Innovations Global
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“I love and have learned a lot from this book. I particularly like its optimistic tone and the approach that a student and an AI chatbot can be co-creators. Combined with genuinely useful classroom activities, I could see it being adopted by any teacher who is open to new ideas and experimenting alongside their students.”
Martin Levins, Lecturer, School of Education, University of New England, Australia
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“The Learner’s Apprentice is a game-changer for educators and innovators alike. It’s a perfect mix of practical guidance, visionary ideas, and genuine excitement for how AI can transform education. As a leader deeply immersed in K-12 digital fabrication and generative AI, I see this book as an essential roadmap for integrating AI into creative, hands-on learning experiences.
Plus, the tone of the book feels like a conversation with a trusted mentor, which is so refreshing. Ken Kahn’s vision and practical insights empower readers to amplify human creativity while preparing learners for an AI-enhanced future.
I love and have learned a lot from this book. I particularly like its optimistic tone and the approach that a student and an AI chatbot can be co-creators. Combined with genuinely useful classroom activities, I could see it being adopted by any teacher who is open to new ideas and experimenting alongside their students.”
Michael Stone, Vice President of Innovative Learning, Public Education Foundation
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“As a Computer Science teacher, I found the selection of in-depth examples and web projects support the kind of creative, project-based, and practical tool-building that I hope to teach my students. How do you know if the tool is helping you? Care about SOMETHING outside of simply completing the task, and see if the tool helps you reach those milestones. MAKING SOMETHING with AI is so much different from “making school” with AI, and the choice of web projects makes a coherent whole.”
Andrew Carle, CS teacher
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“Ken’s book, The Learner’s Apprentice, is all about taking kids beyond just using AI—it shows them how to create and innovate with it. Filled with fun activities, it is a practical guide for parents and teachers to spark creativity and problem-solving. If we want our kids to shape the future instead of just keeping up with it, this book is an absolute must-read!”
Dhruv Vohra, Co Founder of Create Lab
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“In The Learner’s Apprentice, Ken Kahn shows us how to make AI a dynamic partner for active learning. By teaming up with chatbots, we can open new opportunities for exploring, creating, playing, and reflecting. Kahn is a trustworthy guide for navigating this territory, offering practical insights and provocations for thinking, doing, and thinking about doing.”
Suzie Boss, author and project-based learning advocate
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“This book is at the frontiers of a new, emergent, area – Generative AI. It takes courage to write a book like this. It is like someone using nuclear technology in the 1920s, when it was not clear if an atom was a particle or a wave. Or both, or none. Only one scientist tried it with radioactivity, and she became the only person to win two Nobel prizes.
Words can be connected to each other to form sentences. Sentences can have meaning. And what is “meaning”? We don’t know yet. But, instead of waiting to figure out what “meaning” is, what if we just supposed that whatever it is, it can be represented by a string of numbers?
That is how GenAI is built, by “embedding” words (technically “tokens” is the more general term) into a string of numbers and then joining the ones whose “meanings” are close to each other. Kahn describes this beautifully in the later chapters of his book.
The book itself, however, is not about how GenAI is built, but how to use them in whatever form they exist today, at the beginning of 2025.
Everyone will use GenAI, if they do not do so already. If you want to learn how to use them effectively or in ways that you may not have thought of – you need this book.”
Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology, Newcastle University (retired), Winner of the first Million Dollar TED Prize
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“The popular media has offered us a mostly dystopian view of chatbots and associated technology. This book will open your eyes to the vast potential for these tools to enrich our children’s education and prepare them for a future that’s coming whether we want it or not. It’s a must-read for educators and parents of children of any age.”
David Strip, PhD, Sandia National Laboratories (retired)
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“This book unlocks the transformative potential of generative AI in education by offering practical strategies for educators and students to use AI chatbots as creative partners. It provides a variety of projects that empower students to design, create, and collaborate with AI—ranging from interactive simulations to multi-perspective narratives. By emphasizing AI as a tool for exploration and innovation, it challenges traditional educational approaches that view it as mere automation.”
Chee-Kit Looi, Chair Professor of the Learning Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong
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“Ken Kahn brings his singular expertise and experience with computation, AI, and human learning to write a book that is both theoretical and pragmatic, dispenses with the zombie idea of computers programming children, and provides a brilliant guide to how we can better achieve the learning ideals of children programming computers.”
David Cavallo, Senior Researcher Cinnda
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