History of Computers Lesson 19: Large Language Models (the Transformer, next-word prediction, chat assistants) - printable lesson, ages 11-14

A ready-to-teach lesson that follows our free video, step by step.

Watch a part. Pause. Talk. Try it. Then press play again.

The story: a 1966 program that replied with canned phrases, the 2017 paper that proposed the Transformer, models that predict the most likely next piece of text, a chat assistant that over a million people signed up for in five days, and the companies that followed, in date order.

What you get (13-page printable PDF):

- A one-page guide for the grown-up, with the exact times to pause the video

- Key words, and a "think first" question

- Four pupil pages, one for each part of the video: what we just heard, two questions to talk about, and something to try

- Two worksheets: a paper next-word model built from a tally table (our own model), cutting words into pieces, why a fluent sentence can still be untrue, a matching task, and a cut-out timeline. Nothing in the lesson needs a computer, an app or an AI tool.

- The story in four pictures, and an 8-question quiz

- All the answers, teaching notes, and the sources for every fact

For ages 11 to 14 (works from 9 with help). About 45 minutes. You need a pencil, a rubber, scissors, plain paper and 12 counters.

Every drawing and every word is our own. The free video is at kitson-workshop.pages.dev/#history

Want to try one first? Lesson 1 (the abacus) is free: payhip.com/b/nmZIE

Pay once, use it for ever: one purchase covers one teacher or one family. Use it as often as you like with your own classes, and print as many copies as your own pupils need. Please do not resell it or pass the file on.

For educational purposes only. Not affiliated with any company named in the lesson. The video's guest voice is itself an AI model made by one of the companies named: the facts come from the sources listed.