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The (im)possibility of AI literacy Published in Learning, Media and Technology (Vol. 51, No. 1, 2026)

This excellent editorial by @lucipangrazio.bsky.social pulls together so many important threads in the "AI Literacy" conversation. A concise and valuable resource for anyone doing work in this area.

doi.org/10.1080/1743...

1 month ago 13 4 0 0

Have used your blog piece on this Ben (thanks), in a course I’m teaching this semester hoping it helps (at least in a small way) to counter students often uncritical use of AI to support their writing.

2 months ago 2 0 0 0
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Tracing the social half-life of a zombie citation Photo by Henrik L. on Unsplash Academic publishing is currently experiencing a viral spread of “zombie citations.” This term refers to references of academic publications that do not ex…

"Zombie citations" of work that was never written are becoming a big problem in academic publishing. After encountering one recently I tried tracking down its source. Instead I found a growing mob of mutant references gathering on Google Scholar codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/t...

2 months ago 35 23 3 0

Welcome Carlo, & congrats on the new(ish) job. Nice to see & hear from another familiar voice on here.

2 months ago 0 0 0 0
black and white picture of a 'No Phones' sign ... with a yellow text title: "Are we seeing a digital backlash in education'

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...

3 months ago 8 3 0 0

Important insights from Ben here that point to the extremmy corrosive impact AI tech is having on knowledge production in research. So depressing.

4 months ago 2 0 0 0
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How policies of school exclusion frame practice: a comparative analysis of Australian state education policies - The Australian Educational Researcher This article reports on a comparative policy analysis which examined education policy guiding the use of exclusionary discipline practices across four Australian states (Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland). Exclusionary practices, such as suspensions and exclusions, are commonly used to respond to problematic student behaviour, yet their effectiveness as a behaviour management strategy remains unsupported by research. Through a comparative analysis of current policy ...

Have you read first online #OA article by Neil Tippett, Anna Sullivan, Jamie Manolev, Bruce Johnson & Barry Down ‘How policies of school exclusion frame practice: a comparative analysis of Australian state education policies' in AER? https://loom.ly/Glp71Pc

5 months ago 5 1 1 0

Thanks for the boost AARE!

5 months ago 0 0 0 0

New paper: Computational social science and critical studies of education and technology: an improbable combination? www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Rebecca Eynon and Nabeel Gillani

5 months ago 1 2 0 0
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Building confidence during your PhD Doing a PhD can feel like wandering through a forest with no map. You’re constantly questioning whether you’re smart enough, working hard enough or heading in the right direction. If yo…

Doing a PhD can feel like wandering through a forest with no map. You’re constantly questioning whether you’re smart enough, working hard enough or heading in the right direction. If you’re feeling this way, you’re not alone. More importantly, you’re not broken. patthomson.net/2025/10/25/b...

5 months ago 35 11 2 5
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<em>British Journal of Educational Technology</em> | BERA Journal | Wiley Online Library This article examines recent trends in the data infrastructures of Australian schools. Data interoperability has become integral to school operations as it enables data to flow between the array of .....

New paper alert! In this article I look at the rise of the 'single platform solution' in schools driven by big tech. Very difficult to keep corporate logics at bay!
bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

7 months ago 10 3 0 1
Photo of a tote bag with printed text "Distrusting educational technology" and stickers reading "Get AI out of education" and "Ed-tech is full of bullshit"

Photo of a tote bag with printed text "Distrusting educational technology" and stickers reading "Get AI out of education" and "Ed-tech is full of bullshit"

Cool parcel in the post of an "Ed-tech Agitprop Pack" unexpectedly sent by @neilselwyn.bsky.social

"The ed-tech that we're currently dealing with is not a done deal!" as the accompanying note says.

6 months ago 45 10 1 2
JA Westenberg
@Daojoan@mastodon.social

My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.”

Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner 

Kiddo: that’s AI
Sep 24, 2025, 07:36 AM

JA Westenberg @Daojoan@mastodon.social My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.” Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner Kiddo: that’s AI Sep 24, 2025, 07:36 AM

They've lost the 9yos

6 months ago 10961 2936 106 359
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Problematising ClassDojo as a digital tool for behaviour management and home-school communication ClassDojo is a popular educational technology platform used by teachers to manage students’ behaviour and communicate with parents. This platform, though, along with other similar digital classroom...

New open access article critically examining ClassDojo, published in @lmt-journal.bsky.social. In it we collate data from across 3 studies to scrutinise ClassDojo & argue it promotes a relationship of obedience between student & teacher @digitalchildau.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

7 months ago 3 2 0 0
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Reshaping school discipline with metrics: an examination of teachers’ disciplinary practices with ClassDojo Education is increasingly infiltrated by technology and datafication. This techno-data amplification is entangled with neoliberalism and the emphasis on calculation and measurement it brings, often...

