The COVID-19 pandemic was a significant turning-point in the history of ed-tech. 

Mark West (UNESCO) argues that we should look back on COVID remote schooling as an ‘Ed-Tech tragedy’, and use our pandemic experiences to develop radically different visions of digital education. 

Accompanying reference >>> West, M. (2025). An Ed-Tech tragedy? Educational technologies and school closures in the time of COVID-19. Routledge

There is growing talk about ‘AI ethics’ in education. 

We talk to Michał Wieczorek (University College Dublin) about how to think about tech ethics in a philosophically-grounded manner, and how much of the current push for AI in education is ethically questionable. 

Accompanying reference >>> Wieczorek, M., Hosseini, M., & Gordijn, B. (2025). Unpacking the ethics of using AI in primary and secondary education: a systematic literature review. AI and Ethics, 1-19.

Carlo Perrotta (University of Oxford) was researching GenAI in education long before it hit the headlines. 

We talk about the latest hype around ‘Agentic AI’ and whether this is genuinely a game-changer or simply a desperate attempt to sustain the GenAI hype bubble. 

Accompanying reference >>>  Perrotta, C.  (2024). Plug-and-play education: Knowledge and learning in the age of platforms and artificial intelligence. Routledge. 

Efforts are growing in many countries to get devices out of classrooms and push for a general ‘de-digitisation’ of education.  

Ingrid Forsler (Södertörn University) talks about recent developments in Sweden and how we can make sense of this growing turn against digital education.  

Accompanying reference >>>  Forlser, I. et al.  (2025).  Hijacking the digital backlash in education.  Postdigital Science & Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00601-9

We talk with legal expert Liane Colonna (Stockholm University) about the EU ‘AI Act’ and what it means for the use of AI in education. 

To what extent can we rely on regulation to enforce safer and more beneficial forms of AI use in education?

 Accompanying reference >>>  Colonna, L. (2025). Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED): Towards More Effective Regulation. European Journal of Risk Regulation, doi:10.1017/err.2025.10039 

Professor Arathi Sriprakash (University of Oxford) wants us to reimagine edtech along radically different lines.   

What might digital education look like if it was based around principles of reparation, sovereignty, care and democratisation? 

Accompanying reference >>>  Sriprakash, A., Williamson, B., Facer, K., Pykett, J. & Valladares Celis, C. (2025) Sociodigital futures of education: reparations, sovereignty, care, and democratisation, Oxford Review of Education, 51:4, 561-578 

Philosopher Gene Flenady (Monash University) has strong reservations about the current push for GenAI into university teaching and learning. 

If we accept that ChatGPT is an ‘irresponsible bullshitter’ then why is it being welcomed into universities … and what can we do about it? 

Accompanying reference >>>  Flenady, G. & Sparrow, R. (2025). Cut the bullshit: why GenAI systems are neither collaborators nor tutors. Teaching in Higher Education, 1-10.

Niels Kerssens (Utrecht University) joins us to talk about the concept of 'platformisation' that came out of Utecht led by Jose Van Dijck in the 2010s and how this is now coming to bear on the classrooms and schools of 2025. 

We also talk about Niels’ new concept of ‘digital autonomy innovators’ and the growing demand for more collaborative and non-corporate forms of ed-tech.

Accompanying reference >>>  Kerssens, N. & van Es, K. (2025). Fostering autonomy in the digital classroom. in Governing the digital society. (pp. 227-244). Amsterdam University Press.

AI tools are now being sold with the promise of doing all sorts of routine tasks for teachers.

We talk to Brad Robinson (Texas State University) about one such tool – MagicSchool AI – and the growing temptation for teachers to let GenAI do their work for them.

Accompanying reference >>>  Robinson, B. & Leander, K. (2025). ‘I hope this email finds you well’: how synthetic affect circulates through MagicSchool AI. Learning, Media and Technology, 1-13

Why does education keep falling for techno-solutionism, despite the fact that technology does not seem to drastically improve education? 

Ezechiel Thibaud (The Education University of Hong Kong) guides us through the underpinning causes of techno-solutionism in education and stresses the need to better acknowledge the disappointments of digital education. 

Accompanying reference >>>  Thibaud, E. (2025). Reflections on techno-solutionism in education: Manifestations and causes. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1-12.