AIDE26

Higher educational institutions now constitute an assemblage of stakeholders and entities. Primary among the non-human entities are GenAI, virtual learning environments, plagiarism-checking tools, digital libraries, among others that have reshaped knowledge production in higher education. For instance, the introduction of text/image/video AI generators has inaugurated new debates on what constitutes teaching and learning, how algorithmic knowledge causes epistemic transformations and the reconstitution of teachers as epistemic curators. In other words, as technologies of the fourth Industrial Revolution, digital and AI-enabled ecosystems mediate academia, causing seismic disruption in the field of education through ‘platformisation’ (Hamilton et al., 2022). Platformisation synergistically drives the social and economic conditions of society and its institutions while also inducing precarity for some. 

Further, AI and digital tools call for renewed pedagogies that reshape learning while also raising pressing ethical questions around these technologies. The use of AI calls for, on one hand, ethical and critical engagement as unguided AI usage may pose huge risks primary among them being erosion of critical thinking. On the other, it affords exploring the potential of AI thereby encouraging students to be creative in appropriating technologies and their features. Straddling both approaches will result in improved academic performance and increased participation of learners in the learning domain. 

This prompts us to engage with AI both from social and technical perspectives. Academicians and policymakers find the socio-technical approach more relevant to tackle the challenges posed by AI tools. Such an approach views society and technology as a coherent entity, as one unit. In addition, research on everyday use of AI in educational settings captures lived experiences of users and their social imaginaries to enrich our understanding of the social dimensions of AI. In addition, focusing on the materiality of AI in social, organisational and educational settings reveals misalignment between technological advancements and cultures and practices of teaching and learning. This kindles curiosity about realigning our teaching and learning practices with what the technology affords, and equally about retooling technologies to suit new cultures of pedagogies. These considerations demand that we attend to questions concerning unequal access to digital technologies and how this might impact AI for All. 

To support and scale AI infrastructure and meet the growing demands of higher education, the India AI Mission catalyses inclusive and responsible AI to promote equity and foster smarter generations. In this direction, the AI mission relies on integrating emerging technologies across multiple sectors, including higher education. The government has introduced schemes such as the AI Workforce Acceleration Plan, Multidisciplinary Education and Research Improvement in Technical Education (MERITE) etc. aimed at upgrading technologies, classrooms, curriculum and faculty development. 

At the same time, embracing AI has concomitant challenges. This calls for engaging with AI by identifying its potential risks or biases or distorted representations and countering them by using it creatively for good and bottom-up innovation. This seminar explores the possibilities to integrate digital technologies into Indian education ecosystem as well as capture the local/native ways of engaging with technologies that could inform the sociotechnical entanglements of AI/digital infrastructures and epistemic responsibilities of academia. As Eynon and Young (2021) argue, AI is being introduced into the educational setting via three routes: 1) as a methodology to understand its uptake in teaching and learning and its impact on outcomes 2) as a source of profit for the corporate and industry and 3) as a rhetoric to promote reforms in education. Higher education must address them together to evolve a comprehensive policy and respond to the current needs.   

In this context, this two-day International Seminar organised by Educational Multimedia Research Centre,  Pondicherry University, Puducherry in collaboration with Consortium for Educational Communication, New Delhi aims to foster a healthy and responsible AI use in different sectors and in education. Simultaneously, the seminar will reflect on the ethical, pedagogical and socio-technical challenges in AI implementation. 

Papers / Abstracts that offer fresh perspectives, localized in specific contexts and capturing situated experiences and knowledge are welcome.