Neil Selwyn

quote from Mark West: "“My own background is history. And I'll tell you what changes history - pandemics change history. People like to forget that. But looking forward 100 maybe 200 years in the future, the COVID 19 pandemic will be seen as be a major turning point in education. So, we need to be clear about how the pandemic has changed narratives about education … and we also need to be clear about what lessons we can draw from this”

Six years on since COVID hit us all, and it is wild how most people in ed-tech now act like *nothing* happened. I got to talk with Mark West about how the pandemic fundamentally changed our dependency on ed-tech, and what we can learn from the COVID experience.

www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

quote from philosopher Micheł Wieczorek - “The recklessness with which we are approaching the adoption of AI in schools is ridiculous. If you think about it, you just have tech companies bringing products into school with no testing, no evidence, no oversight. If you or I tried to do that, we would immediately get into trouble with an ethics board at our university … And yet, for some reason, we have decided that bringing AI as quickly to schools as possible is the way to go”

We're hearing more & more sloppy talk about 'AI ethics' in education - 🎧🎙️ listen to me talk to @michalwieczorek.bsky.social for a philosophical take on the ethics of AI ... and why a lot of current ed-tech is ethically questionable!

www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

The ethics of AI in education - Education Technology Society 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 mu...

Earlier this month, @neilselwyn.bsky.social invited me to chat about my work on the ethics of AI in education. The recording of this conversation is now available as the newest episode of his Education Technology Society podcast. Enjoy!

www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

Academics’ uses of GenAI – what is appropriate … and what is not? Although universities remain keen to tackle inappropriate uses of generative AI (GenAI) by students, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to talk much more openly about academics’ (mis)us…

New at RW: Academics’ uses of GenAI – what is appropriate and what is not? By @neilselwyn.bsky.social

"By turning to GenAI to manage workloads, are we simply covering up structural problems with contemporary academic work that need to be properly addressed?"

researchwhisperer.org/2026/02/10/a...

very sad to see that First Monday is ceasing publication after its May 2026 edition - a regular source of really sharp digital media scholarship - firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...

I'm looking forward to speaking about humanities and cultural education in the digital age at this dual-site event next month ... if you are in the Hong Kong (18th March) and Zhuzai (20th March) areas then do come along!

sa.hkbu.edu.hk/en/ccl/event...

More than 200 killed in coltan mine collapse in eastern DRC, officials say Rubaya mine produces about 15% of the world’s coltan, which is processed into tantalum, used in mobile phones

This tragic incident highlights the completely exploitative underpinnings of our dependency on digital devices, and the limits of any talk in the global north of 'digital ethics', 'tech ethics' etc.

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

quote from Carlo Perrotta - “I think that the way we are seeing agentic AI coming into education is fundamentally a ruse. There might be interesting applications of agents in areas that demand an intensification of expertise, but the promise that these things can automate workflows on the assumption that you don't require expertise is fundamentally a fallacy”

new podcast 🎧🎙️ - listen to my conversation with @carloper.bsky.social about the push for Agentic AI into education - is this the moment that GenAI hype comes good?

www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

Privately funded educational technology is a threat to the very idea of public education. Edtech presents its agenda as apolitical, as a matter of efficiency or smart management, concealing a far more insidious mission: the monetization of teaching and learning, and a labor regime organized around total surveillance.

About half-way down, this article suddenly kicks into a pointed critique of ed-tech ... well worth reading!

archive.md/PHqyF

How will Australia’s social media ban impact students this school year? As Australian students return to school under the new social media ban, the impacts on learning, connection and wellbeing are likely to be uneven, and felt most by disadvantaged young people.

Australian teens are now going back to school only a few weeks after the national social media ban.

Social media has traditionally been a vital source of informal learning & education support for *many* young people - this ban clearly has educational implications!

lens.monash.edu/how-will-aus...

Agentic AI and education - Education Technology Society 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-c...

Agentic AI in education is a "ruse" - its promises of efficiency and productivity will really lead to an intensification of educators' work. Great to have @carloper.bsky.social on here now, and this is a smart short conversation with @neilselwyn.bsky.social www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

CRITPEN Critical perspectives on education in the Nordic countries – CRITPEN – is a Nordic research network with a critical knowledge interest that targets issues of social justice in education. The core aim ...

*Critical perspectives on education in a digitalized society*

I am very happy to be part of this CRITPEN workshop on 10th June 2026 with Antti Paakkari and Catarina Player-Koro - starts 0900 CET/Swedish time (online).

For more information & registration ....

www.gu.se/en/research/...

Här är danska planen för chattgrupper utan techjättar - Vetenskapsradion Nyheter I Danmark utvecklas en ny AI-infrastruktur där offentliga tjänster ska kunna finnas parallellt med grupper på nätet.Projektet drivs av forskningscentret ...

Vetenskapsradion: Här är danska planen för chattgrupper utan techjättar

https://www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/9144650

When two years of academic work vanished with a single click After turning off ChatGPT’s ‘data consent’ option, Marcel Bucher lost the work behind grant applications, teaching materials and publication drafts. Here’s what happened next.

