Neil Selwyn

3 days ago | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Neil Selwyn

On February 6th I took part in a panel at Södertörn University discussing ‘the digital backlash’ in education – the growing trend to ban smartphones from schools, prioritise traditional books over screens, and generally roll-back the digitisation strategies of the 2010s. Here is a summary of my opening remarks. **There are certainly many good reasons to curb the digitisation of schools.

3 weeks ago | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Neil Selwyn

The promise of ‘labour-saving’ technology is rarely straightforward. While new technologies will often lead to different working conditions, whether or not these equate with better working conditions tends to contestable (especially if we ask the pointed question of ‘better for whom?’).

1 month ago | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Neil Selwyn

The past few years have seen various examples of the fully-automated classroom be put into operation, prompting equal amounts of consternation and celebration. One such Arizona charter school opening in 2025 is described as using AI-driven platforms to give students short bursts of personalised ‘core instruction’. This school – ‘Unbound Academy’ – will be fully-online and targeted at fourth to eighth graders.

2 months ago | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Neil Selwyn

Share Share on Bluesky Why is Facebook not here? Why is Twitter not here? Share on LinkedIn Permalink Email March 5, 2025 I’ve tried AI for things like student feedback and been very surprised. We had a 10-mark Geography assignment on Google Docs. I thought the AI would be hopeless, but I put in a list of criteria that I wanted it to mark and the comments were spot on.

Feb 7, 2025 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Neil Selwyn

One common theme throughout our initial conversations about AI with teachers are issues of time. Here, the primary narrative being pushed by school leaders and AI vendors is the idea of AI as a time-saver – taking on the burden of time-consuming but inessential tasks, and thereby ‘freeing up’ teachers “so you’ve got time to do other things that you never get time to do” [#1]These framings of AI have certainly surfaced across our three study schools.