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The recent hyperbole around artificial intelligence (AI) has impacted on our ability to properly consider the lasting educational implications of this technology. This paper outlines a number critical issues and concerns that need to feature more prominently in future educational discussions around AI. These include: (i) the limited ways in which educational processes and practices can be statistically modelled and calculated; (ii) the ways in which AI technologies risk perpetuating social harms for minoritized students; (iii) the losses incurred through reorganising education to be more ‘machine readable’; and (iv) the ecological and environmental costs of data-intensive and device-intensive forms of AI. The paper concludes with a call for slowing down and recalibrating current discussions around AI and education – paying more attention to issues of power, resistance and the possibility of re-imagining education AI along more equitable and educationally beneficial lines.

Educational systems generate huge quantities of digital data. Digital educational data is captured and used at all points -- from classrooms and schools, to the level of educational departments. As growing trends in ‘data-driven instruction’ suggest, all these data have great potential to support student, teacher and leadership practices, help guide work and learning decisions, and inform policy development. Moreover, an increasing focus is being placed on the development of artificial intelligence to automate and improve how data are used. Yet, stakeholder data practices remain invisible and little understood, which complicates how artificial intelligence can be embedded in this context. In this paper, we introduce an educational data journeys framework to frame dynamics of data power, data work, identities and literacies. This approach is employed to explore educational policy revealing data flows and frictions in school improvement and implications for the development of artificial intelligence in education.

In this paper, we argue that a particular set of issues mars traditional assessment practices. They may be difficult for educators to design and implement; only provide discrete snapshots of performance rather than nuanced views of learning; be unadapted to the particular knowledge, skills, and backgrounds of participants; be tailored to the culture of schooling rather than the cultures schooling is designed to prepare students to enter; and assess skills that humans routinely use computers to perform. We review extant artificial intelligence approaches that–at least partially–address these issues and critically discuss whether these approaches present additional challenges for assessment practice.

This paper outlines how ideas of 'degrowth' might be used to reimagine sustainable forms of education technology. In essence, degrowth calls for a proactive renewal of technology use around goals of voluntary simplicity and slowing-down, community-based coproduction and sharing, alongside conscious minimalization of resource consumption. The paper considers how core degrowth principles of conviviality, commoning, autonomy and care have been used to develop various forms of 'radically sustainable computing'. The paper then suggests four ways in which degrowth principles might frame future thinking around education technology in terms of: (i) curtailing current manipulative forms of education technology, (ii) bolstering existing convivial forms of education technology; (iii) stimulating the development of new convivial education technologies; and (iv) developing digital technologies to achieve the eventual de-schooling of society. It is concluded that mobilisation of these ideas might support a much-needed reorientation of digital technology in education along low-impact, equitable lines.

Anatomy educators are often at the forefront of adopting innovative and advanced technologies for teaching, such as artificial intelligence (AI). While AI offers potential new opportunities for anatomical education, hard lessons learned from the deployment of AI tools in other domains (e.g., criminal justice, healthcare, and finance) suggest that these opportunities are likely to be tempered by disadvantages for at least some learners and within certain educational contexts. From the perspectives of an anatomy educator, public health researcher, medical ethicist, and an educational technology expert, this article examines five tensions between the promises and the perils of integrating AI into anatomy education. These tensions highlight the ways in which AI is currently ill-suited for incorporating the uncertainties intrinsic to anatomy education in the areas of (1) human variations, (2) healthcare practice, (3) diversity and social justice, (4) student support, and (5) student learning. Practical recommendations for a considered approach to working alongside AI in the contemporary (and future) anatomy education learning environment are provided, including enhanced transparency about how AI is integrated, AI developer diversity, inclusion of uncertainty and anatomical variations within deployed AI, provisions made for educator awareness of AI benefits and limitations, building in curricular "AI-free" time, and engaging AI to extend human capacities. These recommendations serve as a guiding framework for how the clinical anatomy discipline, and anatomy educators, can work alongside AI, and develop a more nuanced and considered approach to the role of AI in healthcare education.