Amazing sob story: "ChatGPT deleted all the work I hadn't done"

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Are we seeing a digital backlash in education? - Education Technology Society 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 development...

I appreciated this conversation between @neilselwyn.bsky.social and Ingrid Forsler on the digital backlash in schools, its conservative underpinnings, and how education researchers might approach the tensions raised by digital technologies with nuance and grounded in people’s lived experiences.

black and white picture of a 'No Phones' sign ... with a yellow text title: "Are we seeing a digital backlash in education'

The Swedish government is pushing to get digital tech out of classrooms ... listen to me talk with Dr. Ingrid Forsler about why this is, and what it means for digital education around the world: www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

Fascinating project underway by @neilselwyn.bsky.social and colleagues - please share with your academic networks!

#AcademicSky

We're running a very short survey to explore why academics are increasingly turning to GenAI to do things that they know/feel they should probably be doing themselves (e.g. write peer reviews, draft papers, data analysis etc.) - please share (or fill in!): redcap.helix.monash.edu/surveys/?s=L...

film preview image of a hand holding fake eyes, with the Sundance Film Festival logos.

Hello, we’re Ghost in the Machine, a landmark documentary that’s mandatory viewing for anyone thinking about or using AI.

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be premiering at #SundanceFilmFestival next month. We hope you’ll join us in person or online, and follow along here.

Better AI in education … is regulation the answer?

🎧🎙️ new podcast episode with legal expert Liane Colonna about the EU 'AI Act' and what it means for AI use in schools & universities.

Is it really possible to prohibit some forms of AI use in education?!

www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

What values should be driving the EdTech of the future?

New podcast episode - listen to my conversation with @arathings.bsky.social about what digital education might look like if reimagined around principles of reparation, sovereignty, care and democratisation

www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

Ediciones Cátedra Ediciones Cátedra

Decrecimiento Digital - Un Ensayo Para Repensar De Raíz Nuestros Futuros Digitales

... la traducción al español de mi nuevo libro se publicará en marzo de 2026!
www.catedra.com/libro/teorem...

headlines about school phone bans, Sweden's de-digitisation policies, and a parent lobby group calling to "put the brakes on edtech"

How can we make sense of the current popularist 'digital backlash' in education? ... and how can we make sure that any rejection of tech considers questions of social justice, inclusion, and the diverse experiences of teachers and learners in different contexts? link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Proposals for a UN online university for the poorest countries in the world ... Tony Bates provides some initial details: www.tonybates.ca/2025/11/10/a...

ORIGINAL POST: New to the EdTech space and trying to get smart fast I work for an investment firm and last week, my boss told me I'll be in charge of covering EdTech. Essentially, finding investment opportunities in this space, but this is a total new world for me, I can't pretend I’m an expert overnight. But I also don’t want to be the stereotypical finance person who treats EdTech like generic SaaS and asks all the wrong questions. I wanna know how operators think, what excites them and what worries them... My question is, for me to understand the sector properly, so I show up with more context and less cluelessness, what resources would you recommend me to check for a deep dive? Could be research, analysts or writers who genuinely get Edtech, newsletters, events, communities, courses, whatever you consider “real” and not surface-level hype. The real stuff, day to day stuff... sales cycles tied to academic calendars, district procurement politics, institutional budgeting, the weird B2B/B2C hybrids, what actually creates stickiness etc... Tyvm!! REPLY: You need to read a lot of Neil Selwyn and Audrey Watters. At first this will seem wrong but push through.

kudos to whoever was responsible for this nice piece of Reddit trolling in response to a finance guy looking for a quick heads-up on how best to understand ed-tech .... "at first this will seem wrong but push through"

@audreywatters.bsky.social

As South Korea 🇰🇷 announces another big push for AI in education ('AI for All' initiative), I was interviewed at length by one the KyungHyang daily newspaper.

The title sums it up!

"AI answers education’s problems? Education using AI will be ‘second rate education"

www.khan.co.kr/article/2025...

Using GenAI in education is ‘pedagogically irresponsible’ Education Technology Society podcast new episode with Dr. Gene Fenaldy Quote from the episode: “When I first went to university, it was a transformative experience. I didn't meet chatbots. I met people there who were role models for a different kind of life. My worry is that watering down that transformative experience where you meet people, you meet role models, and replacing that with chatbots cuts the value out of education entirely”

🎙️🎧new podcast episode: Is using GenAI in education ‘pedagogically irresponsible’?

www.buzzsprout.com/1301377/epis...

Learning how to learn in the age of generative AI - ABC listen It's exactly three years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene. In that short period of time the process of academic assessment has been in upheaval. Across the world educators are trying to address how ...

"Learning How To Learn In the Age of GenAI" ... new 30 minute discussion of education & AI from Australia's national public broadcaster (ABC Radio National) - click here to listen: www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

... I was one of many people interviewed for the piece - we talked for way longer than is usually the case for stories like this, and there was follow-up queries from Wired's *fact-checkers*. Would love to see more of this type of media coverage of AI & education .... there is plenty to investigate!

It is great that Wired is actually paying journalists to do the careful critical investigations like this on the realities of the AI boosterism that is now coming to a head in our schools ...