Welcome to this Christmas/Seasonal bonus episode examining evidence-based EdTech in toys for children and young people. Featuring two hosts from the EDUCATE Ventures Research team, founder Rose Luckin and former headteacher and Chief Education Advisor Karine George, this seasonal special looks at a number of EdTech must-have toys and the questions that should be asked of them by any parent and carer looking to spend their money wisely. Toys are tools of play, and the educational toy market is booming. Below you can find our list of questions to ask of the technology. Head to our website for details of the toys/models in question to help you hunt down the best deals across the holiday season and whenever you are thinking about EdTech across the rest of the year.  The Questions   User Agency – one of the potential advantages technology brings is the potential for a child to gain some agency – to be in charge.  What does this tech do to enable agency?   Versatility – is the toy versatile to meet specific needs? For example, if the child has problems with fine motor skills then small controllers or keyboards may not be the best option? If they are visually impaired, they may need text to speech or a connected refreshable braille display.  Ensure the games are age appropriate  Value for Money – will you need to buy additional accessories?  Are there subscription costs?  How durable is the toy?  Evidence – what evidence exists to say this toy works or has value, and are you convinced by it?   Long-Term Engagement – will this toy or device live past a honeymoon period?  Safety/Ethics – does this toy connect to the internet?  If it can then two issues need to be addressed: what can the child access through this device, and what information about the child is being tracked or recorded and how is this being used?    Tell us where you are listening in from We’d love to hear your thoughts. Record a quick free voicemail via speakpipe for inclusion in the next episode. Or you can post your thoughts or follow-on links via Twitter @podcastedtech or via The Edtech Podcast LinkedIn page or Instagram.

#256 - EdTech Toys for the Holiday Season

The mission of The Edtech Podcast is to improve the dialogue between ‘ed’ and ‘tech’ through storytelling, for better innovation and impact. Hosted by Rose Luckin, Professor of Learner-Centred Design at UCL and Founder and CEO of EDUCATE Ventures Research, using AI to measure the unmeasurable in education.  

The Edtech Podcast audience consists of education leaders from around the world, plus startups, learning and development specialists, bluechips, investors, Government and media. The Edtech Podcast is downloaded 2000+ each week from 145 countries in total, with UK, US & Australia the top 3 downloading countries. Podcast series have included Future Tech for Education, Education 4.0, and The Voctech Podcast, Learning Continued, Evidence-Based EdTech, and the upcoming AI in Ed: Our Data-Driven Future series on AI. 

Send your qs and comments to @PodcastEdtech, @knowldgillusion, theedtechpodcast@gmail.com, hello@educateventures.com or https://theedtechpodcast.com/ or leave a voicemail for the show at https://www.speakpipe.com/theedtechpodcast

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Continuing our miniseries on AI in education with the third episode centred around a global perspective on AI, host Professor Rose Luckin is joined by Andreas Schleicher of the OECD, Dr Elise Ecoff of Nord Anglia Education, and Dan Worth of Tes.  This episode and our series are generously sponsored by Nord Anglia Education. In our third instalment of this valuable series, we head out beyond the UK and the English-speaking world to get a global perspective on AI, and ask how educators and developers around the world build and engage with AI, and what users, teachers and learners want from the technology that might tell people back home a thing or two. We examine how international use of AI might change the way we engage with AI, and we also ask why they might be doing things differently. Guests:  Dr Andreas Schleicher, Director for the Directorate of Education & Skills,  OECD Dr Elise Ecoff, Chief Education Officer, Nord Anglia Education Dan Worth, Senior Editor, Tes  Talking points and questions include:   What are other countries tech and education ecosystems doing to develop and implement AI?  International considerations of ethics and regulation Is the first world imposing a way of looking at technology and its innovation on the third world? What assumptions are we making, and are we mindful of the context? Is the first world restricting innovation through specific regulation to change what technology is being built and how, and who might it benefit? Skills and competencies development can be driven by the needs of business - what priorities for AI education exhibited by international models could the UK adopt or consider? 

