Michael Webb

The choices universities and colleges make about AI are political Ahead of this week's Digifest, Michael Webb and Rebecca Flook confront the complex values systems behind general purpose AI technology

Rebecca Flook and me on the power behind gen AI tools.

"The systems now being woven into education are shaped by a remarkably small group of people."

wonkhe.com/blogs/the-ch...

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Digifest is almost here.

I’ll be in conversation with Rebecca Flook and Lawrie Phipps on “The Power and the Principles: Who’s really shaping AI?”

A timely discussion given everything happening in the world right now.

Tuesday, 12:30 (Hall 8B)

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A follow-up on Claude Cowork. Two weeks in, it's the most genuinely useful AI tool I've used so far. The browser automation actually works.

mwebb.blog/2026/03/02/c...

AI’s Environmental Impact: Understanding the data and acting sustainably AI’s Environmental Impact: Understanding the Data and Acting Sustainably Nicole Hennig (nicolehennig.com) Handout for Oct. 17 and Dec. 5 webinar, 2025 1. Individual use of generative AI is a drop i...

Here’s my handout for the webinar I did a while back in AI’s environmental impacts & putting stats in context). docs.google.com/document/d/1... #AI #environment #DataCenters

AI APPG Horizon Scanning I’m on a train heading back from a crowded committee room in the House of Lords for an AI APPG (all-party parliamentary group) evidence session on horizon scanning. AI events always draw a cr…

A quick overview of a really good All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) meeting on AI horizon scanning:

mwebb.blog/2026/01/26/a...

Random thought but I wonder if social media bans for U-16 are the wrong approach and instead we should regulate toxic design patterns like the infinite scroll.

The missing part of the jigsaw is investment in the software developers, UX people etc needed to maintain the open source software. Otherwise it’s just looking for a free ride.

Another busy week with lots of travel. Good to be home with the kitty cats :-)

Should be an interesting day at the Federation of Awarding bodies conference - I'm on a panel looking at how AI can be used in assessment, with a focus on the assessor, rather than the student, which has perhaps been the focus of most conversations so far.

ok, thanks - I've tried to get that across in 'be problem focused' section, but I'll look again at this. I agree with what you are saying, so feedback on whether it's clear is helpful.

Yes absolutely - definitely no ‘one sizes fits all’. But for a sizeable number of people it helped.

Striking the right balance is always a challenge - I get feedback about being too negative too.

FE is the place where we have the best evidence of timesaving, particularly with Teachermatic through our pilot and others.

Maastricht University teaching staff: test your digital skills in 20–25 minutes with the Jisc Discovery Tool. Get a personalised report on online teaching, collaboration, media literacy, AI use and digital wellbeing — plus trusted resources. Voluntary & anonymous! maastricht-uni.potential.ly/signin

A swan landing in a flooded road

Pretty wet on this morning’s ride. This is a road.

Education Secretary sets roadmap to improve attendance levels Every school to be set an individual minimum target to improve attendance and set up every child to achieve and thrive.

I think so. This is the press release - it feels like AI-powered was shoehorned in so it would get press attention.

www.gov.uk/government/n...

I’m guessing it really means ‘using maths’ rather than Gen AI.

This is interesting - when I try to get ChatGPT to give me song lyrics without searching it gives me a few lines and then errors. Does anyone know if it's always done this? Or is it a rapid response to the German court ruling?

Has anyone found a fix for the iPad iPadOS26 scrolling issue by any chance? The one where scrolling from anywhere apart from the edge of the screen stops working until you reboot?

We (Jisc) do for colleges. We don’t separate Welsh students and teachers from others in our reports, and it’s a very mixed picture, with concerned mostly being centred are jobs.

Oh! Now you point it out, our research team’s email address doesn’t look right here! I’ll mention this to them. It’s definitely not market research! We just want to get a range of views to help Medr prioritise activities.

iOS 26 has made my iPad mini 6th gen pretty much unusable. Slow, screen barely responds. Anyone found a fix?

Student Perceptions 2025: Insights from a Group of Pre-sessional International Students at the University of Manchester - Artificial intelligence How do international students preparing to study in the UK view AI? Sue Attewell spoke with a group of pre-sessional students at Manchester, mostly from China, about their hopes, worries and everyday ...

My colleague Sue Attewell leads our stream of work looking at staff and student perceptions of AI.

In a new blog post the focus is with a group of pre-sessional international students.

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There are similar issues with, say, Turnitin. We want to get these discussions in right at the start this time rather than when it’s too.

We really want engagement from critical voices.

Thats the kind of thing we want the pilot participants to answer. We want to collectively work out the most responsible approach. There will be a lot of discussion as there are multiple places we need to consider this. Best way to contribute is engage with people in your uni running the pilots.

All sensible questions! We absolutely want students to be fully involved, and to help universities develop best practice. We know this is a complex area and the views and input from everyone is crucial.

Opinion: how generative AI can help us address linguistic inequalities - Artificial intelligence Within the theme of AI and social inclusion, Tom Moule discusses how generative AI can address linguistic inequality.

In a perfect world, maybe we’d all be able to accept everyone’s authentic self and not judge people by how they communicate, including how they write and express themselves. But we don’t live in a perfect world, do we?

#jisc #aied

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The US have released their AI action plan. We need to take notice as it has profound implications for academia. More here:

#jisc #aied

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AI Detection, assessment and learning to use electricity - Artificial intelligence This blog post is an update to two previous entries that focused on AI detection tools: ‘AI Detection: Latest Recommendations’ (September 2023) and ‘AI Writing Detectors – Concepts and Considerations’...

AI detection, assessment and learning to use electricity.

If we rely on scales/traffic lights and ignore assessment redesign then the logical conclusion is we have to detect AI misuse. Tools aren't great at it, and nor are people.

nationalcentreforai.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2025/06/2...

Artificial intelligence and the environment: Looking ahead - Artificial intelligence In our AI and the environment blog series, we’ve covered taking a responsible approach, provided an update on the current landscape, and looked at putting the numbers into perspective. In this final b...

Have you heard of wooden data centres?

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