What’s of interest? Vol. 7 No. 2 (2023): Special Issue: The Games People Play: Exploring Technology Enhanced Learning Scholarship & Generative Artificial Intelligence | Irish Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning
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In the issue that follows, we hope to provide a snapshot of a moment in time. When ChatGPT was released in November 2022 it created ripples in education that had not been seen in quite some time. Countless articles about it being the downfall of education to the solution and all things in-between flash across our screens daily. Places of education are scrambling to create policies and there has been a swift reaction to GenAI at national, European, and global level.
Despite being the Irish Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, we are delighted to present perspectives from eight different countries. In the spirit of open learning, it was important to represent a range of novice to nuanced uses of GenAI in this special issue. Authors represent a wide range of the educational spectrum (from secondary, to higher and beyond) and an even wider range of academic disciplines. In the issue that follows, we present five position papers, thirteen short reports and two book reviews.
The questions posed in the call for papers included
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What does AI really know about technology enhanced learning?
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What happens when you go “all in” with AI?
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What does engaging in this process say not only about our discipline, but, our humanity and identity as scholars?
It is clear to us, for now, that we are not going to be replaced by GenAI. However, it is also clear that it is not going away; it “knows” a few things and is not something that we can ignore. We must critically engage, either with the technology itself and with each other to determine how this tool will shape not only the educational landscape but society at large…
How individuals and institutions are responding to this changing environment varies from outright repudiation to wholesale embracement, and everything in between. On the one hand, you have researchers and practitioners who have creatively engaged with GenAI head-on, experimenting, playing and seeking to understand the impact of this new technology on education. On the other hand, you have those who seek to ban it outright, refusing to engage with it. Our field has a long history of technology fads and hype cycles and we must continue to interrogate any new educational technology tool with a critical mindset
(quotes from the editor’s introduction Reflections on a Collective Creative Experiment with GenAI: Exploring the Boundaries of What is Possible | Irish Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning)
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