Education Technology Society

Digital books are now a common part of education, but concerns are growing around the problems of students reading on-screen. Marte Blikstad-Balas (University of Oslo) discusses the latest research around what it means to read on-screen as opposed to reading from ‘proper’ books, and why government bans on digital devices are not the best response. Accompanying reference >>> Jensen, R., Ro...

The Australian government has just announced that it will ban all young people under the age of 16 from using social media. Dr. Clare Southerton explains the background to this ‘ban’ and what it might mean for students and schools. Recommended reading >>>   Lisa Given (2024). Australia’s social media ban for kids under 16 just became law. How it will work remains a mystery . The Conversat...

Digital technologies are now a key means of ‘nudging’ students (and teachers) to make better decisions.  Mathias Decuypere (PHZH) talks about the coming together of behavioural economics thinking and digital education, and how critical ed-tech scholars should be looking for alternate ways of working with this concept of the ‘edunudge’.  Accompanying reference >>> Mathias Decuypere & S...

University life is now increasingly mediated by digital platforms. Joe Noteboom’s research looks at the everyday realities of studying through platforms, and how students’ dependence on these technologies can lead to a number of problems and vulnerabilities.   Accompanying reference >>> Joe Noteboom (2024): The student as user: mapping student experiences of platformisation in higher educ...

Dan Krutka (University of North Texas) is on a mission to support students, teachers and parents to think critically and make informed decisions about the digital tech in their lives. Dan talks about the idea of the ‘Technoskepticism Iceberg’ as a framework to identify the technical, psychosocial and political dimensions of technology. Accompanying reference >>>  Pleasants, J., Krutka, D....

Two years on from the initial panic around Chat GPT and student cheating we catch with Phill Dawson from Deakin’s ‘Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning’. Phill reflects on what universities have got wrong in their responses to GenAI, and why this might be a good time to entirely rethink the notion of student assessment altogether. Accompanying reference >>>  Bearman, M.,...

We talk with Sonia Livingstone (Digital Futures for Children, LSE) about the ways in which EdTech and data protection policies often fail to protect children’s rights at school.  In particular we look at Google Classroom as an example of how policymakers, regulators and governments need to intervene more forcibly in the EdTech marketplace.  Accompanying reference >>>  Livingstone, S., Pot...

Pekka Mertala (University of Oulu) talks about a new exhaustive analysis of nearly 1900 articles that charts the evolving use of the ‘digital native’ concept in academic literature.  We talk about the history of the idea of ‘digital natives’, why the persistence of the idea is damaging, and how we need to actively campaign against its future use. ** this is the final episode of Season One of ETS ....

Nathalie DiBerardino (Western University) discusses the growing take-up of emotion AI in schools – tech that claims to detect student attention, concentration, and even interest levels.  What are the harms of relying on such tech in classrooms, and how might educators  and students push back?   Accompanying reference >>>  DiBerardino, N. & Stark, L. (2023). (Anti)-Intentional Harms: T...

Jack Reed (University of Exeter) talks about the recent UK government push to ban mobile phones from schools in England.  He fills us in on the motivations of UK politicians, why phone bans need to seen as a human rights issue, and the benefits of taking a postdigital approach to thinking about technology and education. Accompanying reference >>>   Reed, J. & Dunn, C. (2024).  Postdig...

Antti Paakkari (Tampere University) talks about his research on digital technologies in Finnish early childhood centres – from digital portfolios to activity trackers.  We discuss how these technologies are changing the dynamics between children, educators and parents, and leading to increased assessment of children despite the expectation that early childhood centres are assessment-free.  Accompa...

Faith Boninger talks about how digital technologies are increasingly implicated in the commercialism of education.   We talk about Faith’s involvement in the long-running NEPC reports on virtual high schools, the NEPC’s fight against personalised learning systems, and why tech companies have an insatiable urge to ‘fix’ education.    Accompanying link >> The National Education Policy Centre a...