This paper explores the role of material design as a form of institutional power within contemporary school settings. Drawing on concepts of "coercive design" and "hostile architecture" from design studies, the paper examines three "innovative" designs for classroom chairs -- relatively mundane but integral elements of the regulation and disciplining of school space. It is argued that the design intentions of these material objects reveal a number of constrained, conservative intentions to maintain the traditional ordered notion of the classroom as a place where students stay in their seats and engage in work. Tellingly, however, this corporeal manipulation and moderation is now couched in claims around desirable physiological and cognitive conditions for learning -- with students' bodies seen as objects to arrange and constrain in ways deemed conducive for learning. The paper problematises this de-socialised view of classrooms, alongside the underpinning sense of design solutionism and (mis)appropriation of "learning science" by product designers to justify their products' capacities to somehow cause learning to take place.

Young people’s engagements with social media now generate large quantities of personal data, with “big social data” becoming an increasingly important “currency” in the digital economy. While using social media platforms is ostensibly “free,” users nevertheless “pay” for these services through their personal data—enabling advertisers, content developers, and other third parties to profile, predict, and position individuals. Such developments have prompted calls for social media users to adopt more informed and critical stances toward how and why their data are being used—that is, to build “critical data literacies.” This article reports on research that explores young social media users’ understandings of their personal data and its attendant issues. Drawing on research with groups of young people (aged 13–17 years), the article investigates the consequences of making third party (re)uses of personal data openly available for social media users to interpret and make critical sense of. The findings provide valuable insights into young people’s understandings of the technical, social, and cultural issues that underpin their ability to engage with, and make sense of, social media data. The article concludes by considering how research into critical data literacies might connect in more meaningful and effective ways with everyday lived experiences of social media use.

Large amounts of personal data are generated through young people’s engagements with mobile media, with these data increasingly (re)used by advertisers, content developers and other third parties to profile, predict and position individuals. This has prompted growing concerns over the ability of mobile media users to develop informed stances towards how and why their data is being used, i.e. to build ‘conscious’ and/or ‘resistant’ forms of ‘data agency’. This paper explores ways of developing the critical consciousness and resistant practices of young mobile media users towards personal data. Drawing on research with 27 young people (aged 13–17 years), the paper describes efforts to make representations of third party use of personal data openly available as a basis from which to develop data-savvy tactics and strategies. The results of these interventions – while only partially successful – offer valuable insights into the technical, social and cultural issues that shape young people’s engagement with personal data. The paper concludes by considering how concerns over data agency might be better aligned with the realities of young people’s mobile media use.

This short position paper reconsiders the exaggerated expectations that currently surround the social web and education within many sections of the education technology community. In particular four popular assumptions of the social web are challenged, namely: (i) expectations of enhanced participatory learning; (ii) expectations of enhanced equality of opportunity; (iii) expectations of learner affinity and interest; and (iv) expectations of freedom from proprietary constraints. The paper contends that many of these expectations stem from a tendency for education technology researchers and writers to over-value seemingly ‘new’ informal uses of the social web, whilst downplaying unequal power relations between individual learners and formal processes of education. The paper concludes that educationalists and technologists alike should strive to look beyond the rhetoric of the social web, and develop realistic and critical understandings of the ‘messy’ realities of social web technologies and education.

This short position paper reconsiders the exaggerated expectations that currently surround the social web and education within many sections of the education technology community. In particular four popular assumptions of the social web are challenged, namely: (i) expectations of enhanced participatory learning; (ii) expectations of enhanced equality of opportunity; (iii) expectations of learner affinity and interest; and (iv) expectations of freedom from proprietary constraints. The paper contends that many of these expectations stem from a tendency for education technology researchers and writers to over-value seemingly new informal uses of the social web, whilst downplaying unequal power relations between individual learners and formal processes of education. The paper concludes that educationalists and technologists alike should strive to look beyond the rhetoric of the social web, and develop realistic and critical understandings of the messy realities of social web technologies and education.

Este artigo apresenta um panorama crítico dos esforços políticos atuais para usar as tecnologias na melhoria dos resultados educacionais e promover a inclusão social na educação. A partir do exemplo do Reino Unido, identifica duas tendências nas atuais formulações de políticas: i) políticas focalizadas na oferta educacional que buscam usar as tecnologias para promover a igualdade de oportunidades e resultados educacionais; e ii) políticas focalizadas no acesso às tecnologias que buscam usar a educação para garantir a inclusão social em termos de oportunidades e resultados tecnológicos. Ao discutir as limitações sociais, econômicas e culturais desses enfoques, este texto examina várias questões que estão no cerne de uma tecnologia e uma educação mais eficientes no futuro.This paper provides a critical overview of current policy efforts to use technologies to enhance educational outcomes and promote social inclusion in education. Using the UK as an example the paper identifies two trends in current policymaking, i.e. i) educational provision focussed policies which seek to use technologies to promote equality educational opportunities and outcomes; and ii) technological access focussed policies which seek to use education to ensure social inclusion in terms of technological opportunities and outcomes. Through a discussion of the social, economic and cultural limitations of these approaches the paper considers a number of issues which lie at the heart of more effective technology and education in the future.

