LLInC Workshop As Top Highlight of SURF’s Onderwijsdagen

Generative AI in Education

In the session titled Generative AI in Education, Marco Correa Pérez, Agnesa Gashi, and Erwin Veenstra presented insights from the intersections of intellectual property, legality, didactical considerations, and technological know-how. Having posed questions including ‘what is the state of the art?’, ‘how do you protect students?’, and ‘how can you safely use AI in education?’, they engaged the audience in discussion regarding AI’s transformation over this past year. As Agnesa explained, broadly speaking, attitudes appear to have shifted from “I do not want this in my classroom” to “how can I use this?’.

Future Foresight

The other LLInC-organised session on Future Foresight, offered by Yentl Croese and Tanja de Bie was not only much talked about, but also (and impressively!) listed as #1 in the top five highlights of the conference. What was it that got everyone so excited? 

Future Foresight is a qualitative methodology which uses the imagination as a means of conceptualising and discussing what, for example, the technological future of higher education might look like in ten years’ time. Having considered a variety of alternative future scenarios from the plausible to the far out, it encourages us to ask ourselves questions such as ‘what makes us happy about it?’, ‘what frustrates or frightens us?’, and ‘how can we get there or avoid it altogether?’. In this workshop at the Onderwijsdagen, participants constructed an object to represent their scenarios and this proved to be a great conversation starter. 

“I think part of the success was that we allowed people to make something tangible to shape the conversation,” Tanja offered, grinning. “And who doesn’t like to play with lego?” There were certainly plenty of pictures taken showing off what was made! 

A conference like the SURF Onderwijsdagen not only offers us at LLInC the opportunity to show off our work, but is also a great place to exchange views with other Dutch experts in the field and get inspiration for new ideas. For a recap of the event, whether you were there or not, feel welcome to take a look at the video from SURF below.