Between Automation and Judgment: Digital Technologies and AI in Teachers’ Professional Work

Invitation to Half-Day Conference: Between Automation and Judgment, AI and Digital Technologies in Teachers’ Work

Digitalization has long shaped teachers’ work. At times, technologies support teachers’ professional judgment; at other times, they automate and replace it. Digital learning materials structure entire teaching processes, select tasks for students, and provide quick overviews of student progress. Today, new forms of automation are emerging through tools based on generative AI, designed to support teachers’ preparation, planning, and evaluation.

The conference presents key research findings from Data Visions: Teaching in the Age of Digital Learning Materials, a research project on data visualizations in digital learning tools. The project examines what it means for teachers’ assessment of students when learning is mediated through visualizations of student data, for example in traffic light displays, red, yellow, green.

At the same time, the conference opens a broader discussion on AI in education: What new questions does the use of AI raise in relation to teachers’ professionalism, ethics, and responsibility? How can teachers navigate between leveraging the opportunities of technology and avoiding deskilling, ensuring that pedagogical and professional judgment remains central?

Keynote

Hidden Repair Work and Professional Judgment: Teachers’ Entanglements with Generative AI by Marita Ljungqvist, Associate Professor at Lund University

The keynote explores how teachers’ professional judgment unfolds through the often invisible work of checking, repairing, and adapting AI-generated teaching materials.

In addition, PhD Fellow Maria Birch Rokoguniwai and CAISA Chief Scientist, Professor Helene Friis Ratner, will present findings from the research project Data Visions: Teaching in the Age of Digital Data Visualizations, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

The conference is organized in collaboration between DTU Management, Center for AI in Society, CAISA, and KP, Copenhagen University College.

Time and Location

August 18, 2026, 09:30 to 13:30
DTU Lyngby Campus, room number will be announced shortly

We hope to welcome teachers, developers, teacher educators, researchers, leaders, and others with an interest in digitalization and AI in education for a shared professional discussion.

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Please note: The conference is in Danish

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Digital sovereignty is multidimensional and requires priority

In a time of geopolitical instability and rapid AI development, control over digital infrastructure and data has become critical. While there is broad agreement on the need for action at the national, Nordic, and EU levels, a shared language around digital sovereignty is still lacking. This lack of alignment leads either to inaction or to narrow technical solutions without strategic direction. The core argument of the brief is that digital sovereignty is a multidimensional concept, involving both principled positions and pragmatic choices. Reducing it to technical solutions risks overlooking the values and trade-offs that determine who controls and benefits from these systems. Conversely, focusing solely on values leads to abstract principles without practical implementation or real impact. Digital sovereignty is rarely about choosing between full self-sufficiency and total dependence. Rather, it is about balancing often competing demands for openness, security, competitiveness, growth, values, and rights in a world where capabilities are unevenly distributed. This means that it is necessary to define who or what is to be protected or promoted, within the domains of security, economic growth, or citizens’ rights, and to recognize that choices in one domain may strengthen or undermine another. The brief focuses on AI as the area where digital sovereignty is most acutely at stake, but the concepts apply more broadly to digital infrastructure and data. It provides decision-makers with tools to navigate these dilemmas by presenting:

- A conceptual framework for identifying who or what should be digitally sovereign.

- An overview of how digital sovereignty is prioritized around the world.

- An understanding that sovereignty can be exercised through three control regimes: ownership, expertise, or regulation – but that none of these are sufficient on their own.

The central implication of the brief is that digital sovereignty requires an integrated strategy that combines ownership, expertise, and regulation, while managing the interdependencies and trade-offs between security, economic growth, and citizens’ rights through clear objectives. Without this holistic approach, there is a risk of ineffective regulation, unusable infrastructure, or a lack of capacity to develop, maintain, and apply solutions in practice, potentially undermining security, growth, or rights.