2023 National Conference on Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education

Sue Attewell

Co-lead the National centre for AI/JISC

Sue Attewell is the co-leader of the National Centre for AI in tertiary education where she is actively involved in driving the advancement of AI capabilities within our member institutions. The centre plays a critical role in this regard by providing thought leadership, piloting AI products, and conducting sector-focused research with a key focus on ensuring that AI adoption in the education sector is guided by ethical considerations, and responsible and inclusive practices creating an environment where AI technologies are utilized in a manner that benefits all learners.

Talk title: Exploring student perceptions, wants and needs for their education in an AI and Generative AI future.

This talk will explore how students are currently using AI and Generative AI and what they feel about its role in assessment.  It will investigate and discuss students concerns about this challenging topic and see where and how they are looking to their institutions to support them in their learning journey.

Sue Attwell on LinkedIn

Dr Cris Bloomfield

Microsoft

Dr Cris Bloomfield is a Senior Industry Architect within Microsoft who works with Higher Education institutions across Europe, Middle East and Africa. A former Director at a research-intensive university, he has 25 years of experience working in Education and having led large scale infrastructure modernization and new build projects across a wide range of technologies. Cris consults in Education Strategy, Student Lifecycle and lifelong learning, Cloud powered research, Data and AI and is an Intelligent Campus evangelist.

Talk title: AI for Education – Opportunities to enhance experiences

Work is changing in the era of AI. Education, at all levels has great opportunity to harness the potential and bring advantages to how: those studying learn; teaching is delivered; research undertaken; and operations managed. Leaders we surveyed said it’s essential that employees learn when to leverage AI, how to write great prompts, evaluate creative work, and check for bias.

Further, skills like critical thinking and analytical judgment, complex problem solving, emotional intelligence, and creativity and originality are new core competencies. The potential applications of AI in education are tremendous. This makes it even more important to ensure that users, from education leaders to individual learners, have the resources to be able to effectively use new AI tools. In this session how AI is being harnessed will be explored with a focus on educational context and application.

Cris Bloomfield on LinkedIn

Michael Callaghan

Reader, Ulster University

Michael Callaghan is a Reader in Games and Multimedia at Ulster University. He is a world-leading and award winning academic in the emerging field of serious games and remote/virtual laboratories. He has published widely in the fields of serious games for engineering education, Virtual and Augmented Reality and remote and virtual laboratories with over 70+ peer-reviewed publications in these areas.

He has been principal investigator/co-investigator on funded projects from the AHRC, DETI, INVESTNI, INTERREG, JISC and the Higher Education Academy and carries out regular consultancy and academic enterprise activities in serious games and virtual worlds.  He won the best paper award in 2008 and 2014 at the REV series of international conferences for his work in engineering education and was part of a team that won best short paper at @immersiveLRN, the 6th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network in 2020.

In 2016, he led a team of staff and students who were the overall winners of the 4th International Educational Games Competition held at the 10th European Conference on Games Based Learning in Paisley, Scotland. In 2021 he was part of a team that won best paper award at the IEEE TALE 2021 conference for the paper Serious Game for Medical Imaging in Fully Immersive Virtual Reality.

Talk title: Generative AI 101 – Introduction to the Fundamentals

This talk will explore the fundamentals of Generative AI, a subset of artificial intelligence which can create new data from existing sources.  It will explore the use generative AI and Large language models in an educational context, covering a range of topics including tokens, parameters and prompt engineering and includes case studies and practical use in learning and teaching for students and academics.

Michael Callaghan on LinkedIn

Manjinder Kainth

PhD, CEO & Co-founder of Graide

Manjinder Kainth is a co-founder and CEO of Graide, an AI enhanced assessment and feedback platform. Manjinder has been intricately involved in education for most of his life, having been a private tutor, university teaching assistant, and substitute teacher.

Talk title: Using artificial intelligence to reduce marking workload and improve feedback

In a conversation dominated by ChatGPT, large language models, and neural networks, this talk looks at a very different approach with the use of artificial intelligence to help with marking. It will introduce  Graide, explain how it works, and discuss results from usage across multiple institution and will discuss how a combination of different AI techniques could change how we approach teaching and assessment forever.

Manjinder Kainth on LinkedIn

Peter Kilcoyne

TeacherMatic, Director at Transform Education

Peter has worked in Further and Higher Education since 1986 as a Teacher, Curriculum Manager and Learning Technology Director. He is best known for setting up the Blended Learning Consortium in 2015 which has grown to include over 160 Further Education Colleges working together on developing online content and sharing best practice in all things digital.

In addition to his work in the UK Peter has worked on a range of international projects providing onsite support and training in the use of blended learning in Universities in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Liberia, Kenya and Zambia in partnership with Computeraid International. Peter is currently leading a World Bank funded project to develop a blended learning strategy for the Ministry of Education in Jordan.

