Year: 2025

As I have noted before LinkedIn has emerged as the clearing house for exchanging research and commentary of AI in education. And in this forum, the AI skeptics seem to be winning. Of course the doubts have always been there: hallucinations, bias. lack of agency, impact on creativity and so on. There are also increasing concerns over the environmental impact of Large Language Models. But the big one is the emerging research into the effectiveness of Generative AI for learning. This week a new study from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University found that increased reliance on GenAI in the workplace […]

I recently went along to a University of Liverpool symposium showcasing case studies of generative AI in teaching, learning and assessment. The presenters and audience were predominantly from an HE background but the content, augmented by the suggestions from other educators in the chat provided some great transferable ideas. The focus was on multimodal learning, which is academic speak for multimedia, apparently multimodal has more emphasis on the design and process (but when has a good educator ever really preferred style over substance!?)  The big timesavers with the most impact were in using generative AI tools to speed up creating […]

When we talk about education and training we tend to focus on teachers and trainers in vocational schools. But there is a whole other sector known as L&D – Learning and Development. According to the Association for Talent Development, the term learning and development, encompasses any professional development a business provides to its employees. It is considered to be a core area of human resources management, and may sometimes be referred to as training and development, learning and performance, or talent development (TD). Phil Hardman is a researcher and L&D professional. Her weekly newsletter is in interesting because of her […]

In the latest edition of Dr Phil’s newsletter, entitled ‘The Impact of Gen AI on Human Learning: a research summary’ Phil Hardman undertakes a literature review of the most recent and important peer-reviewed studies. And in contrast to some of the studies currently coming out, which tend to claim either amazing success or doom laden failure for the use of AI for learning, she adopts an analytical and nuanced viewpoint, examining the evidence and providing a list of key takeaways from each report, leading to implications for educators and developers. Here are the Key takeaways from each of the five […]

Last Friday, 24 January, marked the UNESCO International Day of Education. And as part of that, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning hosted a webinar on ‘Lifelong learning in the age of AI’ aiming “to bring together policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to revisit the idea of lifelong learning in the age of emerging technologies, with a thematic focus on lifelong learning as a concept, workplace learning, digital competencies of adult educators, and bridging the grey digital divide.” Current policies on AI and lifelong learning, they said, often adopt an instrumental and technologically deterministic approach, prioritising efficiency over human development and […]

As I write this post, the newspaper headlines are focused on the record decline in value of tech shares, especially chip manufacturer Nvidia, following the release of the Open Source DeepSeek Large Language Model and platform. Most of the extensive news coverage has focused on the tech business and the likelihood that it represents a bubble, especially for the Generative AI companies, OpenAi, Anthrpopic Google and the like. The other ,main focus has been geopolitical, with China having caught up with the USA in AI development. For education, DeepSeek can be seen as good news. The domination of Generative AI […]

Its probably fair to say that the hype around Generative AI far outstrips the reality. Perhaps that is because in the slow process of discovering actual jobs which AI can do, copy editing and advertising is one of those at the forefront.And goven that the AI companies are very keen on hyping their products, there is an endless stream of artciples saying how wonderful AI is for almost every occupation. These articles almost always talk about how much time AI saves and how this increases productivity. Here’s an example from a company called Screenloop: “AI is not simply a tool—it’s […]