Education Technology Society

What do ed-tech policymakers want from academic research? Jan 28, 2025

Academics are increasingly looking to make an impact on policymakers, but critical ed-tech research often seems to fall on deaf ears.

In this episode Dr. Cristóbal Cobo – currently a senior ed-tech specialist at a major international organization – talks about the types of evidence that get most attention in policy circles, and some approaches that might help critical researchers get their messages through.

Accompanying reference >>> Cristóbal Cobo (2019). "I Accept The Terms And Conditions: Uses And Abuses Of Digital Technologies” [PDF book]

Reading in the digital age Jan 12, 2025

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., Roe, A. & Blikstad-Balas, M. (2024). The smell of paper or the shine of a screen? Students’ reading comprehension, text processing, and attitudes when reading on paper and screen. Computers & Education, 219, 105107.

Australia thinks that it can ban young people from using social media … we have questions! Dec 09, 2024

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 Conversation, 28th November.

‘Nudging’ students to do the right thing Dec 04, 2024

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 & Sigrid Hartong (2023) Edunudge. Learning, Media and Technology, 48(1):138-152

The challenges of studying in the ‘platformised’ university Nov 23, 2024

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 education, Learning, Media and Technology, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2024.2414055

Raising a generation of techno-skeptical students Oct 29, 2024

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., & Nichols, T. (2023). What relationships do we want with technology? Toward technoskepticism in schools. Harvard Educational Review, 93(4):486-515

Students ‘cheating’ with Generative AI Oct 06, 2024

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., Tai, J., Dawson, P., Boud, D., & Ajjawi, R. (2024). Developing evaluative judgement for a time of generative artificial intelligence. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1-13.

What’s the problem with Google Classroom? Sep 13, 2024

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., Pothong, K., Atabey, A., Hooper, L., & Day, E. (2024). The Googlization of the classroom: Is the UK in protecting children's data and rights? Computers and Education Open, 100195.

‘Digital natives’ … the concept that refuses to die Jun 10, 2024

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 ... we will return in September! **

Accompanying reference >>> Mertala, P., López-Pernas, S., Vartiainen, H., Saqr, M., & Tedre, M. (2024). Digital natives in the scientific literature: A topic modelling approach. Computers in Human Behavior, 152, 108076.

Emotion AI in education May 14, 2024

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: The Conceptual Pitfalls of Emotion AI in Education. in Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (pp. 1386-1395).

Banning mobile phones from schools Apr 28, 2024

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). Postdigital young people’s rights: a critical perspective on the UK government’s guidance to ban phones in England’s schools. Postdigital Science and Education 10.1007/s42438-024-00464-6

Digital technologies in early childhood education Apr 15, 2024

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.

Accompanying reference >>> Paakkari, A., Paananen, M., & Grieshaber, S. (2023). Activity-tracking assemblages in Finnish early childhood education and care

Digital technologies and the commercialism of education Apr 02, 2024

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 at the University of Colorado

Is there a place for facial recognition technology in education? Mar 11, 2024

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.

The history of educational computing in Europe Feb 28, 2024

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 agendas of international organisations like OECD shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Accompanying reference >> Carmen Flury and Michael Geiss (2023). How computers entered the classroom, 1960-2000: historical perspectives. Degruyter (free to download)

Is it time to rethink how we teach Digital Citizenship? Feb 10, 2024

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.org/10.1007/s40841-023-00305-3

AI technology in primary classrooms - a Swedish perspective Jan 25, 2024

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 Journal of Education, 57(4):584-600

https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12526

Why the digital disruption of higher education might be a long time coming … Dec 10, 2023

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-degrees, Claire’s work suggests that elite institutions, students and families continue to value the social and cultural capital that comes from the traditional mode of four year degrees and face-to-face tuition.
So, unlike ride-sharing, TV viewing and music listening, might higher education markets be structurally distinctive … and potentially resistant to disruptive innovation
Accompanying reference >> ‘Universities and Unicorns’ project website

The de-digitization of Swedish schools? Nov 26, 2023

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 really going on … and whether this is the beginning of an international political backlash against digital technology in the classroom.

Additional reading >> The Guardian (Sept 2023). Switching off: Sweden says back-to-basics schooling works on paper

The political and economic agendas behind EdTech Nov 15, 2023

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 firms such as Duolingo to profit from testing and accreditation.

Accompanying material >> More information on Lulu’s research and career to date

AI and education – making sense of the hype Oct 23, 2023

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 beginning to push distinct agendas around AI and education.

Accompanying reference >> Wayne Holmes & Ilkka Tuomi (2022). State of the art and practice in AI in education. European Journal of Education, 57:542–570 DOI: 10.1111/ejed.12533

AI and education in China Oct 04, 2023

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 >> Jeremy Knox (2023). AI and Education in China: Imagining the Future, Excavating the Past. Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003375135

Audrey Watters’ ‘Second Breakfast’ Sep 16, 2023

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 technologies, food and exercise.

Audrey talks about the parallels between fitness tech and digital education, the enduring legacy of BF Skinner in current Silicon Valley thinking, as well as her reflections on the relentless grind of critiquing EdTech.

**

Link to Audrey’s ‘Second Breakfast’ Sub stack

Digitisation of education … what are critical scholars writing about in 2023? Sep 03, 2023

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 of Algorithms, Automation and Artificial Intelligence. Routledge ISBN 9781032417905