This open access book serves as a tool for teachers, students, academics, and anyone interested in exploring the key findings from various European studies on recommendations for using AI tools in classrooms. “Teachers want students to be critical citizens, and for this they should not be consumers of technology, but citizens with critical and creative capacity with technology. AI is neither good nor bad, but it must be used ethically,” explains Margarida Romero.

In this regard, one of the book’s chapters delves into disinformation and AI. Specifically, the publication references an article by Mathew Gault in Vice, which warned that the US software company Adobe was selling fake AI-generated images of the war in Gaza. Faced with this reality, the guide warns that AI’s potential to either enhance or harm education will depend on how citizens and governments choose to use and regulate it. “Citizens must develop a critical perspective and move beyond the role of mere consumers,” states Margarida Romero.

Another related topic discussed in the guide is AI censorship. Some tools have been observed to remove sensitive content that could influence public opinion, such as the censorship of political content. The publication mentions the Russian neural network Kandinsky 2.1, which generates images of flowers when prompted with terms like “war in Ukraine,” “Ukrainian flag,” or even just the word “Ukrainian.” “Generative AI can offer a simplified or softened view of the world, avoiding complex issues due to a process of self-censorship,” argues Margarida Romero.

For the researcher, it is therefore essential for teachers to have broad disciplinary knowledge, as they will have to deal more often with content that may be partially false and must be able to detect it. “When we teach history, we must be the foremost experts on the facts, as we may be exposed to artificially generated texts or images that may present historical inconsistencies that distort reality,” says the UIC Barcelona lecturer.

To classify different levels of engagement with AI, the authors propose a six-level scale. At the lowest level, users passively consume AI-generated content without understanding the process. At its highest level, AI becomes a transformative tool that can help redesign classroom structures or improve learning processes, with active human collaboration to ideally foster creative pedagogies that benefit the future.

According to the expert, all of this must be accompanied by family approval, as opinions on the use of new technologies in education remain deeply divided. “The existing polarisation is concerning. We should neither be technophobes nor technophiles but instead define reasonable uses for learning where technology genuinely adds value,” explains Margarida Romero.

The guide Creative Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Education serves as a roadmap for exploring co-creativity between humans and AI. It presents conclusions from studies conducted in countries such as France, Germany, Finland, and Canada, involving 36 international researchers, with the ultimate aim of fostering students’ creative abilities.