edTech Research Day
Where and when
Date and time: March 9, 2026, 10:00 – 14:15 Finnish time (UTC+2)
Location: Vaarinkallio, Koli and online in Zoom
Schedule
10:00 – 10:15, Professor Emeritus Erkki Sutinen
Welcoming and Opening Words from the Host
10:15 – 11:00, Professor Kinshuk, University of North Texas
Emerging and Disruptive Technologies and Their Impact on the Future of Education
Abstract: Recent advances in the technologies, particularly the emerging visualization technologies and generative AI, are changing the landscape of education. Many of these advancements have significant potential to be disruptive, bringing both excitement and concern. They can foster deeply engaged learning experiences by providing the affordances that were not possible before and provide means for continuously monitoring, assessing, and guiding students in their learning process to ensure they receive tailored support. These same advances also have potential for creating biased content, spreading false information, sharing private information by mistake, causing job loss, and raising questions about human dependency and accountability. This talk will look into the vision for future of education and investigate how to exploit these emerging technologies before they exploit us. We shall explore, instead of trying to stop the progress due to the various concerns, how we can make effective plans and rules to reduce those risks and take advantage of the opportunities such technologies bring to transform the current education, with constraints and safeguards in place to make learning process safe and reliable.
11:00 – 11:30, Professor Matti Tedre, University of Eastern Finland
Generation AI: a National Strategic Program for AI Education
Abstract: Generation AI is Finland’s national strategic program for AI education. It develops and studies hands-on approaches in which children and teachers learn about AI by making real AI systems, and working with data, AI training workflows, and societal questions. The program
combines pedagogically grounded tools, large-scale school interventions, and research on children’s rights, data agency, and AI educational technology, demonstrating how AI education can be implemented nationally without treating AI as a black box, see https://gen-ai.fi/en
11:30 – 13:00, Lunch break
13:00 – 13:30, Martti Havukainen, Doctoral Researcher, University of Eastern Finland
Artificial Intelligence as Part of Students’ Digital Game Design
Abstract: This research setup will be a creative process where children’s play and art will serve as a starting point for developing new digital games. The role of artificial intelligence (AI) here will be a part to speed up the creation of games and assist, among other things, with the visual and auditive design of the games. AI will be a tool in the creative process. It will be a fundamental question to see how the adoption of AI produces content and gamification ideas. We will examine how AI carries out each task or goal presented by a child, and how children conceptualize the design process, and how AI, children and professional software and other designers work together. The human part of the design process will be based on inter-contextual design, which is a fundamental theme of my dissertation (April – June 2026). Children and programmers will work together by a communication model, developed in my dissertation, as independent groups from their own background, but communicating with each other for a common target, the digital game. The research objectives will concern the role of AI in design, how children perceive and experience their own ideas being refined by AI. We will also consider whether mastering AI is a basic skill similar to literacy or understanding the fundamentals of mathematics. Such a research setup will be possible in a classroom as part of art or ICT education, specifically in teaching creative writing and visual art. The research will be carried out as part of a school’s or another organization’s everyday activities. As a research method, phenomenography and design research will be used here. The time schedule is open, but the estimated for the research will be at June-September 2026. This depends of my other studies for PhD degree.
Abstract: TBD
13:30 – 14:00, Ilkka Jormanainen, University Lecturer, University of Eastern Finland
From Educational Robotics to Robotics Education – Local Trajectories and Global Trends
Abstract: Educational robotics is widely used in technology education across all levels of schooling worldwide. Grounded in constructivist learning theories, it has proven particularly effective in teaching programming and computational thinking. Both academic research and practice-oriented teacher training programmes have played a key role in supporting classroom adoption. In this presentation, we review our research group’s decades-long work in educational robotics and identify key milestones that have contributed to the development of a comprehensive portfolio of robotics courses and an upcoming minor degree in robotics at the University of Eastern Finland. Finally, we outline emerging trends in artificial intelligence education and discuss how robotics can serve as a powerful vehicle for addressing these future challenges.
14:00 – 14:30, Closing Words and Reflection, Coffee & Tee
Registration
Please register to the edTech Reseach Day via the following link: https://forms.office.com/e/8gEqqyyJU6