Education Technology Society

How can students and teachers be supported to get the most out of living with digital tech? 
Prof. Louise Mifsud (Oslo Met) is leading a new project supporting students’ critical digital literacy. 
We talk about the need to foster students’ ‘digital empowerment’, and the challenge of carrying out digital literacy projects in school systems facing growing calls to get screens out of classrooms. 
Accompanying reference >>>  Oslo Met ‘Empowered’ project

The environmental harms associated with our tech use are becoming increasingly apparent ... so how should the ed-tech community be responding? 
Colm O’Neill (South East Technological University) talks about the need to rethink ed-tech in light of its environmental costs, and introduces the intriguing alternative of ‘perma-computing’. 
Accompanying reference >>> O’Neill, C. (2026).  EdTech as climate criminal: Considering the excesses of the ITC sector, and Higher Education’s complicity. Irish Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning.

Education and technology in the US is currently mired in the volatile politics of the second Trump administration. 
Dr. Morgan Anderson (University of Northern Iowa) reflects on the state of EdTech in the US in 2026, and highlights emerging issues that need our urgent attention. 
Accompanying reference >>> Anderson, M. (2022). Public education in the digital age: neoliberalism, EdTech, and the future of our schools.  Routledge

The COVID-19 pandemic was a significant turning-point in the history of ed-tech. 
Mark West (UNESCO) argues that we should look back on COVID remote schooling as an ‘Ed-Tech tragedy’, and use our pandemic experiences to develop radically different visions of digital education. 
Accompanying reference >>> West, M. (2025). An Ed-Tech tragedy? Educational technologies and school closures in the time of COVID-19. Routledge

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 much of the current push for AI in education is ethically questionable. 
Accompanying reference >>> Wieczorek, M., Hosseini, M., & Gordijn, B. (2025). Unpacking the ethics of using AI in primary and secondary education: a systematic literature review. AI and Ethics, 1-19.