#277 - AI from a Global Perspective

                     What's in this episode? Continuing our new 5-episode miniseries on AI in education with the second episode on AI's relationship to neuroscience and metacognition, host Professor Rose Luckin is joined by Dr Steve Fleming, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL, UK, and Jessica Schultz, Academic & Curriculum Director at the San Roberto International School in Monterrey, Mexico.  This episode and our series are generously sponsored by Nord Anglia Education. Metacognition, neuroscience and AI aren’t just buzzwords but areas of intense research and innovation that will help learners in ways that until now have been unavailable to the vast majority of people. The technologies and approaches that study in these domains unlocks, however, must not be siloed or made inaccessible to public understanding. Real work must be done to bring these areas together and we are tremendously excited that this podcast will present a great opportunity to showcase what inroads have been made, where, why, and how. Guests:  Dr Steve Fleming, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL Jessica Schultz, Academic & Curriculum Director, San Roberto International School  Talking points and questions include:    Neuroscience and AI are well-respected fields with a massive amount of research underpinning their investigation and practices, but they are also two very shiny buzzwords that the public likely only understands in the abstract (and the words may even be misapplied to things that aren't based in neuroscience or AI). Can you tell our listeners what they are, how they intersect with one another, and what benefits their crossover can provide in the realms of skills and knowledge?   Can we use one field, AI, or Neuroscience, to talk about the other, to better 'sell' the idea of the other field of study, and in this way, drastically raise the bar of what is possible to detect, uncover and assess, in education, using these domains?   In practical terms, how do we use AI and neuroscience to measure what might be considered 'unmeasurable' in learning? What data is required, what expertise in the team, or in a partner organisation, can be leveraged, who can be responsible for doing this in an educational or training institution?  What data or competencies or human resource do they need access to?   Sponsorship Thank you so much to this series' sponsor: Nord Anglia Education, the world’s leading premium international schools organisation.  They make every moment of your child’s education count.  Their strong academic foundations combine world-class teaching and curricula with cutting-edge technology and facilities, to create learning experiences like no other.  Inside and outside of the classroom, Nord Anglia Education inspires their students to achieve more than they ever thought possible. "Along with great academic results, a Nord Anglia education means having the confidence, resilience and creativity to succeed at whatever you choose to do or be in life." - Dr Elise Ecoff, Chief Education Officer, Nord Anglia Education 

#276 - AI, Metacognition, and Neuroscience

What's in this episode? Delighted to launch this new 5-episode miniseries on AI in education, sponsored by Nord Anglia Education, host Professor Rose Luckin kicks things off for the Edtech Podcast by examining how we keep education as the centre of gravity for AI.  AI has exploded in the public consciousness with innovative large language models writing our correspondence and helping with our essays, and sophisticated images, music, impersonations and video generated on-demand from prompts.  Whilst big companies proclaim what this technology can achieve and how it will affect work, life, play and learning, the consumer and user on the ground and in our schools likely has little idea how it works or why, and it seems like a lot of loud voices are telling us only half the story.  What's the truth behind AI's power?  How do we know it works, and what are we using to measure its successes or failures?  What are our young people getting out of the interaction with this sophisticated, scaled technology, and who can we trust to inject some integrity into the discourse?  We're thrilled to have three guests in the Zoom studio with Rose this week:  Dr Paul LeBlanc, President,  Southern New Hampshire University Dr Kate Erricker, Assistant Director of Curriculum,  Nord Anglia Education Julie Henry, Freelance Education Correspondent  Talking points and questions include:    We often ask of technology in the classroom 'does it work'?  But when it comes to AI, preparing people to work, live, and play with it will be more than just whether or not it does what the developers want it to.  We need to start educating those same people HOW it works, because that will not only protect us as consumers out in the world, as owners of our own data, but help build a more responsible and 'intelligent' society that is learning all of the time, and better able to support those who need it most.  So if we want that 'intelligence infrastructure', how do we build it?  What examples of AI in education have we got so far, what areas have been penetrated and has anything radically changed for the better?  Can assessment, grading, wellbeing, personalisation, tutoring, be improved with AI enhancements, and is there the structural will for this to happen in schools?  The ‘white noise’ surrounding AI discourse: we know the conversation is being dominated by larger-than-life personalities and championed by global companies who have their own technologies and interests that they're trying to glamourise and market. What pushbacks, what reputable sources of information, layman's explanations, experts and opinions should we be listening to to get the real skinny on AI, especially for education?  Sponsorship Thank you so much to this series' sponsor: Nord Anglia Education, the world’s leading premium international schools organisation.  They make every moment of your child’s education count.  Their strong academic foundations combine world-class teaching and curricula with cutting-edge technology and facilities, to create learning experiences like no other.  Inside and outside of the classroom, Nord Anglia Education inspires their students to achieve more than they ever thought possible. "Along with great academic results, a Nord Anglia education means having the confidence, resilience and creativity to succeed at whatever you choose to do or be in life." - Dr Elise Ecoff, Chief Education Officer, Nord Anglia Education  

