The AI Prism: Refracting Education’s Most Urgent Question (Linda Castañeda)

CIC is delighted to welcome Prof. Linda Castañeda as a visiting scholar June-Sept. 2026. Linda is Professor of Educational Technology, University of Murcia, Spain, and will present a 4-part seminar series: Educational Optics: Four Instruments for Seeing and Shaping Learning Spaces

4-5pm AEST • All welcome on Teams • This will be recorded and replayable

Overview: Optics, of course, has two meanings in English — the instruments through which we see, and how something appears from the outside. This series is unapologetically about both. Each of the four seminars introduces a different instrument — a prism, a lens, a mirror, a telescope — not as metaphors for their own sake, but as ways of seeing something that matters: the spaces people build to learn, the spaces institutions inherit rather than intentionally design, and the spaces that AI is quietly reshaping whether we decide to or not. The question running through all four is deceptively simple: what do we want learning spaces to look like — and who gets to decide what they become? These conversations are grounded in research, policy work and practical experimentation across higher education systems and contexts.

Seminar 1 — The AI Prism: Refracting Education’s Most Urgent Question

Abstract: Discussions of AI in education have settled into a familiar pattern: on one side, the instrumental question of how to use it; on the other, the ethical question of whether we should. Yet this apparent balance conceals more than it reveals. ‘Ethical’ has become a catch-all category — capacious enough to absorb discomfort, too vague to produce analysis. And entire dimensions of what AI does to education remain unnamed: epistemological, ideological, political, commercial. This seminar introduces a prismatic framework for making sense of AI in education — one that refracts the apparent simplicity of the debate into its constituent dimensions. But dimensions alone are not enough. Technology is not a neutral backdrop to educational practice — it is a constitutive actor within it, shaping what counts as knowledge, who has power, and what remains invisible. Which is also why any framework for understanding AI must eventually turn on itself. Not to resolve the tension, but to make it visible. Including, finally, the tensions within the framework itself. Throughout the session, these dimensions are illustrated through examples drawn from current debates, policy initiatives, and ongoing research on AI in higher education.

Bio: Prof. Linda Castañeda is Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Murcia (Spain) and Visiting Scholar at the University of Technology Sydney. Linda’s research explores how people learn, teach and make educational decisions in contexts of technological change. Her work spans personal learning, academic development, digital competence, educational leadership and the educational implications of artificial intelligence, always with a particular interest in agency, professional judgement and institutional transformation. Over the past two decades, she has led and contributed to numerous national and international research projects, developed conceptual frameworks that have informed educational research and practice, and collaborated with universities and public institutions on digital transformation and professional learning. Her current work brings together theory, policy and educational design to help educators make sense of AI beyond instrumental narratives, with a particular focus on teaching, assessment and professional judgement in higher education. More about her research, publications and ongoing projects can be found at www.lindacastaneda.com

Replay & Slides [pdf]