Event Experience

As the waves of AI wash through the higher education system, many teachers are confused or concerned about its implications for their roles and capabilities. While some may comfortably embrace the possibilities of AI, others feel threatened by the sheer “unknownable-ness” of the AI phenomenon. Between 2024 and 2025, Alison James in her study PLAY explored how educators were responding to the advent of generative AI through playful learning. She found educators to be eloquent in articulating that AI can be a valuable companion for their expertise, not their replacement.

AI raises thousands of questions: among them, what if this disruptive technology were also a playful invitation to re-invent, experiment, and evolve the educational system? In this interactive talk, James will make the case for play in higher education and examine how to use it in combination with AI to transform teaching and learning. Grounded in research and ignited by play, this presentation finds opportunities for joy and wonder during times of tumultuous change.

Alison James, Founder, Engaging Imagination

Find the fun in education about bugs and insects! Find out how AI became a powerful tool for creating graphics and scenarios for a playful semester-long case study and role-playing game where science meets a whodunit. Follow Erin Bauer as she describes how she built a new alternate reality game (ARG) called The Death of Dannie Bee that has students learning how entomology and crime intersect through three fictional case studies and transmedia storytelling. In this class, AI becomes a creative content partner that helps deliver a fun approach to science.

Erin Bauer, Entomology Lecturer, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

What happens when you ask students to imagine their future careers and then play them out as a story? That’s the idea behind a classroom game Christian Thomas created called Playing Your Future Career. Built and played in ChatGPT, the game has students pick a job, choose a story genre, and then complete writing tasks tied to their imagined roles. AI provides support, but also creates problems: clichéd plots, clumsy images, and even bad writing suggestions—that students attempt to recognize and fix. The result is a mix of career exploration, writing practice, and AI literacy. Thomas will share what students have discovered so far, and discuss some lessons learned about using play to teach with (and against) AI.

Christian Thomas, Associate Director, Center for Digital Games Research; Continuing Lecturer, Writing Program, University of California, Santa Barbara

In this session, Diane Sieber shares examples of playful writing exercises to help students experience the power and fun of communicating their ideas through better word choices, sentence structures, and interactions with AI tools.

Diane Sieber, Faculty Director, Generative Futures Lab for AI, College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Colorado Boulder

The Turing Test famously posed a challenge to determine whether a machine possessed intelligence. The test proposed a scenario: If human beings typing back and forth with an unknown correspondent could not determine whether they were talking to a machine, the machine proved it was intelligent. Sidestepping the tricky philosophical aspects of the test, what happens when students are given real articles versus articles written by AI and asked to figure out which is which?

This interactive demonstration of the power and the promise of artificial intelligence brings classroom discussion to life.

Stephanie Thomas, Assistant Professor of Advertising and Public Relations, The Pennsylvania State University

Explore the “AI tsunami” within the fast-changing landscape in the context of higher education and consider both present realities and speculative futures. Learn how the disruptive forces of curiosity, imagination, collective inquiry, and human connection, as well as story, making, and play, to maximize student curiosity, experimentation, learning, and human agency. What are the opportunities and challenges of learning with AI using creativity and play?

Chrissi Nerantzi, Professor in Creative and Open Education, University of Leeds

Teaching online can feel like you have lines drawn all around you, boxing you into specific tools and standardized formats. How do you inject play into such a structured environment? Through scholarly research, practical frameworks, suggested activities, and a little AI, you will learn how to color outside the lines of online classrooms and create playful, engaging learning environments for students.

Peggy Holzweiss, Professor, Sam Houston State University

Law school culture is known as serious, traditional, and rigid. Not a place for play. But there are ways to integrate play using AI in practical activities. This presentation will describe how AI can enhance simulated trial advocacy exercises and culminate with an interactive demonstration.

Bryce Woolley, Associate Professor of Law for Academic Success and Bar Preparation, Southwestern Law School

In today’s PlayI Time, learn how to transform disciplinary content into memorable, accurate, and engaging microsongs that might just be the next Rickroll. Use a playful approach to create short educational songs that reinforce concepts, spark engagement, and add some fun. We’ll experiment with a free AI tool that will take our concepts and convert them to catchy tunes in no time. Work in small groups and create an Edu-Jam that will keep all our toes tapping while sparking curiosity.

Kim Arnold, Director, Teaching & Learning Program, EDUCAUSE