It is wonderful to start the academic year with the sharing of the latest research and innovations in education. Ms Brenda Vivian, the academic literacy specialist at the SPMA, attended the annual Education Association of South Africa’s annual conference, which was held in Magaliesburg from the 14-17 January, hosted by the University of Johannesburg. There were conference delegates from around South Africa as well as other countries such as the United States, Columbia, Pakistan and China. The conference themes included future-fit leadership in education, lifelong learning and resilience in education, community partnerships through engaged scholarship, and ICTs and the 4IR educational landscape. 

Ms Vivian delivered a paper entitled AI & Academic literacy practitioners: competitors or collaborators? in which she presented evidence from qualitative action research concerning the uses and limitations of using AI for academic writing. The paper argues that, although AI could be seen as a threat to academic literacy practitioners at a generic and superficial level, AI can be seen to be a limited collaborator with academic literacy specialists. AI can assist with surface level aspects of writing, allowing more time for the academic literacy specialist to work on deeper levels of academic writing in which AI is not currently proficient. Further, by engaging with and evaluating AI’s outputs, students can develop their critical thinking and argumentation skills. Ms Vivian strongly advocated for student and lecturer education and training in the ethical and effective use of AI.