Sometimes the best academic work emerges from moments of pure play. That’s certainly true for our recent paper “The Staging of AI: Exploring Perspectives About Generative AI, Creativity and Education,” which just appeared in the Journal of Interactive Media in Education‘s special issue on Metaphors of AI in Education.

It is truly one of the most fun academic papers I have written. And the story of how it came to be is just as interesting.

It began back in 2024 at the SITE conference in Las Vegas. Danah Henriksen, Michael Henderson, Ed Creely, and I had proposed a panel titled “AI & the Art of Teaching: Enhancing or Eroding Educational Creativity?” Behind the serious title was some serious tomfoolery. Instead of delivering traditional academic presentations, we dove into role-playing and semi-improvised drama, where each of us took on archetypal positions on AI in education.

Michael was the “careful guardian,” (warning about AI’s threats to creative integrity) to my “intellectual thief” (arguing for shameless appropriation of AI-generated content). Ed was the “bridge-builder,” seeking balance through philosophical frameworks. And Danah was both moderator and provocateur, keeping the tensions productive. Each of us had a few mins to make our case to be followed by an open discussion. (Incidentally, I shared my introductory remarks by showing a video created almost entirely with AI-generated images and AI-generated, Indian accented, narrator, inexplicably named Bruce!)

It was during the open discussion that the fireworks began. Clearly, the theatrical format, and the personas we had created, freed us. These masks we put on allowed us to discuss ideas in ways that would not have been possible in a more standard academic format. We could eschew the “on the other hand” balance that academics inevitably fall back on when asked to speak. In this format we could be “un-balanced” speaking freely as characters, rather than as ourselves. This led to a substantive, vigorous conversation with space for disagreement and fun.

The audience loved it. One of my graduate students later called it the best panel presentation she’d ever seen.

(Click these links to learn more about our session, and to watch the AI-generated video).

And that was that. Or so I thought.

We had fun and the audience seemed to have enjoyed themselves, and that seemed enough. What more could you ask for from a conference panel?

But Ed had other ideas. He felt we could convert our session into a journal article. To be honest, I was skeptical, because what we had done so demanded physical presence, a feeling of “you had to be there.” But again, what was there to lose? And I truly enjoy working with this team. So I said yes.

Over the next few months, Ed pushed us to develop the theatrical metaphor more seriously, drawing on Augusto Boal’s Forum Theater as both inspiration and methodological framework. We made some shifts—Careful Guardian became Gatekeeper, Intellectual Thief became Evangelist, and Bridge Builder became Diplomat and Moderator/Provocateur became the Joker. The final paper was unlike anything I’d written before: part academic paper, part performance script, part philosophical dialogue.

And, of course, the paper was rejected twice, unsurprising given its unconventional format. But then we heard of JIME’s special issue on Metaphors of AI in Education, edited by Eamon Costello, Giselle Ferreira, Kyungmee Lee, and Robert Farrow, and decided to submit our piece there. To our joy and surprise it was accepted once we had made some changes based on peer review.

And a few days ago I got an email saying the piece had been published! How fun.

And our paper is in good company. The special issue has some great articles, all of which are worth reading. For instance, our paper sits alongside Emily Bender’s interview on “stochastic parrots,” pieces exploring AI as “autotune for knowledge,” and studies of how students and teachers actually use metaphors to make sense of AI.

None of this would have been possible without this amazing set of co-authors. Danah, Michael, and Ed are more than collaborators, they are my friends. Ed deserves a special shout-out for his vision and persistence and his belief that a vaguely improvised performance at a conference could be turned into a genuine scholarly contribution, one that provides a mirror and a stage for the ongoing dialogue about AI, creativity, and learning.

And the success of this endeavor has inspired Ed to kick off another academic adventure … Could our next piece be an academic paper as a painting by Magritte? Or as Michael suggested, “parable in acrylic sung as a gregorian chant.”

Watch this space!

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Abstract and link to article below

Creely, E., Henriksen, D., Henderson, M., & Mishra, P. (2025). The staging of AI: Exploring perspectives about generative AI, creativity and education. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2025(1), Article 11. https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.995

Abstract: In this article we investigate the role of generative AI in education with a focus on creativity, metaphorically utilising relevant features from Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre as part of a participatory qualitative inquiry. Presenting three distinct perspectives—Gatekeeper, Evangelist, and Diplomat—our article explores emotional and intellectual responses to AI and creativity, utilising theatrical forms to offer personal insights about the intricate balance between AI’s benefits and risks. Adopting a post-qualitative approach, we avoid forced consensus, instead weaving individual viewpoints with a reflective commentary that seeks to elucidate and critically engage with the ideas presented. The adoption of Forum Theatre as a metaphor for our inquiry serves to deepen our understanding of AI’s transformative potential in educational settings and highlights the need for a collaborative, dialogic and critical approach to AI in education in a time of global change, one that honours the diversity of opinions in this evolving domain.