Proud members of:



This handbook is intended for Scottish teachers to use in Broad General Education in upper primary and secondary school settings. The aim is to support teachers in teaching their learners about GenAI and how to use GenAI tools responsibly and effectively to help them learn.
It focuses mainly on Generative AI; future editions could consider other AI tools, such as intelligent tutoring systems. Specific senior phase qualifications specialising in AI are outside the scope of this document. It’s not intended to explain how teachers could use GenAI tools to reduce their workload.
Judy Robertson developed the curriculum between May 2024 and May 2025, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Edinburgh, particularly the Data Education in Schools team, and with support from representatives from the Scottish Government, Education Scotland, SQA, The Scottish AI Alliance, and The Children’s Parliament. Funding from BRAID/AHRC and RAIUK also supported the work.
AI4K12. 2020. Big Idea 3: Learning. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from https://ai4k12.org/big-idea-3-overview/
Alex Atcheson, Omar Khan, Brian Siemann, Anika Jain, Karrie Karahalios, and Karrie Kara. 2025. “I’d Never Actually Realized How Big An Impact It Had Until Now”: Perspectives of University Students with Disabilities on Generative Artificial Intelligence ACM Reference Format. CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’25), April 26-May 01, 2025, Yokohama, Japan 1. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714121
Avid. 2025. AI and the 4 Cs: Critical Thinking. Retrieved May 11, 2025 from https://avidopenaccess.org/resource/ai-and-the-4-cs-critical-thinking/
R Blackman. 2022. Ethical Machines: Your concise guide to totally unbiased, transparent and respectful AI. Harvard Business Review Press.
C Botta, J Robertson, and Digital Skills Education. 2025. Unbelievably Creative: Children and Young People’s Views on AI and Creativity. Retrieved May 11, 2025 from https://osf.io/87rc9/
C Botta, J Robertson, C McMellon, and J Lawson. 2025. Young People’s Use of AI to Support Learning. Retrieved May 21, 2025 from https://osf.io/preprints/edarxiv/uax8c_v1
Scotland Children and Young People’s Commissioner. 2025. “This is our lives, it matters a lot.” Putting children’s rights at the heart of education. Edinburgh. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from: https://www.cypcs.org.uk/resources/this-is-our-lives-it-matters-a-lot-putting-childrens-rightsat-the-heart-of-education/#h-download-pdf
Thomas K.F. Chiu, Zubair Ahmad, Murod Ismailov, and Ismaila Temitayo Sanusi. 2024. What are artificial intelligence literacy and competency? A comprehensive framework to support them. Computers and Education Open 6: 100171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2024.100171
E Davies and G Marcus. 2025. AlphaGeometry2: Impressive accomplishment, but still a long path ahead. Marcus on AI. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/alphageometry2-impressive-accomplishment
E Davis and G Marcus. 2025. Reports of LLMs mastering math have been greatly exaggerated. Marcus on AI. Retrieved April 10, 2025 from https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/reports-of-llms-mastering-math-have
European Commission. 2025. AI Act. European Approach to Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai
Johanna Fleckenstein, Jennifer Meyer, Thorben Jansen, Stefan D. Keller, Olaf Köller, and Jens Möller. 2024. Do teachers spot AI? Evaluating the detectability of AI-generated texts among student essays. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence: 100209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2024.100209
C. Hankeln. 2024. Challenges in Using ChatGPT for Assessing Conceptual Understanding in Mathematics Education. Journal Of Mathematics Education 17, 1. https://doi.org/10.26711/007577152790171
L. Haywood. 2023. It’s Our Future: Report of the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment. Edinburgh.
M Heikkilä. 2023. Making an image with generative AI uses as much energy as charging your phone. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved May 11, 2025 from: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/01/1084189/making-an-image-with-generative-ai-uses-as-much-energy-as-charging-your-phone/
Lorraine Jacques. 2023. AS I SEE IT. ACM Inroads 14, 40–46.
K Knibbs. 2024. Every AI Copyright Lawsuit in the US, Visualized. Wired. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from https://www.wired.com/story/ai-copyright-case-racker/#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%20two%20years,each%20of%20these%20lawsuits%20unfold.
Ehsan Latif, Yifan Zhou, Shuchen Guo, Yizhu Gao, Lehong Shi, Matthew Nayaaba, Gyeonggeon Lee, Liang Zhang, Arne Bewersdorff, Luyang Fang, Xiantong Yang, Huaqin Zhao, Hanqi Jiang, Haoran Lu, Jiaxi Li, Jichao Yu, Weihang You, Zhengliang Liu, Vincent Shung Liu, Hui Wang, Zihao Wu, Jin Lu, Fei Dou, Ping Ma, Ninghao Liu, Tianming Liu, and Xiaoming Zhai. 2024. A Systematic Assessment of OpenAI o1-Preview for Higher Order Thinking in Education. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/2410.21287
Locky Law. 2024. Application of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in language teaching and learning: A scoping literature review. Computers and Education Open 6: 100174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2024.100174
G Marcus. 2024. Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works For Us. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusets.
G Marcus. 2025. Elon Musk’s terrifying vision for AI. Marcus on AI. Retrieved April 10, 2025 from https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/elon-musks-terrifying-vision-for