A parent at our kids' preschool asked if I knew of any studies about ClassDojo because it's used in her older kid's classroom and I said yes, yes I do, and then I emailed her all of @jamiemanolev.bsky.social and co-authors' excellent work analyzing the platform, including two open articles. First:

7 months ago 11 1 2 2
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Problematising ClassDojo as a digital tool for behaviour management and home-school communication ClassDojo is a popular educational technology platform used by teachers to manage students’ behaviour and communicate with parents. This platform, though, along with other similar digital classroom...

Thanks for the boost & kind words Charles. It's pleasing to know some are finding value in this research. Coincidently, we've just published a new open access collaborative piece which further examines ClassDojo's use in schools and with families - www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

7 months ago 2 0 0 0
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

(1/7)

HOT off the furnace and pressed into print!!! 🔥

Costello, E., & Gow, S. (2025). Authoritarian EdTech. Dialogues on Digital Society. doi.org/10.1177/2976...

7 months ago 16 7 1 2
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Are We Losing Our Minds? A new position paper warns against the uncritical adoption of AI in academia

A position paper urging academia to be critical of AI technologies is an excellent wake-up call. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social @olivia.science
www.the-geyser.com/are-we-losin...

7 months ago 66 32 3 5
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Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

7 months ago 1004 473 18 105
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New on our blog: A preview of @benpatrickwill.bsky.socialECER 2025 Keynote: Educational genomics is a fast-growing area of research, but should policy or practice be based on an individual's DNA? #ECER2025 #EduSci blog.eera-ecer.de/should-genetics-play-a-r...

7 months ago 3 2 1 0
Screencap from linked article, reading:
“These tools are designed to look like objective, all-knowing systems, and I think it’s important to get kids used to asking, ‘Who are the people who built this? Who said and wrote the original things that became the training data? Whose artwork was stolen by these companies to produce the training sets?’” said Bender.
For kids too young to connect with those questions, Bender suggests parents focus on the environmental impact. “Every time you use a chatbot, you’re helping to build the case for the company to develop the next model and build the next data center. Data centers have to be cooled with massive amounts of clean water, and clean water usually means drinking water.” Whose drinking water will be diverted?

That said, I wanted to provide a couple of corrections. When I problematize the term "AI", the goal is to get people to stop using it. "Many tools that use AI" doesn't mean anything. "Many tools that are sold as 'AI'" is okay. But more importantly: those study-aid podcasts systems are TRASH and nothing like automatic transcription tools.

Screencap from linked article, reading: “These tools are designed to look like objective, all-knowing systems, and I think it’s important to get kids used to asking, ‘Who are the people who built this? Who said and wrote the original things that became the training data? Whose artwork was stolen by these companies to produce the training sets?’” said Bender. For kids too young to connect with those questions, Bender suggests parents focus on the environmental impact. “Every time you use a chatbot, you’re helping to build the case for the company to develop the next model and build the next data center. Data centers have to be cooled with massive amounts of clean water, and clean water usually means drinking water.” Whose drinking water will be diverted? That said, I wanted to provide a couple of corrections. When I problematize the term "AI", the goal is to get people to stop using it. "Many tools that use AI" doesn't mean anything. "Many tools that are sold as 'AI'" is okay. But more importantly: those study-aid podcasts systems are TRASH and nothing like automatic transcription tools.

I appreciated the chance to talk with Kathryn Jezer-Morton for this article. It's unfortunate that we have to deal with Big Tech's messes everywhere, including in our own families, but given that, I'm glad for a chance to help people think this through.

www.thecut.com/article/broo...

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7 months ago 87 17 2 3
Contact Us — Civics of Technology Please contact us if you have questions, would like to be a contributor, or just want to chat. We also offer professional development workshops for K-12, college, or teacher education classes.

Do you have a project (research, curriculum, advocacy) or want to distribute a call for proposals/chapters/etc?

On our contact page is a Blog Post Proposal form - we welcome contributions from our community!

www.civicsoftechnology.org/contact

7 months ago 7 4 0 0

OpenAI is now in your LMS and Trump's mandating "non-ideological" AI literacy. Here's an updated list of critical research on AI in education to make sense of it all.

8 months ago 32 10 0 0

Cheers Barry!

9 months ago 0 0 0 0

Delighted to share our (open access) pub examining 'How policies of school exclusion frame practice'. We analyse legislation guiding exclusions in 4 Aus states, & argue their use prioritises school over student needs. @australianare.bsky.social #schoolexclusions link.springer.com/article/10.1...

9 months ago 2 1 1 0
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And now consider the implications of using this tool in/for education

9 months ago 0 0 0 0