Educational Media in the Age of AI

At first glance, the talk of the “end of the textbook” seems plausible: information is available at any time, learning platforms deliver short inputs, and generative AI produces explanations, tasks or summaries within seconds. Yet this view confuses “availability” with “reliability” and “choice” with “education”. In the knowledge society, knowledge is indeed a central resource, but it has at the same time become more unstable: it grows, circulates, is reinterpreted, contradicts itself depending on context and quickly loses currency. And in Peter Gross’s diagnosis of the multi-option society, with every new possibility not only freedom grows, but also decision-making pressure: what is relevant, what is valid, what is worth the limited time? For higher vocational education and training, this is not an abstract diagnosis but everyday reality: participants invest time alongside work and family, education providers operate in competition, sectors and professional organisations assume shared responsibility for standards, and examinations require comprehensible proof of competence. It is precisely here that the role of educational media shifts. They are less “repositories of content” than a curated, accountable knowledge infrastructure that provides orientation, ensures connectivity and renders learning processes coherent.

Generative AI primarily changes the economics of content. Content becomes inexpensive, varied, linguistically adaptable and seemingly personalised. However, this does not automatically increase educational quality. On the contrary: the easier it is to produce statements, the more important criteria of validity become. In higher vocational education and training – whether at Colleges of Higher Education, in programmes leading to federal qualifications or in modular preparatory programmes – “validity” is closely linked to examination regulations, guidelines, competence profiles, professional standards and practical requirements. AI can provide support here, for example with exercise variations, linguistic differentiation, or structuring learning routines. It can, however, also produce plausible statements that later prove incorrect or simplify content in a way that does not hold up in examinations or professional practice. Reliability therefore arises not from the tool, but from editorial responsibility, subject review, didactic scrutiny, versioning, and transparent accountability.

Omnimodal education intensifies this challenge. In higher vocational education and training, learning is distributed across face-to-face or blended formats, self-study, digital environments, transfer assignments in the workplace, peer learning within cohorts, coaching and increasingly AI-supported learning assistance. This diversity is a strength but easily produces fragmentation: many learning moments, many sources, few shared reference points. At the same time, the heterogeneity of participants is high; prior experience, roles within the workplace and objectives differ considerably. In this situation, educational media gain a new core function: they create coherence. They connect learning objectives, learning activities and performance assessments, make expectations explicit, stabilise key concepts and establish a shared reference between participants, lecturers, education providers and – indirectly but effectively – the actors surrounding sectoral standards, professional organisations, and examination bodies. In a multi-option society, this coherence is not a step back towards rigidity, but a prerequisite for ensuring that choice does not slide into arbitrariness and that self-study truly leads to competence development.

At this point, Hartmut Rosa’s pedagogy of resonance becomes a helpful touchstone. Rosa reminds us that education does not primarily succeed as an increase in availability and control, but as a successful relationship to the world. Resonance arises where the subject matter “responds”: when a case, a concept, a norm, or a dilemma affects participants and compels them to take a reasoned position. This is central in higher vocational education and training because it concerns professional judgement, responsibility, and confidence in action, not merely the reproduction of knowledge. In Rosa’s sense, resonance remains unavailable; it cannot be guaranteed technically. But it can be made more likely from a didactic perspective. Educational media contribute to this when they do not only explain but organise constructive challenge: when they provide realistic cases with conflicting objectives, when they formulate transfer assignments in such a way that participants must observe, decide, document, and reflect within the workplace, and when they make reasoning requirements visible as they truly count in oral, written or practice-oriented assessment formats. AI can accompany such learning pathways, for example by providing feedback on drafts or additional practice opportunities; resonance itself, however, arises in serious engagement with the subject matter and its consequences.

When we bring these perspectives together, the future form of educational media becomes apparent: away from the self-contained, monolithic book towards a curated, modular, and versioned knowledge system that reliably integrates examination requirements, practical relevance and learning effectiveness. For us as a textbook publisher, this is an expression of our mission: we combine didactic craftsmanship with technology and create effective learning solutions for people in personal, professional, or organisational development. Our educational media make learning objectives achievable, also in self-study; they are clearly structured, accessible, and connected to further learning. In higher vocational education and training, this means specifically that content must endure across learning phases, that it must connect the language of practice with the language of competences and examination requirements, and that it must make updating and correction traceable, so that trust can arise.

Automation can make training efficient; it can provide feedback, support repetition, and facilitate individualisation. It does not replace a learning model. Higher vocational education and training requires an accountable knowledge base, a transparent understanding of competence and a didactic approach that does not merely optimise output but promotes judgement, transfer capability and professional identity. In Rosa’s terms: not the fastest answer is decisive, but the quality of the relationship to the subject matter.

In the age of AI, educational media do not lose importance in higher vocational education and training. They become the central infrastructural element that provides orientation in the knowledge and multi-option society, creates coherence in omnimodal settings and enables resonance – instead of reducing learning to availability, pacing and sheer mass of content.

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