G Marcus and E Davis. 2019. Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust. Vintage, New York.
Mark Graham. 2024. The Hidden Human Cost of AI: In conversation with Professor Mark Graham. Oxford Internet Institute. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/the-hidden-human-cost-of-ai-in-conversation-with-professor-mark-graham/
T McClelland. Will AI Ever Be Conscious? Stories at Clare College, Cambridge. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from https://stories.clare.cam.ac.uk/will-ai-ever-be-conscious/index.html
M Mitchell. 2025. Artificial intelligence learns to reason. Science: Expert Voices. Retrieved May 11, 2025 from https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw5211
Ethan Mollick. 2024. Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI. WH Allen, London.
Junaid Mubeen. 2024. Mathematical Intelligence: What We Have That Machines Don’t.
K. Muir. 2022. Putting Learners at the Centre: Towards a Future Vision for Scottish Education. Report provided to Scottish Ministers by Professor Ken Muir on the replacement of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, reform of Education Scotland and removal of its inspection function. Retrieved April 10, 2025 from https://www.gov.scot/publications/putting-learners-centre-towards-future-vision-scottish-education/
Mike Perkins, Jasper Roe, Binh H. Vu, Darius Postma, Don Hickerson, James McGaughran, and Huy Q. Khuat. 2024. Simple techniques to bypass GenAI text detectors: implications for inclusive education. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 21, 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-024-00487-w
Oriane Pierrès, Alireza Darvishy, and Markus Christen. 2024. Exploring the role of generative AI in higher education: Semi-structured interviews with students with disabilities. Education and Information Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13134-8
J Robertson. 2025. ‘Use it as a backup rather than your main pillar of learning’: how self-directed learners use Generative AI in Project Based Learning. EdArxiv. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from https://osf.io/preprints/edarxiv/4c5qd_v1
Samuel Sigal. 2025. Is AI really thinking and reasoning — or just pretending to? Vox. Retrieved May 11, 2025 from https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/400531/ai-reasoning-models-openai-deepseek
Lihui Sun and Liang Zhou. 2024. Does Generative Artificial Intelligence Improve the Academic Achievement of College Students? A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Educational Computing Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331241277937
Tzu Yu Tai and Howard Hao Jan Chen. 2024. Navigating elementary EFL speaking skills with generative AI chatbots: Exploring individual and paired interactions. Computers and Education 220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2024.105112
The Associated Press. 2025. JD Vance rails against “excessive regulation” of AI at Paris summit in rebuke to European efforts. CTV News. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/jd-vance-rails-against-excessive-regulation-of-ai-at-paris-summit-in-rebuke-to-european-efforts/
The Learning Network. 2025. What’s Going on in This Graph? New York Times. Retrieved April 11, 2025 from https://www.nytimes.com/column/whats-going-on-in-this-graph
The Scottish Government. 2025. Children’s Rights. Human Rights Policy. Retrieved April 10, 2025 from https://www.gov.scot/policies/human-rights/childrens-rights/
Joshua Thorpe. 2024. AI for Students: Creative hacks for academic success. Promptly Books.
UNESCO. 2023. Guidance for generative AI in education and research. Retrieved from https://www.unesco.org/en/open-access/cc-sa
United Nations. 2021. General comment No. 25 (2021) on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment. United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commisioner. Retrieved May 11, 2025 from https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/general-comments-and-recommendations/general-comment-no-25-2021-childrens-rights-relation
United Nations Environment Programme. 2024. Artificial Intelligence (AI) end-to-end: The Environmental Impact of the Full AI Lifecycle Needs to be Comprehensively Assessed - Issue Note. Retrieved May 11, 2025 from https://wedocs.unep.org/20.500.11822/46288.
K. Wiggers. 2024. Study suggests that even the best AI models hallucinate a bunch. Tech Crunch. Retrieved April 10, 2025 from https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/14/study-suggests-that-even-the-best-ai-models-hallucinate-a-bunch/
Wenting Zhao, Tanya Goyal, Yu Ying Chiu, Liwei Jiang, Benjamin Newman, Abhilasha Ravichander, Khyathi Chandu, Ronan Le Bras, Claire Cardie, Yuntian Deng, and Yejin Choi. 2024. WildHallucinations: Evaluating Long-form Factuality in LLMs with Real-World Entity Queries.
Yinkun Zhu, Qiwen Liu, and Li Zhao. 2025. Exploring the impact of generative artificial intelligence on students’ learning outcomes: a meta-analysis. Education and Information Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-025-13420-z
Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics Teaching A Position of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics NCTM Position. Retrieved from https://beta.iste.org/artificial-intelligence-in-education

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Proud members of:




About | Contact Us | Take Down Policy | Privacy | Cookies | Accessibility Statement | Accessibility Statement (backend) | Freedom of Information | Terms and Conditions
Edinburgh Diamond Service Homepage | Resources | Submit a Book Proposal
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336, VAT Registration Number GB 592 9507 00, and is acknowledged by the UK authorities as a “Recognised body” which has been granted degree awarding powers.
