The 16th ASEF Classroom Network Conference (ASEFClassNet16) themed, “Leading Change: Digital Transformation of Education in the Era of AI,” just recently took place from 12-16 November 2023 in Ljubljana, Slovenia! ASEF organised the conference in partnership with the International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) under the auspices of UNESCO at Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI) in Ljubljana, Slovenia and with support from the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovenia, Video Lectures, City of Ljubljana and the Ljubljana Tourism.
Over the 5-day long conference participants had a series of exciting learning opportunities to strengthen their knowledge on AI&ED. We are excited to give you a quick glimpse of the conference below:
- Participants: Participants who successfully completed the 3-month long Virtual Stage stage of the ASEFClassNet16 Faculty Collaboration & School Collaboration activities and showed outstanding commitment to take action to drive AI in Education innovation forward ethically, effectively, and meaningfully were invited to the conference. The invited participants included 70+ teachers, teacher trainers and academic experts from over 30 Asian and European countries. They emerged in deep conversation to explore and understand the of the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education during the conference.

- Welcome remarks: The participants were warmly welcomed during Day 1 by Mr Boštjan KORITNIK (Deputy Mayor, City of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Ambassador Toru MORIKAWA (Executive Director, Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF)), Ms Maja BALANT SLOBODJANAC (ASEF Governor for Slovenia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia), and Mr Mitja JERMOL (UNESCO Chair on Open Technologies for Open Educational Resources and Open Learning, JSI and IRCAI, Slovenia); and during the final day by Prof Dr Boštjan ZALAR, Director, Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI).


- Learning from the top experts: Throughout the conference, participants had the chance to learn from top experts such as Prof John SHAWE-TAYLOR (UNEASCO Chair for AI and Director of IRCAI, Slovenia), Prof Ronghuai HUANG (UNESCO Chair for AI in Education based in Beijing Normal University, China), Mr Mitja JERMOL (UNESCO Chair on Open Technologies for Open Educational Resources and Open Learning based at JSI, Slovenia), Dr Wayne Holmes (Learning Scientist and AI&ED Expert based in University College London, UK), Prof Rhona SHARPE (Teaching & Learning and AI&ED Expert based in University of Oxford, UK), and Mr Borut CAMPELJ (Policy Officer, Digital Education Unit, Ministry of Education, Slovenia).
- Innovathon Sessions & Peer Feedback: ASEFClassNet project highly values peer-to-peer learning. Day – 3 (Innovathon Day) of the conference allowed participants to not only learn from each other but also support and build each other’s work through encouragement and constructive feedback.
ASEFClassNet16 Innovation Award: One of the key features of the ASEFClassNet16 project is to empower teachers and teacher trainers in a way that enable them to take action. In total, participants of School Collaboration have designed 48 Innovative Teaching Practices (ITP) and participants of Faculty Collaboration have designed 8 Research proposals during the virtual phase. Among them we invited 34 ITP teams and 7 research proposal teams to the conference in Slovenia. On Day-4 of the conference participants had an elevator pitching session of 90 seconds. Based on the elevator pitches, we awarded 3 Special ITP awards and 3 Best ITP awards to School Collaboration participants and 1 best Research Proposal award to the Faculty Collaboration participants.
Here is a short summary of the projects that won an ASEFClassNet16 Innovation Award:
AI-IT Project by the ASEFClassNet16 Faculty Collaboration Participants: This research Collaboration brings together participants from various institutions in Asia and Europe to jointly discuss and propose solutions to tackle AI&ED challenges across Asia & Europe.
Awards won by School Collaboration Participants:
Kiwi-Alpine: This ITP addresses student’s concerns about generative AI, their inability to distinguish between human and AI made. Through a cross-cultural collaboration between Austria and New Zealand this project reinforces the distinctive qualities that make us human, such as empathy, critical thinking, and creativity. It encourages critical engagement with AI tools, exploring its risks, limitations, and positive applications through hands-on and reflective activities.
Global AI Educators: How AI works? This ITP dives inside Machine Learning. The team trains it to differentiate geometric figures and give students some challenges so they can discover everything is categorized. Humans too. But some bias appears. Finally, it reflects about these ethical issues, showing some examples.
RomGal Team: This project upgrades the traditional approach to work with a literary text. By bringing new tools to the class the team wants to make literature more fun. AI is used to improve the understanding of the literary object and its context while working on the core skills of the discipline: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
Best Project Awards:
Chinese CheckMate: Using AI as presentation medium for projects makes education enjoyable, motivating, and effective. The key attention of this ITP is oriented at collaboration and creativity (AI is the tool, not the aim). AI enables immersive learning, while students can also demystify AI with hands-on experience.
SurvAIvors: This ITP focuses on mapping traces of ‘AIdentity’ and explores the question “Who are you?” through a multidisciplinary approach, utilizing AI tools in High School. It considers humans as a genetic species and a social subject. Teachers and students employ various AI tools, fostering inclusivity, critical thinking, sustainability, and cross-cultural collaboration. The outcome is a diverse collection of student insights on human evolution and reflections through different perspectives, demonstrating their understanding of this complex topic.
ChatGPT Essay Crafters: This ITP aims to improve essay writing and critical thinking skills. Geography students learn essay basics, generate an essay using ChatGPT, and engage in peer critique. Similarly, English students write opinion essays and use ChatGPT for content and vocabulary. Teachers then provide feedback. They end with a self-writing an essay, which is compared with the AI-generated essay.
You may check out the conference photo album here: (link)
To learn more about the ASEFClassNet16 project check (link)
We will keep sharing the highlights from the conference over the next few weeks. To learn more stay connected!