Education Technology Society Neil Selwyn

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 AC...

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 guida...

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...

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

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