One notable ‘disruptive’ impact of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been an increased public discussion of online education. While much debate over the potential and challenges of MOOCs has taken place online confined largely to niche communities of practitioners and advocates, the rise of corporate ‘xMOOC’ ventures such as Coursera, edX and Udacity has prompted popular mass media interest at levels not seen with previous educational innovations. This article addresses this important societal outcome of the recent emergence of MOOCs as an educational form by examining the popular discursive construction of MOOCs over the past 24 months within mainstream news media sources in United States, Australia and the UK. In particular, we provide a critical account of what has been an important phase in the history of educational technology—detailing a period when popular discussion of MOOCs has far outweighed actual use/participation. We argue that a critical analysis of MOOC discourse throughout the past two years highlights broader societal struggles over education and digital technology—capturing a significant moment before these debates subside with the anticipated normalization and assimilation of MOOCs into educational practice. This analysis also sheds light on the influences underpinning how many people perceive MOOCs thereby leading to a better understanding of acceptance/adoption and rejection/resistance amongst various professional and popular publics.

Negli ultimi dieci anni lo sviluppo dei social media ha trasformato i modi in cui la maggior parte delle persone usa Internet. Di conseguenza molte istituzioni educative (ed educatori) si ritrovano a doversi mettere al passo con questo mondo e con i suoi utenti. Dato il pressante ed esagerato interesse che circonda quest’area della tecnologia, è importante che gli educatori siano in grado di avvicinarsi ai social media in modo consapevole e competente. Le domande che questo articolo di apertura solleva sono necessariamente dirette: quali sono le caratteristiche chiave dei social media e che importanza questi rivestono oggi per l’educazione e l’apprendimento? Quali limiti impongono e quali opportunità offrono? Quali cambiamenti devono subire i processi educativi per mantenere la propria rilevanza in un’era digitale in apparente rapida evoluzione?

Este artículo ofrece una visión general de las implicaciones educativas de las tecnologías web 2.0 en las escuelas, sosteniendo que las representaciones actuales del uso de web 2.0 duplican una vieja tendencia en la educación de reacciones exageradas e ideológicamente lanzadas hacia la tecnología. El artículo concluye argumentado a favor de la necesidad de retener una perspectiva prudente, que no crítica, de las escuelas y web 2.0, buscando encontrar maneras de usar las tecnologías web 2.0 para trabajar con las escuelas, más que trabajar contra ellas.

This paper uses Bolter and Grusin’s remediation approach in investigating the manner in which new forms of digital media are re-casting the communicative and epistemological import of knowledge, teaching and learning. Given the considerable disparity between the rhetoric and realities of the educational implementation of information technologies to date the paper argues that particular attention should be paid to the refashioning of existing forms of pre-digital didactics in current forms of digital didactics. These themes are pursued through an examination of the UK government’s ongoing ‘Digital Curriculum’ project as a case study of remediation of didactics in the digital age.

It is argued by influential commentators such as Ulrich Beck and Scott Lash that we now live in a ‘reflexively modern' age. People are seen to now be free of the structures of modern society and driven instead by individualised opportunities to reflexively engage with their fast-changing social worlds and identities. Taking the notion of reflexive modernisation as its starting point, this paper explores the roles that information technologies (ITs) may play in supporting adults' reflexive judgements about, and reflexive engagements with, education and learning. Through an analysis of interview data with 100 adults in the UK the paper finds that whilst a minority of interviewees were using ITs to support and inform reflexive engagement with learning, the majority of individuals relayed little sign of technology-supported reflexivity when it came to their (non)engagement with education. For most people ITs were found, at best, to reinforce pre-established tendencies to ‘drift' through the formal education system. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings for ongoing efforts in developed countries to establish technology-supported ‘learning societies'.