Not so long ago, I had the pleasure attending the ICDE Leadership Summit 2024 “Ethical Leadership in the Age of AI: Rethinking Futures of Education“ in Geneva with my colleague Professor Antonio Martínez-Arboleda, thanks to my colleague Dr Margaret Korosec, Dean of Online and Digital Education at the University of Leeds in the UK, where I met many inspirational leaders from different parts of the world.
It was a truly fascinating event! So much food-for-thought and calls to action. During the event, I took notes to keep the little treasures that were shared by so so many leaders and find a way to share them back. After returning, I thought perhaps uncreative writing (Goldsmith, 2011) could help me with this. So what did I do? I recycled and remixed words and phrases, thoughts and ideas (not randomly, I should state) that were generously shared by many contributors at the summit which I had captured in my notes. I used these to conceptually create a new piece of writing based on the amalgamation of ideas communicated by many inspirational speakers at the summit that stood out for me, to organise my own thinking, keep some of my memories alive and share with you today with the hope that this output will make you reflect. Check out Goldsmith’s work on uncreative writing. I suspect you may connect it in some way to a manual version of generative AI. But is it? Read Hicks et al. (2024) and find out for yourself. Thank you Dr Rob Farrow for bringing this publication to my attention. Perhaps instead, you are interested in how I attempted to connect uncreative writing to uncreative teaching and open education before the big AI boom happened (Nerantzi, 2022).
The below belongs to all contributors of this summit. I see myself as the seamstress stitching their words and ideas together into a new collective tapestry arranged as a triptych in which I organise and synthesise my conceptual understanding and interpretation of the collective wisdom using what Goldsmith calls “uncreative writing”.
AI a top priority together with peace and sustainability, a triptych using uncreative writing
Educational challenges
The digital divide is much bigger now
Fear
Falling behind
Not preparing graduates for the future
AI THE monster!
A BIG elephant?
Damaging
We can become overly reliant on AI
Looking for shortcuts
Shortcuts breed atrophy
Laziness, dependency
Plagiarism, cheating,
Punishing
Risks
Enormous risks…
English… linguistic and cultural monopolisation
Biases
Sources of data – unknown
Reflecting voices of power – dominance
Panic
Educators defensive
Students worry,
Feeling stressed, fearful
Can we trust what we read?
Can we trust what students give us?
We are nothing without trust!
Gen AI based on data
algorithms
Mathematical functions,
Should these really determine education?
Bored to hear about all the challenges
Don’t let the conservative people take over the agenda. Don’t!
Educational opportunities
AI is here to stay
Education for all,
Include AI
Highlight the positives
Address the negatives
Help students and educators who need help
We can’t control AI.
Let’s reflect on how we use technology,
the impact it has on people, society
Guidelines instead of rules
Less regulation for more creativity and innovation.
Nobody is an expert in AI in education. Nobody!
We can do so much with AI.
AI can help us reach students we couldn’t reach before
Articulate good questions
Openness fosters collective agency
Diverse responses
Listen
AI as a collaborative critical thinking tool
Lifelong learning is vital
For all
AI can support personalised learning
Experimentation and application are important
Don’t be afraid!
Give it a go!
We are adventurous!
Resistance will always be there
Embrace what is good about AI
AI will change how we see our world,
our curiosities and creativities
Everybody should have a say
For innovation we really need diverse voices around the table
To build bridges
We need inspiration, to imagine,
to imagine the world, we want
Solidarity, equity, inclusion
Respect
Accountability is important
Better ethics
Upskilling and reskilling
Staff development
Learning and development for all
Scholarship
Research
Application
Empowering all ages to be responsible citizens!
Bring back the soul into higher education
To transform higher education
We need
Values driven organisations
Values driven leaders
Ethical leaders
Values driven educators and students
Integrity, passion and compassion
Leaders assemble great people, inspire, motivate
We need to bring all people together
AI is reshaping perspectives
Inclusive platforms is the way forward
to come together to find solutions for our world
Centring education around humans
Higher education an open community
for the common good
Becoming and being
Nurturing the human being
Ethics at the heart of education
Higher Education has a responsibility towards humanity, our planet
To prepare students to be critical and creative
Not to leave anybody behind
Learning to live together in the digital world
AI for good!
References
Goldsmith, K. (2011) Uncreative writing. Managing language in the digital age. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hicks, M.T., Humphries, J. & Slater, J. (2024) ChatGPT is bullshit. Ethics and Information Technology, 26(38). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
Nerantzi, C. (2022) Towards defining uncreative teaching as an act of normalised open educational practice and the ethical sharing of pedagogical ideas. A provocation. International Journal of Open Schooling (IJOS), January 2022, 1(1), 53-68.
https://www.nios.ac.in/media/documents/IJOS/articles/IJOS_Ch-13.pdf
Biography
Chrissi Nerantzi (NTF, CATE, PFHEA) is a Professor in Creative and Open Education in the School of Education, a Senior Lead of the Knowledge Equity Network and the Academic Lead for Discover and Explore at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. Chrissi is a GO-GN alumna, the founder of the international #creativeHE community and has initiated a range of further open professional development courses, networks and communities that have been sustained over the years.