AI is here to stay: Its impact on online, flexible, and distance learning

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come to the forefront of the conversation with the release of ChatGPT at the end of November 2022. Since then, we’ve seen more and more AI tools being talked about, including those that create images, help write text, and make our lives easier.

What does this all mean for education be it primary, secondary, or tertiary? What about learning in the workplace? Our panellists come from different areas of the education sector and will provide insight into the impact of AI on online, flexible, and distance learning, looking at it from the perspective of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and decolonisation.

Come along to this session to learn from our panellists and engage in a conversation with them.

This session is offered by EdTechNZ and FLANZ as part of TechWeek23.

Our panellists

Evo Leota-Tupou

Evo serves on the EdTechNZ Executive Council and is Director of Pacific Kids Learning (PKL). She is mum to five who are the reason why PKL started. Evo is a social entrepreneur, content producer, and founder of Pacific Kids' Learning (PKL), an EdTech and Edutainment organisation dedicated to empowering children through digital stories and merging cultural practises, song and dance with technology.

Dr Rebecca Marrone

Rebecca is a Lecturer: Learning Sciences and Development for the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning (C3L) at the University of South Australia Education Futures. Her research is primarily in the fields of creativity, educational psychology and human and artificial cognition across varying educational contexts. Rebecca serves on the organising committee for the Empowering learners for the Age of AI conference and the 1st International Conference on Change and Complexity in Learning.

Dr Mark McConnell

Mark is a Professional Teaching Fellow in the Department of Commercial Law at the University of Auckland Business School, where he also serves as the Department’s Director of Teaching
and Learning. Mark has been involved in research projects relating to learning analytics to inform learning design, and vicarious learning through the use of videoed tutorials. Recently Mark has been leading his Department’s response to student use of AI tools such as ChatGPT.

Shanon O'Connor (Ngāti Porou me Ngāi Tahu)

With a background in both technology and education, Shanon is the founder and Director of Tōnui Collab, a charitable trust committed to creating equitable STEMM learning opportunities for rangatahi in Te Tairāwhiti so that their potential to be science and technology future problem solvers and innovators can be realised. Shanon has a Masters in Contemporary Education. Her Masters investigated the engagement of kōhine Māori in kaupapa Māori aligned tech education.

Dr Truman Pham

Truman is the Postgraduate Director at academyEX (previously The Mind Lab). He also teaches and supervises the blended/hybrid Master of Contemporary Education. His current research areas are applications of Artificial Intelligence in education and teachers’ self-identification of leadership. His PhD research was about industrial intelligence control which has now been applied in electric
vehicles, wind turbines, and robotics. Truman was chair of EdTechNZ and is currently a member of its Executive Council.



Feature image by Robert Anderson on Unsplash of a water drop dropping into water and having ripple effects