By Helda Pinheiro

When I set out to translate the Metaliteracy Goals and Learning Objectives into Portuguese, I realized I had a unique opportunity: why not apply metaliterate thinking to the very tool reshaping our educational landscape? As part of my ongoing work on AI in education, I partnered with Gemini to generate the initial translation, not just to save time, but to test the boundaries of human-AI collaboration in academic localization. The goal was to evaluate the tool’s accuracy, identify where human critical thinking becomes indispensable, and explore how emerging technologies can support a framework as nuanced as Metaliteracy.

The workflow operated as a true collaboration: the initial translation was generated by the AI, followed by a process of critical review, linguistic refinement, and contextual adaptation led by me. At the end of the process, I asked the AI itself to generate an analytical report synthesizing the rationale behind the revisions I had made.

Below are two central examples that illustrate the dynamics of this human-in-the-loop revision:

1. Adapting “Metaliterate Mindset” and “Metaliterate Learner”

• Initial AI Suggestion: “mentalidade de metaletramento” (a wordy nominal construction) and “aprendiz praticante do metaletramento” (a clunky phrasing).
• Human Refinement: “mentalidade metaletrada” and “aprendiz metaletrado”.
• Linguistic Rationale: Human intervention identified a more natural adjectival solution. In Portuguese, the noun letramento (literacy) derives into the adjective letrado (literate). Applying this same morphological rule to create metaletrada/o avoids heavy phrasing, significantly enhancing the document’s cohesion, fluency, and professional tone.

2. Transitioning from “O aprendizado metaliterativo abrange…” to “A aprendizagem metaletrada envolve/compreende…”

• Initial AI Suggestion: “O aprendizado metaliterativo abrange quatro domínios…”
• Human Refinement: “A aprendizagem metaletrada envolve, ou compreende, quatro domínios…”
• Linguistic Rationale: This intervention ensured crucial pedagogical and semantic precision based on two factors:
  • Pedagogical Precision (Aprendizagem vs. Aprendizado): In Portuguese educational theory and academic literature, aprendizagem is the established technical term for describing the active cognitive process of knowledge construction. In contrast, aprendizado sounds more colloquial and focused strictly on an outcome.
  • Semantic Clarity: The AI’s initial choice of the word metaliterativo introduced semantic noise, as readers might mistakenly associate it with literature (literatura) or literary studies. The human selection of metaletrada firmly anchors the concept in its true root: letramento (literacy).

Conclusion: Ultimately, this project served as a practical demonstration of metaliteracy in action. While Artificial Intelligence provided a swift structural baseline, human critical thinking was indispensable for translating context, culture, and pedagogical intent. The refinement went beyond proofreading; it was an exercise in metacognition, critically evaluating machine-generated content to preserve academic rigor. As AI continues to reshape how we learn and communicate, this experience reinforces a fundamental truth of metaliteracy: technology is a powerful co-pilot, but the human mind remains the ultimate navigator. We are excited to share this framework adapted into Portuguese with the Lusophone community, empowering educators and learners to navigate our evolving information ecosystem together.

Helda Pinheiro holds a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Brasília (UnB), Brazil. She currently conducts research focusing on AI in education, human-AI collaboration, and academic localization. Her doctoral research, defended in 2022, pioneered the study of the Metaliteracy framework in Brazil. She and two colleagues participated in the evaluation and updating of the Metaliteracy framework in 2025. Helda also translated the 2018 and 2025 versions of the Metaliteracy Goals and Learning Objectives into Portuguese, aiming to empower educators and students throughout the Portuguese-speaking world.