Highlights from Thursday 23 May

The event started with an engaging greeting from Vladimír Kovář, introducing the origin and development of the Red Monster platform.

The keynote speaker was Barend Last, who kicked off the conference with a dynamic and educational talk on AI entitled "Chatting with Napoleon". While much of the content was about familiarity with AI, a few key points stood out. He highlighted common biases in the human imagination of AI, such as anthropomorphizing machines, using Western-oriented images, usually of humanoid robots with blue backgrounds and female voices. He suggested renaming AI (Artificial Intelligence) to IA (Intelligence Augmentation) while emphasizing that AI should be seen as a supporting tool rather than the ultimate solution.

David Hartman, Vice President for Research at Unicorn College, gave an insightful presentation on "Implementing Business Chat (AI) within the University's Instructional and Administrative IS - AI and Curriculum Development." His lively delivery provided much-needed technical detail to an audience eager to understand the practical integration of AI into distance learning tools.

Julia Joachim from Euro FH presented the results of her German university's survey on the comfort level of AI tutors. The findings indicated a general lack of knowledge and confidence, which underlined the need to train educators.

One notable workshop on "AI-Prompt Engineering and Learning Design" explored the use of AI with students. Kristian Nøhr Jensen from University College Copenhagen identified two types of students, "Lazy and the Non-Lazy": those who rely on AI to do their homework (product-oriented) and those who use AI to improve their work (process-oriented). The latter approach requires careful exhortation to maximize learning outcomes, such as asking questions to research or, better yet, playing devil's advocate to identify weaknesses in an argument.

Sam Wadsworth of Pearson Education provided a thorough overview of using AI to generate content, incorporating text, images and voice. He noted that while AI-generated voices are often received poorly: people don't like to hear an AI-generated voice. However, AI-generated images offer significant advantages in terms of cost and accessibility, as they allow the creation of images that would be either impossible or very expensive to create. He also argued that AI is very good at creating "graded" text i.e. student-centred text.

SCHEDULE DAY 1.

09:30 Registration
10:00 John Trasler, EADL President
10:05 Vladimír Kovář, Unicorn University
10:10 Sabine Verheyen, European Parliament
10:15 Keynote - Barend Last, Chatting with Napoleon (AI for Learning)
11:00 Coffee break
11:30 Julia Joachim and Vera Kristina Lenz-Kesekamp, Euro FH - New competences for students, teachers and AI
12:00 David Hartman, Vice President of Research, Unicorn University - Introduction to business chat (AI) within the university's instructional and administrative IS - AI and Curriculum Development
12:30 Sam Wadsworth, Pearson Education - Generative AI - The Future of Content Development
13:00 Lunch

Workshops

• Kristian Nøhr Jensen, University College Copenhagen: AI-Prompt Engineering and Learning Design
• Robin Gibson, Kortext (UK): Using advanced AI learning tools
• Niels Henrik Helms, CELF AI: Narrative and Visualization

15:45 Coffee break
16:00 Andrea Feddersen, APPOLLON and Ger Driesen, aNewSpring - Wisdom of the Crowd
17:00 Closing

Highlights from Friday 24 May

Later that morning Jakub Haláček and Jana Adamová from Unicorn Publishing and Unicorn Top Gun Academy presented "Using proprietary distance learning tools at Unicorn". Their session combined recordings, live speeches, and demonstrations of how Unicorn has developed its strategy and technology to deliver thousands of training sessions to Unicorn employees.

These sessions were well-received and provided the audience with practical insights and useful tips that complemented the broader discussions on integrating AI into distance learning solutions.

SCHEDULE DAY 2.

09:30 Daniela Valšová, BIG HUB, CZ: Working with innovative AI in business processes
10:15 Leah Matthews, DEAC: The impact of artificial intelligence on the US distance education industry
11:00 Coffee Break
11:30 Tom Bos, CEO Skills Town: AI from a business learning company perspective
12:15 Jakub Haláček (Unicorn Publishing), Jana Adamová (Unicorn Top Gun Academy): Using Unicorn's proprietary distance learning tools to facilitate thousands of training sessions
12:45 Morten Flate Paulsen, CEO of Nordic Open Online Academy, professor of online education, former Secretary General of ICDE and President of EDEN: Technology and education trends in online education
13:25 John Trasler, EADL: closing comments
13:30 Lunch
14:00 Networking