5 “I don’t like it, what is it?”

The phrase that my youngest used to say when he was little, when I was introducing him to a variety of food, comes to mind … “I don’t like it! What is it?” Only to hear later “Mummy, mummy, tomatoes are my favourite”. He was terrified when he saw tomatoes for the first time and refused with profound stubbornness to eat them.

Problems are opportunities

Jackson’s (1996) words on problems as opportunities have been useful framing for me. For me, his words are also a valuable reminder when thinking about generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in higher education. GenAI is literally everywhere (Southworth et al., 2023). Is it wise to even attempt blocking AI in (higher) education? Could we instead invest our collective efforts and creative energy to understand how we can use AI responsibly for learning, teaching, and assessment? Will we not all need to be(come) AI literate to fully function in society?

Students are openly asking, and educators often don’t know exactly how to respond. While some educators are experimenting openly with their students in using AI, there is suspicion, anxiety, and fear among educators about if they/we should be encouraging its use or if this is a no no zone. Students have started sharing their thoughts on events such as the student-led AI panel organised by the School of Education at the University of Leeds and UCL and the related publication (Brew et al., 2023). Early on the parody account by Bantshire University (2023, online) probably dared to say what many want to say but don’t dare?

“NEWS: Bantshire University to allow students to use ChatGPT when writing assignments, academics to use ChatGPT when marking assignments, and the Academic Misconduct Team to use ChatGPT to write warnings about the overuse of ChatGPT when writing assignments.”

Don’t block!

While curiosity and imagination can’t be stopped, nor have rebels, innovators, and experimenters been waiting for permission to explore AI in their classrooms as the plethora of activities illustrate that are shared (Abegglen et al., 2024; Nerantzi et al., 2023), many educators and students would welcome an institutional position on the use of AI, and institutions are working on this. The Russell Group Principles on the use of generative AI tools in Education (2023) are a dynamic response. No to blocking, no to ignoring, no to fearing GenAI. Yes, to be critical and creative, to rethink the what, why, how, what for, and with whom, yes, to learn to use AI to enrich and diversify learning, teaching and assessment. Assessment has been one of the sticking points in this debate so far. But isn’t there a need to rethink assessment anyway?  Richardson (2022) in her book Rebuilding Public Confidence in Educational

Assessment invites educators to do exactly that and harness the power of creativity for meaningful assessment. Could McArthur’s (2022) proposition on authentic assessment with social value aid educators explore and consider new assessment possibilities together with such examples from open education (Nerantzi & Atenas, 2022).

We can’t deny that the pandemic has helped educators become more accustomed to the term “creativity” and creative practices across disciplines and professional areas, as the need and appetite for experimentation in teaching increased. Educators seem to have recognised more widely the value and importance of creativity for diverse, flexible, inclusive, and sustainable higher education learning, teaching, and assessment and have (finally) come to realise that everybody has the capacity to be creative, that everybody is indeed creative.

Creativity in the everyday

For me, creativity is linked to the everyday. Making a change that makes something better, that solves a problem, introduces a smoother way and a more efficient way of working in a specific setting. Often, we still see creativity as something that is extraordinary and so novel that it is only possible for some. Others still think that it has to do exclusively with work that is artistic. We are all creative. What is creative or even innovative in one context and for one individual or a group of people, may be normalised practice a long time ago. So, yes, to what I heard Grayson Perry say on the 4th of May 2020 on telly, “Creativity is a way of dealing with everyday life.” Invited by Professor Norman Jackson, I explored lifelong-lifewide learning within professional development and the concept of novice and expert came up, which reminded me also of Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice. I brought into the inquiry one of my students, Alex Winder, on the MA in Digital Education in the School of Education at the University of Leeds, and our inquiry led to an article in the Creative Academic Magazine (Nerantzi & Winder, 2023). In there we propose a creative-o-meter, if you like that is very much about the human capacity we all have to be creative in our everyday lives and that we probably do it without even realising or calling it “creative”.

Open-up to diverse ideas

AI presents opportunities to illuminate further the uniqueness of human creativity, and openness to diverse ideas plays a key role in this. Eaton (2023) in her post illuminated this beautifully together with the importance of transparency, openness, and respect as essential ingredients. Her “6 Tenets of postplagiarism: Writing in the age of artificial intelligence” provides a useful framework to explore human creativity and its role in AI. Her ideas made me also think about uncreative writing and open education. Uncreative writing, a literary genre developed by Goldsmith (2011) came into my vocabulary and life not so long ago when I was a student in an MA Creative Writing programme. His thoughts sounded radical and provoked new thinking and new connections for me within and beyond creative writing. Kenneth talks about using the web as a source and re-using and re-combining text to create something completely new. Does this sound familiar? But also, it is useful to remember that the vast majority of creative ideas build on existing ideas. The link between uncreative writing and open educational resources surfaced in my inquiry. The key difference is that acknowledging the source(s) explicitly and being open and transparent about where the idea came from is at the heart of open educational resources and open education more generally (UNESCO, 2019; UNESCO, 2024). The marriage of uncreative writing, open education and creativity led to what I call uncreative teaching (Nerantzi, 2023).

