Critical Imaginaries and Reflections on Artificial Intelligence and Robots in Postdigital K-12 Education

It is commonly suggested that emerging technologies will revolutionize education. In this paper, two such emerging technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and educational robots (ER), are in focus. The aim of the paper is to explore how teachers, researchers and pedagogical developers critically imagine and reflect upon how AI and robots could be used in education. The empirical data were collected from discussion groups that were part of a symposium. For both AI and ERs, the need for more knowledge about these technologies, how they could preferably be used, and how the emergence of these technologies might affect the role of the teacher and the relationship between teachers and students, were outlined. Many participants saw more potential to use AI for individualization as compared with ERs. However, there were also more concerns, such as ethical issues and economic interests, when discussing AI. While the researchers/developers to a greater extent imagined ideal future technology-rich educational practices, the practitioners were more focused on imaginaries grounded in current practice.