Peter started developing TeacherMatic in October 2022 in partnership with 3 colleagues and with the support of the UFI VocTech Trust. Since its launch in April 2023 TeacherMatic has been adopted by over 30 schools, colleges and universities and has over 4500 active users.

Talk title: Revolutionise Teaching with AI using TeacherMatic

TeacherMatic is an intuitive , user friendly platform designed to help educators make use of generative AI for planning, creating learning resources, developing assessments and building courses.

This session will cover the thinking and philosophy behind TeacherMatic, show examples of how it can be used and share feedback from its user community.

Participants will learn about how TeacherMatic can save them time as well as improve their creativity as educators.

Peter Kilcoyne on LinkedIn

Martin Neale

Founder and CEO ICS, UK's first Microsoft AI Inner Circle Partner

As CEO of ICS.AI, Martin is an experienced entrepreneur and a visionary in digital AI innovation, with a track record of launching over 20 Microsoft-aligned technologies. Passionate about generative AI, he sees it as the key to the fifth industrial revolution. Martin's expertise propels the company’s innovation, transforming the UK public sector and revolutionising the entire university lifecycle.

Martin is driven by the endless potential of AI, focusing on its transformative capabilities in the education sector. He strongly believes in the thoughtful and ethical integration of AI, aiming to provide personalised and immersive experiences. Under his leadership, ICS.AI stands at the forefront of AI innovation and is committed to unlocking new possibilities for educational institutions, driving them towards a future shaped by digital transformation.

Talk title: SMART Copilot – transforming the education sector with generative AI

Generative AI is on the horizon of reshaping the education landscape, with its potential impact rivalling the transformative power of the internet. This evolution symbolises a significant shift, positioning universities to become AI-centric institutions. Such a transformation is part of what many are dubbing the fifth industrial revolution, signalling a profound change in our educational systems.

With an increasing number of students engaging with generative AI, imagine a university ecosystem where every element, from recruitment and student services, to support, learning, research and operations are enhanced by AI interactions. With projections indicating up to 8 million AI-enhanced interactions per university annually, it’s not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’.

With AI becoming an inevitable part of education, this keynote promises a wealth of valuable insights into the future of higher education through AI-enabled transformation, exploring typical use cases, projected benefits, as well as demonstrations of ICS.AI’s SMART Copilot technology in action across student and staff contact channels.

Together, let's unlock the vast potential of AI in education and shape a brighter tomorrow for UK universities.

Martin Neale on LinkedIn

Mairéad Pratschke

Professor and Chair in Digital Education, University of Manchester

Mairéad Pratschke is Professor and Chair in Digital Education in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester. She holds a Ph.D. in History from McMaster University in Canada and an M.A. in European Studies from K.U. Leuven in Belgium.

Her career has straddled the worlds of higher education, education technology, professional and continuing education, and edtech start-ups. Irish-born, she has worked in Canada, the USA, Belgium and Spain, in multiple languages and sectors, as a researcher, designer, lecturer, director and consultant for digital programmes in the arts, humanities, social sciences, sports and business.

Talk title: Generative Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Education

The rapid improvement in capabilities of generative AI (GAI) in recent months indicates that the so-called Sixth Wave of Innovation, characterised by the use of Web 4.0 technologies, is now well underway. Indeed, GAI is making headlines the world over for how it will transform workplaces and redefine jobs in our knowledge economy.

Educational institutions, slow to react to the release of ChatGPT-3.5 last November, now have no choice but to respond to the relentless improvement of GAI. What should that response entail? The implications of GAI in education and beyond are daunting, requiring us to revisit and adapt our teaching, learning and assessment practices to this new reality.

In this talk, Mairéad will situate what is happening in generative AI within the context of education, looking at key themes and developments, and offering suggestions from the perspective of digital education as to how we might innovate those educational practices in order to deliver a model of education that addresses what students need in the age of AI.

Mairéad Pratschke on LinkedIn

JJ Quinlan

Lecturer and Researcher for Creative Media DkIT

JJ Quinlan is a lecturer and researcher in Creative Media at Dundalk Institute of Technology where he teaches digital Media, augmented experiences, UX, game design and graphic design.  He is the FIS exhibit event coordinator and the former programme director for the BA in Media Arts & Technologies and the BA in Creative Multimedia. Before he joined DKIT, I worked as a Creative director in ‘bespoke training software’ aimed at sales staff of multinational pharmaceutical companies for 10 years. His research interests include UX, virtual environments, AI and motion graphics.

Talk title: AI for Digital Design

This talk will delve into the fundamentals of AI and its applications in the design field. It will explore various techniques to research and generate innovative ideas using AI and demonstrate how AI can be in effectively integrated into the design process to improve efficiency and foster creativity while unlocking the potential for graphical creation and new avenues for visual expression.

JJ Quinlan on LinkedIn

Emil Reisser-Weston

Open eLMS Edtech Futurist and Managing Director

Emil Reisser-Weston (MSc-MEng) holds a masters in Work Design and Ergonomics and has been designing learning systems for over 30 years.  Emil is Managing Director of Open eLMS which has been at the forefront of AI development in the UK and beyond.