#275 - Preparing Young People for their Future with AI

Digital Transformation!  Digital Strategy!  Professional Education!  What do they mean, and how do we implement them in a school?  In today's episode we’re very lucky to have on three wonderful guests who operate at the intersection of educational practice and the leveraging of technology for a better learning experience.  They are:     James Symons, CEO, LocknCharge   Katie Novak, Education Strategist, Smart Technologies   Associate Professor Jane Hunter, School of International Studies and Education, University of Technology, Sydney   Each of these guests has a long history of working within the education space, from engineering and installing the hardware and catering to the evolving demands of schools, to leveraging the technology as a communal bridge between parents, teachers and students, and finally to researching and understanding the added value such technologies provide for teachers and learners and how they might successfully incorporate their use into daily practice.  Talking points and questions include:    The evolving demands of the classroom – what futureproofing and future planning exists in each of your spaces to accommodate new trends and developments?  For those catering to the hardware, does the school or college determine what you make, or are they, and the ways their teachers and learners perform, conditioned by you?  What space is there for reciprocity between the EdTech maker and the EdTech user?     Teacher professional education – how important is this?  Surely a learning tool lives and dies by the amount of training and ‘after-sales support’ is provided to practitioners?  What is the extent of the refusal by a teacher or department to adopt the technology and how is this overcome?  Is it just waving statistics about time-saving and cost-saving in their faces or is there a form of trust that must be engendered?     Digital strategy – this means different things to different stakeholders.  What are the commonalities that should be agreed upon for successful rollout of technology?  Obviously contextual factors are key to each school, but what are the non-negotiables?  And with regard to developments like generative AI and other future trends we can’t even predict yet, what kinds of guardrails need to be in place with teachers, leaders, and the developers of the tech to ensure ongoing supportive relationships with stakeholders.  What foundations should be in place to support digital transformation no matter the bumps in the road ahead?   Material discussed in today's episode includes:  LocknCharge classroom solutions to facilite mobile device workflow and management   Improving Access & Outcomes Through Student & Teaching Voice: EdTech Assessment in the Cherry Hill Public Schools Australia and the Digital Education Revolution Jane Hunter: High Possibility STEM Classrooms and Technology Integration and High Possibility Classrooms Smart Technology:  EdTech Assessment Tool Uruguay and Ceibal Project 

#274 - Managing Your School's Digital Transformation

SCIENCE!  Under discussion today are the ways in which students who were switched off the sciences at school manage to retain their curiosity about the subjects and can even reengage with it later in life.  Professor Rose Luckin is very lucky to have in the online studio this week Dr Andrew Morris, Honorary Associate Professor at UCL, former president of the Education Section of the British Science Association, and author, whose book,  Bugs, Drugs, and Three-Pin Plugs: Everyday Science, Simply Explained, is now available wherever books are sold.   Dr Morris has an interest in serving learners and the public through scientific and evidence-based outreach.  The discussion in the studio centred around science, technology, research and practice in education. Talking points and questions:  The ways in which people who were switched off the sciences at school retain their curiosity and can reengage with science at a later point in life Examples of topics and ways of approaching science that have been revealed by Dr Morris’ science discussion groups Research-informed educational practice, and research-informed educational policy Ways in which research can be transformed and mediated for use  Material discussed in today's episode includes:   Smartphones in schools?  Only when they clearly support learning, the  2023 Global Education Monitoring Report has just released a call for technology only to be used in class when it supports learning outcomes, and this includes the use of smartphones. The Skinny on AI for Education, EVR's newest publication featuring insights, trends and developments in the world of AI Ed  

#256 - EdTech Toys for the Holiday Season

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