What Europe’s Tech Sovereignty Push Means for Education
I have been writing this blog for over twenty years. One thing I have found is that I am either scraping for things to write about for there. Is a glut of stories waiting to be told. And yes, we are in a glut phase. You might think that something called the European Technological Sovereignty Package is something that could happily be left aside but I think this is one of the most important of the many European legislative initiatives. Anyway, on 3 June 2026, the European Commission published what it is calling the European Technological Sovereignty Package [1]. It […]
Beyond Skills A Capability Conception of Vocational Education
I don’t often cover press releases in this blog. But I am making an exception of this book for two reasons. Firstly because the authors and publishers, while still charging a lot for the hard back, are providing a PDF version for free. I am acutely aware that the cost of things like conferences, journals and books are the serious barrier to education for many. So lets hope this starts a trend The second is the content. For the last two years I have been arguing that AI and new technologies require a rethink of the direction in which vocational […]
The Future of Public Education: Understanding the Historic Teachers’ Strike in the Valencian Community
I work from a home office of the fifth floor of an apartment near the centre of Alicante. And the street I live on is the assembly point for the many demonstrations which take place here. Alicante is the capital of the southern province of the Valencia Region of Spain. It is a large Province and the location of my home office has given me a birds eye view of the growing crisis in public education in Valencia (see picture above). And, for once AI is not the biggest issue in education. Since May 2026, the Valencian Community has been […]
Learning requires hard work?
I’ve said it before and been proved wrong but I think that we are moving towards an understanding about the impact of AI on education or more precisely on learning. There is a growing understanding that while Generative AI chatbots are good at supporting performance they are not effective in supporting learning. Indeed a series of research studies report that despite impressive performances while using AI for assignments, subsequent similar tasks undertaken without the support of AI display poor learning returns. In his substack post Ethan Mollick, a long time AI enthusiast of AI in education,illustrates this with an account […]
Fractured Reality: What the EU’s New Report on Democracy and Technology Means for VET
A new report from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) offers a sobering diagnosis of the current state of our digital public sphere. Enitled Fractured Reality: How Democracy Can Win the Global Struggle Over the Information Space, the report details how the fundamental architecture of the internet—specifically the “attention economy”—is systematically undermining democratic resilience in Europe [1]. For practitioners and leaders in education the report is not just a theoretical warning. It outlines a set of structural challenges that directly impact how citizens learn, how they engage with civic life, and how educational institutions must adapt to a world […]
What arXiv’s New Policy of banning AI Slop Means for Educational Research
AI slop is causing increasing concern everywhere and education is no exception. The number of requests I have received to review submissions to education journals has more than trebled this year. According to gossip the EU education programmes have never before received so many applications and they are likely to change application procedures next year. AI makes it easier but there are downsides. The open-access preprint repository arXiv has recently announced a strict new policy aimed at curbing the influx of low-quality, AI-generated research papers. The platform, which has become a primary site for circulating research in fields like computer […]
How do people in different countries feel about AI?
Just a quick following up on my last post where I reported on the growing opposition to AI in the USA. The most up to date comparative survey of attitudes to AI in different countries that I van. find was publihsed. in Sp[etemeber last year and undertaken by Pew Research. They say: As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) increases rapidly, most people across 25 countries surveyed say they have heard or read at least a little about the technology.And on balance, people are more concerned than excited about its growing presence in daily life. A median of 34% of […]
There is another way
The Growing backlash against AI We are not short of information about the rapid development of Large Language Models for AI. It would be quite easy to spend every working day reading Substack newsletters and LinkedIn posts. However, it could become somewhat dispiriting. Its worth noting that while the owners and shareholders of the big tech companies daily boast of the progress AI is making in building a better world, the backlash against AI grows daily – see Alberto Romeo’s comprehensive summary in a post entitled How America Turned Against AI According to the Poll Data: A (Very Big) Compilation. […]
The Configuration of Passivity and why AI in Education is Facing a Growing Backlash
The initial wave of uncritical enthusiasm for Artificial Intelligence in education is beginning to break in the face of pedagogical reality. A growing scepticism is taking root with teachers, students, and parents increasingly questioning the narrative that generative AI is an unalloyed good for learning. This opposition is not driven by technophobia, but by a mounting body of evidence suggesting that AI, rather than enhancing cognitive development, often acts as a barrier to it. Recent research provides empirical weight to these concerns. A 2025 study from the MIT Media Lab, which used EEG scans to measure brain activity during essay […]
The Canvas Catastrophe: Why Education Must Reclaim Its Digital Sovereignty
Over the past several decades, schools and universities have done exactly what every other institution has done: they have systematically outsourced their operational backbone to technology products and the companies that build them. The list of platforms that now mediate the basic functions of education including attendance, grades, assignments, communication is almost comically long. Most educational institutions are running ten to fifteen different EdTech products that all promise efficiency, but in reality, create confusion, frustration, and complicate what was once much simpler [1]. The trade-off has always been framed as giving up a degree of control and data in exchange […]
