About this episode

This episode discusses the role of generative AI in education through the lens of inquiry-based learning and its implications for authentic authorship and student engagement.

Welcome to FOSIL Education and School Libraries, a conversation about liberal education, signature inquiry, and how generative AI fits, or doesn’t, into real classroom practice. This episode follows on from last week’s podcast, Clarifying the purpose of education , explains the Year 9 Signature Work inquiry: an interdisciplinary, schoolwide project embedded in English that builds thoughtful reading, writing, and speaking skills and culminates in a spoken presentation and Q&A. It contrasts authentic human texts (like Laudato Si’) with AI-generated summaries, raising concerns about AI’s tendency to flatten voice and strip nuance. We argue that tools must be judged against clear educational aims: supporting student attention, authentic authorship, and the dialogic process of learning. * Eric O. Springsted -- discussing Simone Weil’s notion of attention in Attention, Availability, and the Reading of Books (2025). * Janet Salmons and the flattening of language in Finding Your Voice in a Ventriloquist’s World – AI and Writing (2025). * Claudio Nastruzzi and semantic ablation in Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation (2026). * Jane Rosenzweig (2022)…

People in this episode

Host: Elizabeth Hutchinson

Topics covered

• generative AI
• inquiry-based learning
• education
• interdisciplinary projects
• authentic authorship
• dialogic learning

Keywords

• generative AI
• education
• inquiry
• authenticity
• interdisciplinary
• student engagement
• dialogic process

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Attention, Availability, and the Reading of Books, Finding Your Voice in a Ventriloquist’s World – AI and Writing, Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation, The Fight About AI

More episodes of FOSIL, Education and School Libraries

• Why does it Matter? How do we, as School Librarians, answer this question? · June 1, 2026 · 43 min
• Generative AI through Inquiry (Part 4) · May 9, 2026 · 51 min
• Generative AI Through Inquiry (Part 2) · March 23, 2026 · 48 min
• Clarifying the purpose of education · February 23, 2026 · 34 min
• Update: FOSIL, Books and the Institute of Advancement of Inquiry. · December 20, 2025 · 23 min
• Inquiry Learning: Can Schools Do It Without Libraries? · July 19, 2025 · 43 min

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