As a very provisional conclusion…

While reviewing this textbook in January 2024, the complexity of the challenge that it represents struck us with force. Artificial intelligence is today not just a highly important issue; it is also, more than anything, an issue. Where does it lead us? How many times will it make us realise that something we claimed as impossible yesterday has become a reality today? How is it even possible to write a textbook on such a topic without making mistakes?

In the context of education, we do not often have to face such fast-changing topics. It takes months to design a syllabus and years to train the teachers. And some say it takes a generation to comprehensively treat a new topic.

Yet here, the goal of the AI4T project and thus, of its learning resources, has been to train teachers in AI while it unfolds! Therefore, when reading this textbook, you may well find small errors. You may also find statements that are no longer true: technological progress can have proposed a new opportunity; risks that were deal breakers in 2022 or 2023 may well have become acceptable in 2024; concerned laws and regulations may have changed. Does this disqualify this effort?

We hope not. Not if we take the opportunities offered to us by technology and the open nature of this textbook to allow it to evolve with the changes. Perhaps the old-fashioned process of releasing the first edition, then the second edition etc is no longer the best way to edit a book? Definitely, there exist solutions to allow such an object to be shared as a common good, not just in its usage but also in its evolution? This would represent, probably, the next challenge.

This textbook is now in the hands of teachers, its readers. For this to have happened, a large number of people were involved. They helped us understand the needs of the teachers and those of the ministries. Some were involved in preparing the material, in proofreading and in setting up the online platform. Others helped with the translation. We also worked with external teams: Dagobafilms were great in helping us to prepare the videos. And, most importantly, there were all those who encouraged us. Writing a book is always a long and complex task, and you need the help of family, friends and colleagues to be able to recover from the associated frustrations, to stick to what we believe are the right editorial choices and to make sure that the destination that we had set is still where we want to go.

When thanking people who helped us over the past three years, we are bound to forget some. We hope they will forgive the vagueness of our memory. Having said that, here are the names of those whom we thank for contributing in some way to this work:

Jotsna would like to thank Thomas and Laya for their understanding, support and (almost-) constant love.

Colin is indebted to Isabelle’s patience over the past months.