Seeking silver bullet solutions and quick fixes within education de-professionalises the role of teachers. Scripted or generically planned lessons may reduce demands on teachers in relation to planning time, but it also reduces teachers’ agency and ownership of the lesson. Engaging with AI to generate such resources as a passive user carries a risk of diminishing creativity, agency, and reflective thinking which are highly regarded qualities of successful and inclusive teachers. These traits, along with resilience, wellbeing and self-efficacy contribute to a strong teacher identity that supports job satisfaction and retention (García-Lázaro et al., 2022). Therefore, these important aspects of teacher identity should be developed during initial teacher education. During this period, preservice teachers (PSTs) also develop skills in creating lessons, which they are expected to transfer into practice during professional experience. Supporting PSTs to think deeply about the nuances of the classroom and their implications for teaching should also be scaffolded by the supervising or mentor teacher. Unfortunately, this is not always the reality with a range of personal, political, cultural and contextual factors at play in each school (Griffiths et al., 2021). In this presentation, the metaphor of the Wizard of Oz is used as a vehicle to illustrate the journey of PSTs who documented their uses of the AI-powered application, Noticing, focussing on the lesson planning tool. The disruption of the “technological tornado” sends the group on the metaphorical journey that juxtaposes the encounters of Dorothy and her friends, with the experiences of the participants. The “technological tornado” has the potential to pave or circumvent opportunities for innovative teaching and learning. Using focus groups and arts-based reflection tools (timelining and photo storying) to examine layers of meaning (Glaw et al., 2017) the following research question is examined: What aspects of PSTs’ identity are evident during the use of Noticing as a lesson planning tool? Data were gathered over a 12-week trimester period from PSTs who are using the Noticing application during tutorials and independently while enrolled in their first professional experience course. The purposefully selected sample are drawn from a Master of Teaching degree at an Australian University and are in their first trimester of study. Findings from the thematic analysis are illustrated metaphorically through Dorothy (realisation of owning power), Scarecrow (agency), Tinman (resilience, emotion and care), Lion (courage through new experiences) and Toto (power and courage despite insignificance).

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