His company is breaking new ground in applying generative AI to learning systems with its Open eLMS AI system which allows educational bodies to create interactive learning materials based on their own knowledge at the click of a button.

Talk title:

How to turn knowledge into learning using Artificial Intelligence.

Knowledge resides in books, papers and the minds of teaching staff.  How we can turn this knowledge into feature-rich learning materials has traditionally been a laborious and costly process only affordable for corporate training.

Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, high quality eLearning materials for an entire curriculum can now be generated in minutes; learning will feature video presenters, animation and AI generated imagery to add engagement and immersion to the learning. Emil Reisser-Weston (MSc-MEng) will demonstrate how learning can be created with emphasis on uploading your own research into your own AI engine.

Having a custom AI engine will ensure the learning reflects the latest research, rather than generic and out of date advice.  The system Open eLMS AI has been available since May 2023 and a free version can be accessed to visitors of the Open eLMS website.

Emil Reisser-Weston on LinkedIn

Dr Muskaan Singh

Lecturer at Ulster University

Dr. Muskaan Singh is a Lecturer in Data Analytics at the Intelligent Systems Research Centre (ISRC), within the School of Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems, Ulster University (UU) and a member of the cognitive analytics research centre (CARL).

Her research interest is centred around Natural language Processing with a particular focus on practical applications. She has published at prestigious venues (A* and A-ranked conferences/Journals) such as ACL, NAACL,COLING, INLG, SIGDIAL, AAAI, PACLIC, LREC, INTERSPEECH, AAAI, EMNLP, WeCNLP and ASIS&T.

She was also organizer of Automatic Minuting community events: SummDial at SIGDial 2021, AutoMin shared task at Interspeech 2021, SummDial at Dubdial 2022, AutoMin shared task at INLG 2023 and Fake News Detection from Social Media Text at RANLP 2023.

Talk title: Demystifying the Technology behind Generative AI

This talk explores the fascinating realm of Generative AI, which combines art and science to create machines capable of producing realistic and creative outputs. It will explore the underlying mechanism of transformers with ChatGPT and DALL-E algorithms drastically changing the AI innovation. It will include real-world examples from various industries showcasing the potential of Generative AI. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how this technology works and its profound impact on our rapidly evolving world.

Muskaan Singh on LinkedIn

Ashima Sood

PhD candidate Ulster University

Ashima Sood is currently a PhD candidate at Ulster University, Northern Ireland, earned her Post Graduate Diploma in AI and Machine Learning from International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore in 2022 and a Masters in Technology from Punjabi University in 2016. With professional stints at Infosys Private Limited and upGrad Education Private Limited in India, she is deeply passionate about Natural Language Processing, Vision-Language, Large Language Models, and Generative AI, continuously seeking innovative solutions in these domains.

Workshop title: Generative AI 101 – Introduction to the Fundamentals

Ashima Sood on LinkedIn

Stephen Howell

Academic Developer, AWS

Stephen Howell is a technologist and educator with over 25 years of experience in software engineering, lecturing, program management, and education. As a software engineer, he worked on diverse projects involving technologies from finance to IoT systems. For over a decade, he was a computing lecturer at universities including Dublin City University and Institute of Technology Tallaght (now Technological University Dublin). He taught modules covering algorithms, data structures, object-oriented programming, software engineering, cloud computing, computer graphics, visual design, and interactive media.

Talk title: Generative AI for Teaching Software Development 101

The potential of artificial intelligence to revolutionize education is no longer merely speculative. With the recent release of tools like Amazon CodeWhisperer, AI has taken firm steps into the classroom as a teaching and learning aid. In this talk, we will explore how generative AI can assist computer science educators, specifically in introductory coding courses. Rather than replacing human teachers, CodeWhisperer acts as a digital teaching assistant - providing live support during coding demonstrations, offering suggestions, and even generating starter code.

We will walk through examples of how this technology can enhance the learning experience for students grappling with foundational concepts like variables, loops, and functions. The talk will be grounded in real classroom scenarios at both secondary and post-secondary levels. In addition to live coding assistance, we will also showcase CodeWhisperer's utilities for automated code analysis and translation between programming languages. Students often struggle to put concepts into practice when switching between languages like Python and Java.

CodeWhisperer can smooth this transition process. Finally, we will address the vital role of AI in surfacing potential vulnerabilities and bugs for early learners. By scanning code and offering security feedback, CodeWhisperer acts as a digital mentor - identifying missteps and nudging students towards writing more secure programs from day one. While acknowledging valid concerns, our core argument is that AI-empowered teaching tools represent an exciting step towards more adaptive, responsive coding education. We hope this talk illuminates key opportunities, while prompting thought-provoking discussion on preparing students for an AI-driven future.

Stephen Howell on LinkedIn