Consent Ledger
A one-day log of every place a machine decided something about you — attendance scanners, recommendation feeds, leaderboards — turned into a class discussion about what noticing is worth.
Students can identify everyday moments where an automated system made a decision about them, and can distinguish noticing a system from being able to change it.
What you need
- A printed log sheet, one per student (in the kit PDF)
- A pencil
Why this works
The opening line of the Academy’s mission is that AI is already sorting classrooms, workplaces, and public life, and that it rarely explains itself. A ledger like this turns that claim into something a student can check for themselves in a single day, in their own life, without needing to trust anyone else’s account of it.
How it works
- Hand out the log sheet at the start of a day, at school or at home.
- Every time a machine sorts, recommends, flags, or scores the student, they write one line: what happened, and whether they noticed it happening in the moment or only later.
- The next day, in small groups, tally how many entries were noticed in the moment versus only noticed while filling out the sheet.
- As a class, share the three most surprising entries.
- Discuss what noticing is worth, even in the cases where a student couldn’t have changed what happened.
Talk about it
- Which entry on your list surprised you the most, and why hadn’t you noticed it before?
- Is there a difference between a system deciding something about you and a system deciding something for you?
- What would you want to know about a system before it shows up on your ledger again tomorrow?
More Classroom Kits to explore
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Free to copy and reuse for classroom, tutoring, and family use.