Critical A.I Literacy in Teacher Education: Preparing Educators & Students
A project led by Megan Boler in partnership with the McLuhan Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on media literacy.
Funded by Canadian Heritage’s Digital Citizen Contribution Program
Two Day Summit
A two-day summit will bring together people working across several fields, including: teacher educators and practicing teachers, media literacy and AI literacy experts, people working with Indigenous, diasporic, newcomer, and equity-focused communities, media literacy and AI literacy experts, people working with Indigenous, diasporic, newcomer, and equity-focused communities. The summit will be a working conversation with the purpose of gathering input from different sectors on what critical AI and media literacy should look like now, and will help identify major challenges educators and media practitioners are seeing, what students need to understand about AI and disinformation, and what kinds of resources would be most useful to build out in teacher education.
Teacher Education Pilot
The teacher education component will be piloted beginning in January. It will take place in OISE’s teacher education context and will involve pre-service educators developing practical approaches to AI and disinformation literacy. The emphasis is on praxis: creating usable pedagogies for intermediate and senior students that can be taken up by both pre-service and in-service educators. This may include lesson plans, classroom activities, discussion prompts, and strategies for helping students identify AI-generated or manipulated content, evaluate sources and evidence, understand how misinformation targets emotion, and connect AI literacy to civic, ethical, and social justice questions.
Research Conducted to Date
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Critical AI Literacy in Education Panel Series
The Critical AI Literacy in Education panel series brought together scholars, educators, and experts across disciplines to critically examine the implications of AI in education and the possibilities for developing more thoughtful, equitable, critical and human-centred approaches to its use. Across three 2-hour-long panels, the series explored the Canadian educational context, equity and diversity, and the affective and relational dimensions of AI, creating space for interdisciplinary dialogue on questions of power, representation, inclusion, and the impacts of these technologies on teaching and learning. The series attracted strong engagement, with more than 300 attendees across all the panels.
Longer-Term Aims
The long-term aim of this project is to develop and refine a scalable framework for integrating critical AI and disinformation literacy into teacher education, equipping future educators to address the cognitive, emotional, social, and ethical dimensions of emerging technologies. Through research-informed pedagogical resources and partnerships with educational institutions, the project seeks to support more critical, equitable, and culturally responsive approaches to AI literacy across diverse educational contexts.
Meet the Team
Megan Boler
Megan Boler is Full Professor and Acting Department Chair in the Social Justice Education Department. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto, and the Director of the Centre for Media Culture & Education. She earned her Ph.D. from the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her books include Affective Politics of Digital Media: Propaganda By Other Means (eds. Boler and Davis, Routledge, 2020); Feeling Power: Emotions and Education (Routledge, 1999). She has received over $1 million dollars in funding, and is currently PI of two major grants: “Critical AI Literacy and Teacher Education” (Canadian Heritage, $220,000) and “The “Wicked Problem” of AI Ethics: Facilitating Participatory Cross-Sector Imaginaries to Implement Design Justice” (SSHRC, $100,000). Recently published essays include “Digital Affect Culture and the Logics of Melodrama: Online Polarization and the January 6 Capitol Riots through the Lens of Genre and Affective Discourse Analysis,” in Social Media + Society (2024), and “Digital Ressentiment and the Neoliberal Logics of Pain” The Routledge Companion to Digital Media & Democracy (ed. Zizi Papacharissi, Routledge 2026). She teaches graduate courses in media and communications, cultural studies, and in critical theory and feminist philosophies.
Amanda Trigiani
Amanda Trigiani, PhD Candidate, is a sessional professor, teacher educator, secondary school teacher, and educational researcher whose work explores the intersections of media literacy, social justice, critical AI literacy, mis/disinformation, and the affective dimensions of identity and political engagement in digital spaces. Her doctoral research at the University of Toronto, entitled (Counter)Narratives of Justice and Healing: Teacher Educators, Tensions, and Equity-Related Praxis in Canada, examines the pedagogical and emotional experiences of Canadian teacher educators as they navigate conversations about social justice with teacher candidates. Her broader scholarship connects social justice with emotion, storytelling, identity, and healing, exploring how education can foster critical engagement with media and technology while cultivating creative, collective, and action-oriented approaches to addressing injustice.
