Education Fiction

Education Fiction aims to inspire readers who are passionate about critically exploring possible futures of education and learning. This edited volume addresses key educational issues of our present and future through a collection of short stories. In today's educational landscape, shaped by rapid AI developments, a climate crisis, and growing commercial interests, Education Fiction provides a space to reflect on current trends and envision alternative possibilities for education. This book introduces the concept of education fiction and demonstrates its versatility. Each short story is accompanied by critical reflections that connect imagination to educational research and practice, highlighting how fiction can make research more accessible, engaging, and emotionally resonant. By moving beyond the constraints of academic formality, education fiction encourages thinking otherwise and imagining education futures. This book is written for everyone with an interest in education, particularly educators and researchers seeking to reimagine education. It can also be used in teacher education, professional development, and futures-thinking workshops for educators, faculty, and educational leaders.

Stefan Hrastinski is Professor in the Department of Learning at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.

Introduction Part A: Artificial Intelligence 1. Questions and Answers: Artificial Intelligence and the Re-Turn to Our Students' Humanity 2. The Shifting Narrative Around AI in Education 3. Writing the Pseudo Uni: Speculative Fiction as Catharsis, Critique, and (Accidental) Foresight Part B: Beyond Human Learning 4. Crafting Hopeful AI Futures for Education 5. Free to Choose More-than-Human Learning 6. The Professor and the Hologram: Student Visions of AI-Assisted Learning 7: Education Futures Beyond Learning: Toward Connexus Part C: Ruined Education 8. Old Ghosts, New Machines: How Current Trends in EdTech Could Haunt the Future of Education 9. On Learning, Loss, and The Remains of Wonder 10. Foundation (Models) and (Educational) Empire 11. EdTech Dreams in Bids, Metrics, and Precarity 12. Disruptive Laughter: A Dystopian Future Where Humor is Bureaucratized Part D: Hopeful Education 13. Speculation as Radical Present: Tending Hopeful Futures in Higher Education Pedagogy and Practice 14. Rethinking Assessment for Learning and Meaningful Societal Impact at Majestic Oak University 15. Re-storying Digitalization in Higher Education by Using Generative AI Part E: Beyond Education 16. Place of Wonder in Education 17. Listening to the Ecotones: Learning in the Wetland Classroom 18. Futures that Refuse to Perform: Learning and Technology after Collapse 19. Teaching, Learning, Managing, and Researching Otherwise