From AI to Critical Thinking

Teacher Students’ Analyses of Copilot-Generated Technology Stories

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot are increasingly present in education, raising questions about their potential for both learning and bias reproduction. Building on a previous pre-study by the authors, this research explores how AI-generated storytelling can be used to foster critical thinking in technology teacher education.

In a university course, pre-service teachers were asked to generate children’s stories using Copilot and then analyse the technological content using a framework derived from an earlier study by one of the authors. The students were instructed to use an identical prompt (i.e., create a technology story for primary school children), and common narratives in the Copilot-generated stories involved a child and a robot discovering the wonders of coding or saving the world through new technologies (that they had developed together).

To interpret the students’ reflections, we draw on Langdon Winner’s critical philosophy of technology, using his perspectives as an analytical lens to identify how notions of neutrality, determinism, and the politics of artefacts appear in the students’ reasoning. Our analysis of the students’ written reflections shows that most of them present an uncritical view of technology. Few of the students demonstrated deeper critique of technological implications, ethical dilemmas, or socio-political dimensions. These findings suggest that without explicit scaffolding, AI-based storytelling risks reinforcing techno-optimistic perspectives rather than challenging them. We argue that integrating structured critical analysis – supported by frameworks such as Winner’s – is essential for developing reflective and responsible approaches to technology in teacher education.