Last year the Korean government announced its substantial commitment to AI and schools, launching an ‘AI Digital Textbook’ policy that promises to establish AI-driven customised learning across the education system. 

We are joined by Dr. Jina Ro (Sungkyunkwan University) to make sense of Korea’s recent ed-tech turn, and the wider motivations for investing so heavily in the promise of AI transforming traditional schooling. 

Accompanying reference >>>  Jina Ro (2025): Enforcing unwarranted optimism: critical frame analysis on educational digitalisation policies in South Korea, Learning, Media and Technology,doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2025.2462940

2022 saw a flurry of reports that the Danish Data Protection Agency was ordering schools to stop using Google products over the tech firm’s misuse of students’ personal data. 

We talk to Emilie Mørch Groth (Aarhus University) to see what has happened since, what this controversy tells us about the digital dependency of the modern welfare state, and the complexities of pushing back against Big Tech corporations. 

Accompanying reference >>>  Morgan Meaker (2022). A Danish city built Google into its schools—then banned it. Wired, 23rd September,  https://www.wired.com/story/denmark-google-schools-data/

On the face of it, digital technologies are now integral to university teaching and learning. But to what extent have things actually changed … and are these changes  wholly positive? 

Cathrine Tømte (University of Agder) talks about the impacts of digitisation on Norwegian universities, and why teachers and students should perhaps be joining forces to push for radically different technologies. 

Accompanying reference >>> Rómulo Pinheiro, Cathrine Tømte, Linda Barman, Lise Degn & Lars Geschwind (2023) Digital Transformations in Nordic Higher Education. Springer [open access]

Platforms are now an almost ubiquitous feature of schools. We talk with Lucas Cone (University of Copenhagen) about his work around teachers’ everyday engagements with platforms – in particular the benefits of using affect theory to make sense of teachers’ affiliations and relationships with these clearly problematic technologies. 

 Accompanying reference >>>  Lucas Cone (2024) Subscribing school: digital platforms, affective attachments, and cruel optimism in a Danish public primary school, Critical Studies in Education, 65(3):294-311, DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2023.2269425

There is growing interest in critical studies of education and technology. But what does it mean to be ‘critical’ of edtech, and how can this work genuinely make a difference in the world? 

Felicitas Macgilchrist (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg) talks about the need to look beyond claims of transformation and novelty, drawing attention to marginalised forms of edtech, and the power of rageful hope. 

Accompanying reference >>>  Macgilchrist, F. (2021).  What is ‘critical’ in critical studies of edtech? Learning, Media and Technology 46(3):243–249 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.1958843

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]

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.

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.

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

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