Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

Views from the bridges

Colin N. Webber Dr, SAE University CollegeFollow

Published

17-7-2025

Type of Work

Creative Work - Text based

Advisors and Contributors

Anthropic Claude (collaborative writing partner)

Abstract

Views from the Bridges is a multi-part series of vignettes set at intervals across the next 30 years, following the education paths of 5 characters at different stages of life. It's speculative fiction but it draws on trends that are happening now, including the erosion of the perceived value of degrees in job ads, the rapid uptake of tools that can do student assessments, the scramble to secure unit and course outcomes, the call for regulation, a growing recognition of human values that have been considered "co-curricular".

I'm drawing on ideas such as

- Post-digital pedagogy: To examine how human and machine capabilities integrate

- Communities of practice theory: How validation and credentialing of expertise might shifts from institutional to community-based models

- Neurodiversity paradigms: Challenging neurotypical assumptions in learning design

- Inclusive Knowledge: Recognising Indigenous and Eastern pedagogical models as possible templates for post-collapse learning

There are 9 chapters to this series, starting with some "Questions that Matter," then six human stories, then a chapter with some potential practical ideas, and finally the story of the stories. Spoiler alert - I worked extensively, iteratively and collaboratively with Claude AI on these chapters. "We" kept extensive notes about process, discoveries, personal experiences, timelines and through-lines, improvisations, structural shifts, character development etc. The result is very difficult for even me to separate what was "mine" and what was Claude. I don't consider myself a writer. I am a composer and musician used to working in multidisciplinary collaborations or in studios where individuals bring themselves to the process. This felt a lot like that.