Recent reports of facial recognition technology being developed for use in US classrooms has attracted widespread criticism. We talk to Charles Logan (Northwestern University) about the problems that facial recognition poses for students and educators.   >>> Accompanying reference:    Inside Higher Education (2024). Facial Recognition Heads to Class. Will Students Benefit?    Feb 27th.

Michael Geiss (Zurich University of Teacher Education) talks about a new edited book looking at how computers came into European schools from the 1960s to 1990s.  We talk about the importance of ‘pioneer’ teachers in paving the way for EdTech markets to develop, why critical scholars need to ‘follow the money’ while also paying more attention to national political structures, and why the EdTech ag...

Jack Webster (University of Auckland) talks about the need to update how schools teach the topic of ‘Digital Citizenship’, and how post-digital thinking might revitalise this often-overlooked aspect of digital education.  Accompanying reference >>  Jack Webster (2024).  Updating Digital Citizenship Education for a Postdigital Society. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies https://doi.or...

Katerina Sperling (Linköping University) talks about her ongoing research into the realities of AI use in Swedish primary classrooms.     Accompanying reference >>   Katarina Sperling, Linnéa Stenliden, Jörgen Nissen, Fredrik Heintz (2022).  Still w(AI)ting for the automation of teaching: An exploration of machine learning in Swedish primary education using Actor-Network Theory.  European Jo...

Claire Murray (University of South Australia) talks about research looking at the claims made by EdTech companies and investors about the ‘digital disruption’ of universities. She talks about how the EdTech sector is limited by its focus on the economic value of higher education and promises of enhanced efficiency, acceleration and scalability. In contrast to promises of micro-credentials and nano...

In August 2023, the Swedish education minister Lotta Edholm surprised many people by announcing her government’s intention to reverse the country’s previous bold commitment to the digitisation of schools.  With more details now emerging of an official commitment to textbooks, hand-writing and other ‘analogue’ methods, we catch up Prof. Anna-Lena Godhe (Jönköping University) to find out what is rea...

In this episode, Dr. Lulu Shi (University of Oxford) talks about the her new research around the economic and political agendas of tech firms and policymakers driving the digitalisation of education in the UK.  Lulu’s work is already raising interesting findings. Amongst other things, we talk about the influence of effective altruism on UK government thinking around tech, and the ambitions of firm...

Wayne Holmes (UCL) has been working around AI and education *long* before it became fashionable!  In this episode, Wayne looks back over the recent hype around Chat GPT and generative AI and offers some suggestions of where the field of AI and education might be heading next.  We also get up to speed on how international organisations such as UNESCO, OECD, the EU and Council of Europe are beginnin...

Reports of ‘what China is doing’ are a key part of the hype around AI and education in Western countries. But how is AI actually being developed in China, and how can we make sense of the complex politics, history and culture of Chinese education? In this episode we hear from Jeremy Knox (University of Oxford) about his recent book ‘AI and education in China’.  Accompanying reference >>   Je...

Until recently, Audrey Watters was one of the most prominent and prolific critics of digital technology and education – dubbed  ‘ed-tech's Cassandra'. Then in 2021, she published a book, quit Twitter, and wound up her highly influential ‘Hack Education’ blog. In this episode, we catch up with Audrey about her new ‘Second Breakfast’ project, and her pivot to writing about fitness technolo...

Ben Williamson joins us for a sneak preview of the mammoth 2024 World Yearbook of Education with eighteen new  chapters themed around “Digitalization of Education in the Era of Algorithms, Automation and Artificial Intelligence.” Accompanying reference >>   Ben Williamson, Janja Komljenovic, Kalervo Gulson (eds)  (2024) World Yearbook of Education 2024: Digitalisation of Education in the Era...

Advance warning of  ‘Education Technology Society’ … a new podcast about digital education and education futures. This is a place to catch up with the latest ideas, arguments and work coming out of the critical studies of education and technology. We will be releasing episodes from Sept 2023, so FOLLOW or SUBSCRIBE to this show from the podcast platform of your choice. See you very soon!