zero-to-gpt

Family letter template

Teachers: replace everything in [square brackets] before sending. Remove anything that doesn’t match how your school runs the course.

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[Date]

Dear [Family name / Families of the Grade 6–8 class],

During [the 1-week intensive / the 2-week course / our summer session], [dates], your child will take part in Zero to GPT, a course on how AI language tools like ChatGPT actually work. We start from zero: probability, counting, and a little coding. No prior experience is needed.

Meet “Buddy,” our classroom AI helper

Part of the course uses an AI helper we call Buddy. Some things you should know:

• Buddy runs locally, on a computer here on campus ([e.g., the school’s Mac mini]). It uses a small open language model, [model name], that runs on that computer. It is not a commercial chatbot service.
• No student data leaves campus. What students type to Buddy is processed on that school computer and is not sent to any outside company. [Describe your retention practice, e.g., “Conversation logs are not saved” / “Logs are deleted at the end of each session” / “Logs are kept for [N] days so teachers can review them.”]
• Students don’t need accounts, and they won’t share personal information.
• Many activities use a scripted Buddy: a program with pre-written answers and no AI model at all. The scripted version is what grades the activities.

Buddy makes mistakes on purpose (and students know it)

We call this Bug Hunters. Buddy is set up to sometimes give wrong answers on purpose: a wrong count, a made-up “fact,” or code with a hidden bug. Students are told this up front, before they ever use Buddy. Their job is to catch the mistakes by checking evidence and writing small tests. Sometimes Buddy is right, and then students must prove it’s right instead of assuming it’s wrong.

Why do it this way? Real AI tools make mistakes, often in a confident voice. We want students to practice the habit of checking claims before repeating them, which is a matter of honesty as much as of computing. They also learn that a computer program “guessing the next word” is not the same thing as knowing what’s true.

What your child might bring home

• A “Paper Bag Machine” game you can play at the kitchen table with a bag and slips of paper
• Questions like “If an AI sounds sure, does that mean it’s right?”
• Some Python code they wrote on [their school laptop / a school MacBook]

Questions?

You are welcome to see Buddy in action, or to ask how it’s set up. Contact [teacher name] at [contact info], or [technology contact] for technical questions.

[If your school requires it: “If you’d prefer your child not use the AI helper, please let us know by [date]. They will do the same activities with the scripted Buddy, which uses no AI model.”]

Warmly,

[Teacher name] [Title]

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