起初工坊 · For parents
Beresheet Studio is a making class for children aged 7 to 11 — 14 weeks, 90 minutes a week. A child says in one sentence what they want to make; the computer writes the program, and something moving appears on the screen straight away. Then the child keeps changing it until it is theirs.
We do not teach children to write code. What we teach is this — the thing you say out loud can become real.
In class, the thing your child talks to is a computer program (AI), not a person. This stays on the screen the whole time, and we say it out loud in the first lesson.
The rule this class was designed around: if we can avoid collecting it, we do not collect it.
| Not collected | Name · email · birthday · phone · home address · school · parent contact · photographs |
| Kept | Class code and seat number (such as A3) · what the child types · the piece the computer makes |
To sign in, a child needs only the class code the teacher gives out that day and the seat number stuck to the computer. No registration, no personal details.
If a child happens to type a phone number, an address or a school name, the system masks it automatically before it is sent — those words are replaced by a placeholder, and only the masked version is stored. We do not hold the original.
A finished piece can be shared with family: each one gets its own randomly generated link, so a child can send it to a grandparent. That page shows the piece and nothing else — no name, no seat number, no conversation. Anyone holding the link can open it, so treat it the way you would treat a photo you send in a group chat. Ask us and we will switch a link off; the teacher can also do it in class in one click.
Some pieces children build use the computer's camera — one child made a working camera in week 6. Before it turns on, the screen reminds the child to point it at things, not at anyone's face \u2014 their own included. Nothing the camera sees is saved or sent anywhere — we store the child's code, never an image. The camera also stays switched off on the pages you open from a shared link.
A seat number on its own points to nobody. But a volunteer holds a paper seating list that maps seat numbers back to children. So, strictly speaking, this is pseudonymised, not fully anonymous.
That paper list exists in one copy, never goes into a computer, is collected and locked away after each class, and is destroyed at the end of the term. We would rather say this plainly than tell you "we hold no personal information at all" — which sounds better and is not true.
| Web server | US West (Oracle Cloud) |
| Delivery network | Cloudflare (Vancouver edge) — it passes traffic through; the conversations are not stored there |
| AI service | Google Gemini API (United States) |
| How long | Deleted within six months of the course ending; sooner whenever a parent asks |
We currently use the free tier of Google Gemini API. Under that service's terms, content submitted on the free tier may be used by the provider to improve its models.
This is one of the reasons we refuse to collect names, birthdays and contact details — what leaves this room should not contain anything that points to a particular child in the first place.
The teacher can read every conversation, seat by seat. In children's ministry that is not optional, and it is one of the main reasons we built this ourselves instead of letting children use an off-the-shelf AI tool.
After class the system also scans that day's conversations and marks anything an adult should look at — a child saying they are stuck or upset, for example — for the teacher.
For any of these, write to [email protected].
This project is run by Heavenly Spring Missionary Charitable Foundation and follows the British Columbia Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). We also follow the additional requirements our AI provider sets for applications serving minors: telling children plainly that they are talking to an AI, filtering what is typed in, keeping a complete and reviewable record, and publishing an open statement such as this page.