We wanted to equip trainers and teachers with the professional skills to use AI in their teaching practice, prepare them to address the social and ethical issues raised by the deployment of AI in society, the workplace and education, develop their critical analysis skills to promote ethical adoption within the vocational education and training sector, to pass these on to their learners, and to help prepare them to understand AI and use it thoughtfully to learn and develop in their future careers.
We decided to undertake this project because the availability of generative AI to the general public quickly began to generate growing interest across all sectors, particularly in the education and training sector. Generative AI had all the hallmarks of becoming a disruptive technology in education: no need for dedicated hardware or specific software, apparent ease of use, and the possibility of starting to explore it for personal or leisure purposes, which could then branch out or expand into professional use. At the same time, it is a divisive technology and raises numerous questions. We therefore sought to introduce objectivity, to understand what was beginning to take shape and what was possible, to disseminate and enrich initiatives, and to equip trainers and teachers to understand and integrate it in a responsible and ethical manner, whilst also enabling them to interact with their learners and empower them in relation to this technology.