AI in Learning and Society

Emily Clarke

Welcome back to Synapses – Connections 4 Research. I'm Emily Clarke, and as always, I'm joined by the marvellous Giacomo Di noto. If you tuned in last time, you'll remember we talked about how connections across disciplines—those spontaneous collaborations—can really spark new research in digital education. Well, this episode we're zeroing in on Theme 1, AI in Learning & Society, and honestly, it's a bit of a who's who of fascinating people. Giacomo, should we start our grand tour?

Giacomo Di noto

Absolutely, Emily. I mean, this theme is packed. We're talking about fourteen researchers, all bringing something unique to the intersection of AI, education, and society. Let's do this a bit like a roll call, but one where each name is sort of—how do you say?—a plot twist on its own. For example, we've got Alice Pierluigi working on multilingual didactics with AI support. She’s got a strong background in pedagogy but is looking for help with data analysis and software development.

Emily Clarke

Right, and just after Alice, there's Cristiana Dell’Erba. Her focus is on how students themselves see AI in didactics. She’s all about qualitative research, not so much on the quant side, but her insights could totally inform the more technical projects—like those of... ooh, say, Mohammad Talha, who’s tackling learning analytics and dashboard data visualization, or Fabrizio Lo Presti, our serious games and generative AI guru.

Giacomo Di noto

Yeah, exactly! And then you have people like Vanessa Pittirella, who's rethinking what it means to be a teacher with AI stepping on the stage. Her theoretical background is strong, but she’s looking for someone who’s not allergic to data analysis. Maybe someone like Debora Montano, but I’m getting sidetracked, sorry—

Emily Clarke

No worries, I love a tangent! We could go on: Pina Debbi is revisiting journalism through the AI lens, Sara Tondo is designing AI-powered assessment in STEM, and then there’s Federica Turco who’s all about Italian language pragmatics, but using AI. Each one brings a slightly different perspective. And don’t forget the ethical side with Lisa Ruffini, or Laura Rossi with her chatbots for universities and companies. It’s like a big AI jigsaw puzzle—the pieces just need to be arranged, you know?

Giacomo Di noto

And the puzzle analogy fits, especially with all the skills on offer. There’s Martina Bruno focused on university assessment models, Loredana Boero on AI and Latin—believe it or not, that’s a thing!—and Francesco Gracci, who’s mastering LLMs for instructional design. How do you actually pull all those perspectives together, Emily?

Emily Clarke

Well, you know, it reminds me of my first time collaborating with someone completely outside my field. I was studying cognitive science and I paired up with a computer scientist—honestly, I barely knew how to debug my own code, let alone understand his fancy algorithms. But it was in that confusion that something clicked. He’d explain something, I’d ask a naive question, and suddenly we’d spot ideas neither of us could’ve seen on our own. That’s what’s possible here—fresh eyes, new angles, and maybe even a bit of delightful chaos.

Giacomo Di noto

Yeah, that’s brilliant. And it’s exactly the magic we try to spotlight on this podcast, showing how these overlaps aren’t just possible—they’re actively happening.

Giacomo Di noto

Diving deeper, let’s talk about this theme’s real backbone: the skills map. You've got a thread of pedagogy, right? Alice Pierluigi and Lisa Ruffini—they both ace educational design, especially on the teaching and review side. People like Iacopo Masiero—he's coming at things from a media education angle, which, trust me, is not something you wanna underestimate, given how much digital literacy matters these days. Then you group the technical builders together—Fabrizio Lo Presti, Mohammad Talha. If you need a dashboard or want to make an AI tool actually work, these are your people. And on the qualitative side, there’s Cristiana Dell’Erba and Federica Troilo. Their knack for pulling out stories in the data is key when you’re trying to figure out what AI truly means for the learner experience.

Emily Clarke

Mmm, absolutely. But what’s interesting is, for every cluster of strength, there's almost always an exposed nerve—that’s a terrible analogy, but... gaps, essentially. Some, like Sara Tondo, Vanessa Pittirella, Martina Bruno, are brilliant with the conceptual side or design, but the technical stuff just isn’t their bag. Fabrizio, for all his coding prowess, admits pedagogy isn’t his strong suit. And quite a few—Cristiana, Federica Troilo, even Pina Debbi—need more muscle when it comes to crunching numbers or doing deep statistical analysis.

Giacomo Di noto

That’s dead on. I remember, not long ago, working on a project proposal where I’d set up all this data analysis and immersive tech stuff, but honestly... if I’d been left to my own devices on the educational design, well, anyone using it probably would’ve ended up confused. Luckily, I teamed up with someone who brought clarity to the entire pedagogical side, and suddenly our project made sense—to both of us and, more importantly, to our users. It’s that crossing of gaps—tech meeting teaching—that makes these collaborations not just possible, but so much richer.

Emily Clarke

Right, and even from the outside looking in, you can see that it’s never about a single person doing everything. The explicit mapping of strengths and needs—like who needs help with programming, who’s after stronger pedagogical grounding, or who just wants to wrap their brain around statistics—that forces a kind of radical honesty. And it opens up a window for people to go, “Hey, I’ve got a gap here, does anyone want to jump in and help?” Which, I think, is a really powerful culture to be building.

Emily Clarke

So then the natural follow-up is—how do we turn all these lovely gaps and overlaps into something real? Let's walk through a few matches, shall we? Take Alice Pierluigi, who, as we mentioned, is a whiz at pedagogy. She's a natural fit to guide developers like Fabrizio Lo Presti, who can build, but need that educational logic underneath. And on the flip side, Sara Tondo, who's got a creative mind for STEM assessment, is absolutely hunting for a Mattia Polticchia sort of partner to get the tech side done.

Giacomo Di noto

Yeah, and I’d add Mohammad Talha, with his dashboard and analytics know-how, is like a Swiss army knife for anyone struggling on the technical front. If you need data visualizations or a dashboard in your education project, that’s your guy. And then Laura Rossi, who’s well-versed in chatbot ethics and design, partners beautifully with someone like Francesco Gracci—he knows the AI tools but benefits from her instructional savvy.

Emily Clarke

Exactly, and imagine if more people just reached out proactively—“Hey, this is what I can offer, here’s what I need.” These skill maps aren’t just pretty diagrams, you know? They’re like... living invitations to collaborate. I’ve even been thinking, at conferences, what if we did mini ‘collaboration clinics’? Just little 10-minute brainstorm sessions where you show up with a need or an offer, and leave with real contacts. I tried this once at a research event, and I was amazed—the worst thing that happened was someone learned a new acronym. The best was a new project team got formed before coffee break.

Giacomo Di noto

And the real power there, I think, is it stops being luck-driven. You're not waiting for that hallway conversation; you’re actually engineering those spontaneous connections. If we start using this approach—cornering gaps as opportunities instead of obstacles—maybe we’ll see more of those unexpected, brilliant collaborations we talked about in our last episode. That’s what moves a research community forward.

Emily Clarke

Yeah, and hopefully, listeners are feeling inspired to pull out their own metaphorical maps and start connecting the dots. Giacomo, this feels like the tip of the iceberg, doesn’t it?

Giacomo Di noto

Absolutely, Emily. There’s a lot left below the surface, and I can’t wait to explore more themes and more unexpected research matches in our next episodes. Thanks for the company, Emily—and to everyone listening, keep making those connections.

Emily Clarke

Thanks, Giacomo. And thanks everyone for tuning in—see you next time on Synapses. Goodbye!

Giacomo Di noto

Ciao, Emily, ciao a tutti!