6 Leadership in the Age of AI and potential implications for education

I had the pleasure of 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.

It was a truly fascinating event! I met many inspirational leaders from different parts of the world. So much food for thought and so many calls to action. During the event, I took notes to keep the little treasures that were shared by 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. Thanks to 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 is 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 are 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!

Note: An earlier version of this article was published as

Nerantzi, C. 2024. ICDE leadership summit 2024 highlights. Knowledge Equity Network blog. 17 July 2024. https://knowledgeequitynetwork.org/casestudies/icde-leadership-summit-2024-highlights/

References

Goldsmith, K. 2011. Uncreative writing. Managing language in the digital age. New York: Columbia University Press.

Hicks, M.T., Humphries, J. and 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