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Here, the authors present a case study of how two professors from different disciplines at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, managed to interweave dialogic components of Paulo Freire’s pedagogy into an institutional context full of requirements and demands that restrict pedagogical choices. Enacting Freire’s ideal of a liberatory epistemology, as Freire calls it, is extremely difficult, because institutional constraints increase the psychological and emotional distance between our students and instructors. In spite of this, the instructors devised ways to create a classroom based on Freire’s dialogic approach to education. Using Martin Buber’s terminology, the authors work to establish their students as “Thous” rather than as “Its.” Together with their students, the authors explore their texts, and generate free discussions based on the notion of co-constructing our classroom and co-constructing what knowledge is and means to us. Establishing this “open space” of inquiry and acceptance involves practicing Freire’s strategies producing authentic dialogue. Here, instructors participate actively with students. They engage in classroom exercises and even write with the students. The atmosphere in the classroom is relational and inter-subjective. Instructors also enact behaviors explained in Julien Mirivel’s Positive Communication model that bridge the gulf of separateness that work to decipher the unknown.

With the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI), it is important to consider how young people are making sense of these tools in their everyday lives. Drawing on critical postdigital approaches to learning and literacy, this study aims to center the experiences and perspectives of young people who encounter and experiment with generative AI in their daily writing practices.

This critical case study of one digital platform – Character.ai – brings together an adolescent and adult authorship team to inquire about the intertwining of young people’s playful and critical perspectives when writing on/with digital platforms. Drawing on critical walkthrough methodology (Light et al., 2018), the authors engage digital methods to study how the creative and “fun” uses of AI in youths’ writing lives are situated in broader platform ecologies.

The findings suggest experimentation and pleasure are key aspects of young people’s engagement with generative AI. The authors demonstrate how one platform works to capitalize on these dimensions, even as youth users engage critically and artfully with the platform and develop their digital writing practices.

This study highlights how playful experimentation with generative AI can engage young people both in pleasurable digital writing and in exploration and contemplation of platforms dynamics and structures that shape their and others’ literate activities. Educators can consider young people’s creative uses of these evolving technologies as potential opportunities to develop a critical awareness of how commercial platforms seek to benefit from their users.

This study contributes to the development of a critical and humanist research agenda around generative AI by centering the experiences, perspectives and practices of young people who are underrepresented in the burgeoning research devoted to AI and literacies.

Applies a socially‐constructed perspective on cognition and learning to learning organisations. Explains socially‐constructed cognition, learning and the concept of a learning organisation‐personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking. Based on Australian cases and research, it outlines the enterprise culture, the learning university and workplace learning. Examines the possible key role of consultants in promoting organisational learning. Argues that a major shift in thinking about HR has to take place to support learning organisations. Outlines future areas for research: redefinition of concepts such as team thinking and team learning to incorporate the study of constraints; the study of the physical environments which hinder/support learning organisations and further investigation of work group cultures.

The purpose of this contribution is to encourage library and information (LIS) professionals to draw on the initiatives by Carol Kuhlthau to align information seeking with learning theories and new roles for intermediaries. Considering the vast array of developments in information communication technology (ICT), and the challenges and pressures for continuing professional development (CPD) and reflection, it seems timely to encourage experimentation with the ideas of Kuhlthau on Zones of Intervention and Lev Vygotsky on Zones of Proximal Development (ZPD), as means to become au fait with these theories, ideas and related research, and to apply these theories and ideas on a practical level to offer opportunities for the continuing professional development of LIS professionals with specific reference to ICT, and to eventually also impact on the training of users.

This contribution will be written against the background of research from information literacy, information behaviour (including information seeking), the learning theory of Vygotsky on Zones of Proximal Development, and continuing professional development.

Although the information seeking process (ISP) model of Kuhlthau is widely cited, the idea of Zones of Intervention which she developed from the work of Vygotsky does unfortunately not feature strongly in the LIS literature. Considering the literature on Zones of Proximal Development, it can, however, hold much potential for LIS professionals to align support with information seeking with professional (optimal) development – especially if using the focus (Zones of Intervention and Zones of Proximal Development) as a means to become au fait, and if initially taking a more practical and relaxed approach as point of departure.

Relatively few publications on Zones of Intervention and Zones of Proximal Development appear in the LIS literature. None of these are to the author's knowledge, aligned to the continuing professional development of LIS professionals on a practical level or with regard to fully exploiting ICT developments.