What makes us uncomfortable about AI? The ethical, legal, and privacy implications? The harvesting of data sets the machine is using to generate responses without permission and consent (McGowan, 2023)? I heard Clark (2023) challenging this at the first Online Learning Summit organised by Dr Margaret Korosec and colleagues at the University of Leeds this year.

Universities as greenhouses

If universities are social greenhouses of and for experimentation and diverse emerging ideas, what role can institutions and educators in collaboration and in partnership with students, industry, and society play to build an evidence-base for the responsible use of AI in higher education and society that contributes towards breaking down inequalities, eradicating misinformation and solving some of the biggest challenges of our times?

Note: An earlier version of this article was published as

Nerantzi, C. 2023. I don’t like it, what is it? Media and Learning Association. Newsletter, 7 Nov 2023. https://media-and-learning.eu/subject/artificial-intelligence/i-dont-like-it-what-is-it/

References

Abegglen, S., Nerantzi, C., Martínez-Arboleda, Karatsiori, M., Atenas, J. and Rowell, C. (Eds.) 2024. Towards AI literacy: 101+ creative and critical practices, perspectives and purposes.  #creativeHE. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11613520%C2%A0

Bantshire University 2023. NEWS: Bantshire University to allow students to use ChatGTP when writing assignments, academics to use ChatGTP when marking assignments, and the Academic Misconduct Team to use ChatGTP to write warnings about the overuse of ChatGTP when writing assignments. 3 March 2023. Twitter/X. https://x.com/BantshireUni/status/1631582166185287680

Brew, M., Taylor, S., Lam, R., Havemann, L. and Nerantzi, C. 2023. Towards developing AI literacy: Three student provocations on AI in higher education. Special issue: Generative AI and implications for open online and distance education. Asian Journal of Distance Education. http://www.asianjde.com/ojs/index.php/AsianJDE/article/view/726

Clark, D. 2023. Is Ethics doing more HARM than GOOD in AI for learning? Donald Clark Plan B. 11 July 2023. Donald Clark Plan B: Is Ethics doing more HARM than GOOD in AI for learning?

Eaton, S. 2023. Six Tenets of Postplagiarism: Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Learning Teaching and Leadership. 25 February 2023. 6 Tenets of Postplagiarism: Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence | Learning, Teaching and Leadership (drsaraheaton.com)

Goldsmith, K. 2011. It’s not plagiarism. In the digital age, it’s ‘repurposing’. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 58(4). 11 Sep 2011. https://www.chronicle.com/article/its-not-plagiarism-in-the-digital-age-its-repurposing/

Jackson, N. 1996. Imagining a different world. in: Jackson, N., Oliver, M., Shaw, M. and Wisdom, J. (Eds.) Developing Creativity in Higher Education. 1-9. http://www.normanjackson.co.uk/uploads/1/0/8/4/10842717/creativity_and_pdp.pdf

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McArthur, J. 2023. Rethinking authentic assessment: work, well-being, and society. Higher Education. 85. 85-101. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00822-y

McGowan, E. 2023. Is ChatGPT’s use of people’s data even legal? Avast. 1 February 2023. ChatGPT and Data | Avast

Nerantzi, C. 2022. Towards defining uncreative teaching as an act of normalised open educational practice and the ethical sharing of pedagogical ideas. A provocation. In: 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

Nerantzi, C. and Atenas, J. 2022. Healthy Assessment as learning diet: Using digital portfolios and professional discussion. Teaching Insights. https://teachinginsights.ocsld.org/a-healthy-assessment-as-learning-diet-bite-size-authentic-and-with-an-extended-life-span-using-digital-portfolios-and-professional-discussion/

Nerantzi, C., Abegglen, S., Karatsiori, M. and Martínez-Arboleda, A. (Eds.) 101 creative ideas to use AI in Education. #creativeHE. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8072949

Nerantzi, C. and Winder, A. 2023. Lifelong-lifewide professional learning in higher education and beyond: The importance of experiencing the state of novice in a domain as a novel ideas generator in one’s own profession In: Creativity @ work: From Novice to expert. Personal narratives. Creative Academic Magazine. 22, 9-16, https://www.creativeacademic.uk/uploads/1/3/5/4/13542890/cam_22.pdf

Richardson, M. 2022. Rebuilding public confidence in educational assessment. London: UCL Press. https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/129448

Russel Group 2023. Russel Group principles on the use of generative AI in education. rg_ai_principles-final.pdf (russellgroup.ac.uk)

Southworth, J. Migliaccio, K. Glover, J., Glover, J., Reed, D., McCarty, C., Brendemuhl, J. and Thomas, A. 2023. Developing a model for AI Across the curriculum: Transforming the higher education landscape via innovation in AI literacy. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence. 4.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2023.100127

UNESCO 2024. Draft Dubai Declaration on OER: Digital Public Goods and Emerging Technologies for Equitable and Inclusive Access to Knowledge. UNESCO OER Dynamic Coalition Portal. https://oerdynamiccoalition.org/resources/draft-dubai-declaration-oer-digital-public-goods-and-emerging-technologies-equitable-and#draft-dubai-declaration-on-oer-digital-public-goods-and-emerging-technologies-for-equitable-and-inclusive-access-to-knowledge

UNESCO 2019. Draft recommendation on Open Educational Resources. Paris: UNESCO, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000370936