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Emerging technologies (ETs) will most likely have a strong impact on education (starting with higher education), just like they have already had in so many economic and social areas. This paper is based on the results obtained in the project “My Future Colleague Robot”, an initiative that aimed to improve the competence of university teaching staff regarding the introduction of ETs in teaching practices at university level. In this paper, we identified the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that are related to the adoption in higher education of the combination of two ETs: robotics together with artificial intelligence (AI). Additionally, we analyzed the perceptions of university-level teaching staff about the potential of introducing ETs in education. The empirical data presented here were collected using written essays from 18 university teachers and students. Deductive and inductive approaches with thematic analysis were used for the data analysis. The findings support the idea that previous ET-related experience can support positive attitudes and the implementations of ETs in university teaching; in this study, university teachers had optimistic expectations towards ETs, accepting them as part of teaching practice development, while discussion about the negative effects of ETs was negligible.

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Implementing an Emerging Technology (ET) is a difficult task due to people lacking ET-related knowledge and skills or having skeptical and negative attitudes towards the ET. As learners construct their understanding about an ET and develop related skills by actually passing through the ET Innovation Process (IP) stages (Awareness, Acceptance and Adoption), it could be useful to provide them with training that imitates certain IP stages. Using Artificial Intelligence Enhanced Robotics (AIER) as the example ET, we designed a two-day workshop to lead learners (n = 16) through the AIER IP Awareness stage, and a six-week training course with eight contact days to simulate the AIER IP Acceptance stage to learners (n = 10). Using online surveys and quantitative content analysis methods we confirmed that the workshop format increased the AIER-related self-confidence and general knowledge in 78% of participants, while the training course helped more than half of the participants to construct usable knowledge about a specific AIER and to see its possibilities in their specific work-place contexts. This paper is the pilot of using the Technology-Enhanced Learning Innovation Process (TELIP) model, first tested on a STEAM innovation, outside the educational context, for developing appropriate training approaches for specific ET IP stages.

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