Is GPT-5 Important for Education?
You might have noticed in the media that OpenAI […]
The Cult of Efficiency
I’ve been working in vocational education and training for about 40 years. And there are a few themes that seem to repeat themselves. The assertion that education is out of touch and needs changes to meet the demands of employers and modern industry. The need for reform of vocational qualifications (although it may be that this is a particularly UK obsession). A more recent discourse is the importance of VET for productivity. And, of course, there are the ever changing demands for adopting new technology as a tool for modernising VET. So I was interested to read about Raymond Callahan’s […]
Public Voice
The UK ESRC Digital Good Network has published a call for abstracts for a proposed special issue in the journal Big Data and Society aiming to advance scholarship on the state-of-the-art and future prospects of including public voices in AI. They say ‘Public voice’ is not easy to define or operationalise. “There is no one ‘public’. Benefits, harms and risks are distributed unevenly. The hopes, concerns and experiences of different groups with AI vary. What has been identified as a ‘participation gap’ is worsened by insufficient and ineffective processes of consultation, implementation and ongoing management. Compounding these issues are structural […]
Consultation on AI literacy Framework
The European Commission and OECD, with support from Code.org, have released a new draft of their proposes AI Literacy Framework. The framework defines what primary and secondary students should know and be able to do in a world shaped by AI. Now the European Commission has we’re inviting feedback from educators, policymakers, researchers. They say your input will inform the final version of the AI Lit Framework and will help shape how we prepare students to engage with AI – critically, creatively, and ethically and invite feedback from “across geographies, roles, and perspectives” to ensure this framework is relevant and […]
Spurious Sovereignty
For several years Helen Beetham has been developing an increasingly critical analysis of the development and social impact of Generative AI through her blog and newsletter, Imperfact Offerings. Her latest post, Marking the Government’s homework on public sector AI, includes an analysis and critique of the UK government’s plans for automated marking and autonomous missiles, and making public data ‘safe’ by selling it to private ‘security’ businesses, all in the name of ‘sovereignty’. It goes further with an in depth analysis of the data industry and the plans by the UK government for the development of large data centres, in […]
A Solid C+ Performance or a Caricature of Teaching Behaviour?
Just a quick follow up on last Thursdays post on the newly launched Open AI study mode. I was rather surprised by the muted reaction to this = but perhaps launching in the middle of the summer holidays may have influenced this. Anyway what reaction there was, was fairly critical. As a member of OpenAI’s educator-advisor group, leading HR expert Phillipa Hardman had early access to Study Mode and gave her opinion after a week of study in “✔️ What Study Mode Gets Right → Socratic Dialogue: Guides with questions instead of giving direct answers, promoting deeper thinking (Collins & […]