Shiva Boloursaz Mashhadi
Shiva Boloursaz Mashhadi, MEd, BSc, is an educator, researcher, curriculum developer, and Project Manager of the Critical AI Literacy in Education (CAIL) project at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. With an interdisciplinary background in engineering, education, and curriculum and pedagogy, her work engages with the intersections of technology, teaching, and social equity. She holds a Master of Education in Curriculum and Pedagogy from OISE and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering. Shiva brings extensive experience in curriculum development, teacher education, and professional management across educational and workforce contexts. Prior to joining the CAIL project, she led a Google-funded AI upskilling initiative, designing accessible, activity-based curricula that explored AI literacy, ethics, media literacy, and sustainability. This work deepened her engagement with the pedagogical and social questions that emerge as AI becomes increasingly embedded in learning and everyday life. Her work is grounded in a critical understanding of AI as not merely a technological development, but a social and educational phenomenon shaped by assumptions, power structures, and systemic inequities. She is particularly interested in how curriculum and teacher education can foster critical inquiry and ethical reflection of the social, political, and epistemological dimensions of AI.
Dr. Noah Khan
Dr. Noah Khan recently earned his PhD at the University of Toronto where his work focused on the emotional aspects of artificial intelligence development.
David Nostbakken
David Nostbakken is the President and CEO of the McLuhan Foundation. Committed to media literacy and critical AI literacy.He was a student of Marshall McLuhan and served as his teaching assistant and collaborator. Dr. Nostbakken was a McLuhan Fellow at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto 2104-2018. He is the founder of a number of media related enterprises in Canada and internationally including Vision Television , WETV International, China Green Channel, Power of Peace Network and The Ecology Global Network. He served as Director of Communications for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) where he supported exploration in uses of information and communication technology for sustainable development and educational advancement in Africa, Asia and South America. For over a decade he taught strategic communication and social entrepreneurship at Carleton University in Ottawa, and the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto. His doctoral research was an exploration of the educational value of media literacy. Dr. Nostbakken is CEO of the consulting company Nostbakken and Nostbakken Inc.
Luke Stark
Luke Stark is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies and Co-Director of the Starling Centre for Just Technologies and Just Societies at Western University (London, ON, Canada). His work interrogates the historical, social, and ethical impacts of computing and artificial intelligence technologies. Stark was the Inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society in 2023/2024, and a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Global Scholar from 2024-2026. He was the recipient of a Western Research Excellence Award in 2025. Luke has previously been a Postdoctoral Researcher at Microsoft Research; a Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at Dartmouth College; and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. His current book project, Signal Feelings: Computing and Emotion from Cybernetics to Artificial Intelligence is forthcoming from The MIT Press in the fall of 2027.
Carolyn Wilson
Carolyn Wilson is the Executive Director of the McLuhan Foundation for Digital Media Literacy, and a Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, Western University, Canada. Carolyn has over 30 years of experience in media and information literacy (MIL), and has been involved in initiatives with UNESCO headquarters, Paris for over 15 years. Carolyn is the Vice-Chair of UNESCO’s MIL Alliance Global Board, and a member of the international UNESCO/UNAOC University Network on MIL and Intercultural Dialogue. Carolyn was a co-author of the first and second editions of UNESCO’s Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Educators and Learners and UNESCO’s MIL Policy and Strategy Guidelines. Carolyn has worked with educators, governments and media industries in the Asia-Pacific Region, in South Africa, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and across Europe and North America. Carolyn has also held leadership positions in Canada, serving as the President of the Association for Media Literacy for 14 years. For the Ontario Government in Canada, Carolyn led the development of media literacy policy and curriculum which have become foundational in the field.
Carolyn has received numerous awards for her work, including: the Jesse McCanse Award from the National Telemedia Council, U.S.A.; the Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto; and the Prime Minister of Canada Award for Teaching Excellence.an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies and Co-Director of the Starling Centre for Just Technologies and Just Societies at Western University (London, ON, Canada). His work interrogates the historical, social, and ethical impacts of computing and artificial intelligence technologies. Stark was the Inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society in 2023/2024, and a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Global Scholar from 2024-2026. He was the recipient of a Western Research Excellence Award in 2025. Luke has previously been a Postdoctoral Researcher at Microsoft Research; a Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at Dartmouth College; and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. His current book project, Signal Feelings: Computing and Emotion from Cybernetics to Artificial Intelligence is forthcoming from The MIT Press in the fall of 2027.