By Sue Sharpe, Dr Victoria McArthur, Professor Ari Seligmann and Associate Professor Tim Fawns
Posted Thursday 3 September, 2026

At Monash, we recognise that the most significant questions in higher education rarely have simple solutions. Challenge Conversations are a dialogue designed to help our teaching community explore complex educational problems.

Inspired by the PAAIR project, these conversations bring together panels of specialists, students, and practitioners with different perspectives on an issue. Their task is not to solve the challenge, but to think it through out loud, grappling with messy intersections of technology, pedagogy, inclusivity, and leadership, and more.

In this eighth conversation, Sue Sharpe, Dr Victoria McArthur, Professor Ari Seligmann and Associate Professor Tim Fawns explored what increasingly seamless and wearable technologies such as AI glasses could mean for learning and assessment, including critical thinking, productive struggle, accessibility and inclusive assessment design. 

This conversation was held on 27th August, 2026. The recording and key takeaways from the conversation are below.

The captions in this recording are auto-generated. Please excuse any minor inaccuracies or phonetic errors. You can also explore our playlist of previous Challenge Space recordings.

Panellists

• Sue Sharpe, Lecturer of Artificial Intelligence and Inclusive Education at Deakin University
• Dr Victoria McArthur, Senior Lecturer in Human-Centred Computing in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University
• Professor Ari Seligmann, Associate Dean of Education in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University
• Associate Professor Tim Fawns, Monash Education Academy, Monash University

Key takeaways

This Challenge Conversation considered how AI glasses and wearables might change learning and assessment as access to information becomes faster, more immediate and increasingly integrated into students’ everyday experiences. The panel challenged us to look beyond the technology and consider what students still need to learn, how assessment can support that learning, and how we can design inclusive approaches that account for students who may benefit from these tools.

The panel began by recognising that this is a highly-charged topic of conversation, and talked about the broad range of types of glasses and wearables beyond those that are the focus of the media at the moment. Unfortunately, the beginning of the conversation was not recorded, so we add a text summary here:

AI wearables are diverse and rapidly evolving, encompassing glasses, watches, earbuds, pendants and other devices. AI glasses may or may not have cameras, such as with Meta glasses. Glasses with cameras are often used by people who are blind or have vision impairment. Depending on their features, wearables can support accessibility through cameras, bone-conducting speakers and in-lens displays that provide captions or real-time translation. Often controlled through discreet accessories such as rings or wristbands, these devices are becoming increasingly subtle, achieving what Corbin, Sharpe and Dawson (2026) call “dual transparency”, where their use may be barely noticeable to either the wearer or those around them.

Developing critical judgement in an augmented world

The panel talked about how AI glasses and wearables are part of a broader shift towards augmented intelligence, where information is increasingly available at the moment it is needed. In this context, education cannot focus only on students’ ability to find and retrieve information. Students still need disciplinary knowledge to interpret what they encounter and the critical judgement to evaluate and use it effectively.

Concerns about AI diminishing critical thinking should therefore focus on whether students are continuing to practise critical thinking, rather than on the technology alone.

“Not doing critical thinking [is what] impacts critical thinking, not AI glasses. So, we have an obligation…to encourage students to do critical thinking, irrespective of what technologies they’re using.” – Tim Fawns

“I think it is critical judgment and critical thinking and the use of that information, not just the ability to find and retrieve it…In order to have these evaluative capacities, you need subject area knowledge to make sense of it.” – Ari Seligmann

Helping students engage with the discomfort of learning

An interesting point of discussion was that “AI-resilient” assessment is not simply a matter of educators continually redesigning tasks to prevent or withstand AI use. It also requires conversations with students about what AI can and cannot do, what their role is as learners, and why challenge, uncertainty and confusion are necessary parts of learning.

Panellists noted that students may offload difficult work to AI, not because they are unwilling to learn, but because they interpret discomfort as evidence that they are not capable. Assessment design can help students recognise and persist through this productive discomfort.

“The most important thing is to be having those conversations with students around what AI can and can’t do, and to help them feel comfortable with the discomfort of learning.” – Victoria McArthur

“There are so many learners who just don’t know that learning’s supposed to be hard, and if you’re feeling confused, you might be doing it right.” – Sue Sharpe

Designing for access and inclusion from the outset

For some students, AI glasses may be enabling technologies rather than optional enhancements. They could make learning more accessible for students who are blind or vision impaired, deaf or hard of hearing, as well as people who may not currently see university as a place where they can succeed.

Panellists argued that these students should not be treated as edge cases. Considering their needs when assessments are first designed can create more inclusive and credible  approaches that benefit, attract and retain a wider range of learners. 

“There are students who don’t go to university because they don’t think that they can succeed at university. And sometimes, for some of them, these tools are going to make all the difference.” – Sue Sharpe

“One of the best things that we can do is not treat that as an edge case…What would it look like to design or to account for those students as we’re actually creating our assessment?” – Sue Sharpe

_{Note: Extraction of quotes and paraphrasing for this blog was supported by ChatGPT.}