"Learning, Media and Technology"

Costa, Cristina; Murphy, Mark

doi: 10.1080/17439884.2025.2518258pmid: N/A

Debates linking generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) to knowledge work have become increasingly popular, with discussions of technological innovation and information production efficiency central to the justification of its integration in education contexts. Questions are however raised about the intellectual capacities that these technologies appear to replace or provide, with a special emphasis placed on the activity of thinking, an element so essential to a contemplative life. Inspired by Arendt’s preoccupation with society’s state of ‘thoughtlessness’ and Freire’s critical pedagogy, this article explores how the role of thinking is impacted by the introduction of Gen-AI in education. Via these theoretical engagements, we argue that the presence of Gen-AI in education can have serious consequences for the intellectual development of individuals and that working towards a culture of learning that responsibilises thinking, also as a form of intellectual honesty, is key to preserving individuals’ thinking agency.

Reynoldson, Miriam

doi: 10.1080/17439884.2025.2516509pmid: N/A

The vignette in this paper is a synthesis of student futures themes drawn from 36 Australian university promotional campaigns. Rather than approaching these marketing narratives with scepticism and critique, instead I play a writer’s ‘believing game’, accepting the hopeful claims of the campaigns in order to use them as points of departure to imagine a future infused with these same hopes. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of futures narratives in university marketing, as well as on the generative potential of speculative biography as method in education futures inquiry.

Wieczorek, Michał

doi: 10.1080/17439884.2025.2517335pmid: N/A

The ethics of educational artificial intelligence (AIED) has become a prominent topic of debate in recent years. However, many prospective AIED tools are still under development and may change before they are widely deployed in schools. Researchers analyzing the prospective ethical impacts of AIED cannot rely on actual use cases and empirical evidence concerning the experiences of teachers and students affected by AI. To address such limitations, this paper uses futures studies methods to develop four anticipatory scenarios that can enable ethical deliberation on the future of AIED. By employing a 2 × 2 grid, I forecast scenarios in which AIED is used to deliver content, used to manage students, used for both these purposes, or not used at all. I argue that futures studies methods can enrich the approaches used to investigate the possible futures of education. Just like educational fiction, scenario planning helps construct rich narratives, but produces distinct and original results while being more explicit about the factors and assumptions that influence them. Moreover, while previous anticipatory ethical work highlighted only individual issues or principles, my scenarios are ethically ambiguous and multifaceted – they present value conflicts and moral dilemmas that may be at play in the forecasted futures.