Collective Intelligence through Multimodal Pedagogy: Lessons from Human–GenAI Co-Creation in Open and Distance Education

Abstract

The arrival of Generative AI (GenAI) has sparked intense debates in Higher Education, particularly within open and distance learning (ODL), where digital mediation shapes how learners and educators engage with knowledge. Much of this debate remains focused on regulation or instrumental use, leaving less space for creative, multimodal, and collaborative approaches that position GenAI as a learning partner. This paper draws on the project People, Places and Pasta or Uncreative Explorations as Collective Intelligence (Nerantzi et al., 2025), developed during the EDEN 2025 conference. The project wove together notes and reflections into four creative outputs: a pedagogical recipe, a Socratic dialogue, a collective poem, and a mosaic of visual metaphors. Each functions as a pedagogical tool that opens new pathways for integrating GenAI into ODL. We argue that these tools, taken together, can foster critical GenAI literacy, creative expression, and learner agency in ODL. They invite educators to embrace human–GenAI co-creation not as a substitution, but as a catalyst for thoughtful, critical, and collective intelligence.