Meet The Education Researcher

Chris Gilliard (@hypervisible) is a leading critic of surveillance technology, digital privacy, and the problematic ways that tech intersects with race and social class. We talk about the automated forms of surveillance that are coming into schools and colleges – from ‘online examination proctoring’ to the use of ‘Alexa’ in classrooms. Why do people in EdTech seem reluctant to call out the harms arising from these technologies? Can we ever trust ‘big tech’ companies like Amazon? What hope is there for grassroots resistance against oppressive technologies in education?

Gert Biesta (University of Edinburgh) is one of the best-known – and most interesting - current philosophers of education. We talk about Gert’s recent interest in the work of Klaus Prange, the need to come up with better questions (rather than answers), the prominence of ‘empty concepts’ in education, and advice for early career academics starting out in education research. Full text transcription of the interview: https://criticaledtech.com/2022/01/11/approaching-education-from-the-inside-out-an-interview-with-gert-biesta/

“Laptops will make a good school better, but they won’t make a bad school good” In this episode, we join Mark Warschauer (UC Irvine) for an overview of his 30 year career researching digital learning. We talk about why digital technology continues to be hyped as a ‘game changer’ in education, how children talk to computers as compared to humans, and Mark’s experience of editing the AERA Open journal. Text transcript of the interview: https://criticaledtech.com/2021/11/30/digital-learning-an-interview-with-mark-warschauer-december-2021/

Educational philosopher Carl Anders Safstrom (Maynooth University) joins us to talk about the past, present and future of ‘public education’. We trace the origins of the idea from post-war Europe back to the writing of John Dewey, and even further to the Ancient Greek ‘Sophists’. Carl Anders also considers how models of public education differ dramatically between countries – highlighting recent reforms of Swedish schooling as a cautionary example.

How do students learn to interact with others? How do teachers cope with stress? In this episode, we join psychologist Rebecca Collie (UNSW) for an overview of her work on social and emotional development in schools. We talk about how students’ disruptive behaviours impact teachers, the concept of workplace buoyancy, and the challenges of doing rapid research on how teachers coped with the COVID lockdowns.

Does the idea of ‘globalisation’ still have any relevance for understanding education in the 2020s? Fazal Rizvi (University of Melbourne) talks about what education policy now looks like in light of the rise of Asia, alongside increased worldwide shifts toward nationalism, popularism, and anti-globalisation. We also discuss the digitization of society, the significance of post-colonial theory, and how education research needs to retain hope for the future.

Val Mendes (UNESCO) brings a global perspective to the topic of AI and education – particularly in light of UNESCO’s focus on educational policy and practice around the world. We talk about the importance of seeing AI in ‘narrow’ terms, the idea of ‘augmented’ intelligence, what UNESCO is doing to support AI and education, and the big questions of what can AI do well in low- and middle-income countries. A full transcript of the interview is available online: https://criticaledtech.com/2021/08/09/ai-and-education-interview-with-dr-val-mendes-unesco/ [Val was talking as part of a Monash webinar on ‘AI & The Future of Education’ in June 2021]

What is the educational potential of artificial intelligence? Erica Southgate (University of Newcastle) talks us through some of the key issues surrounding the emergence of educational AI technology. We talk about the importance of AI explainability, the idea of big tech companies working alongside education communities, and the complex questions about the changing nature of learning with AI. A full transcript of the interview is available online: https://criticaledtech.com/2021/08/02/ai-and-education-interview-with-prof-erica-southgate-university-of-newcastle/ [Erica was talking as part of a Monash webinar on ‘AI & The Future of Education’ in June 2021]

What role does science education have in a ‘post-truth’ era when some people deny climate change, oppose vaccinations, and believe COVID to be a hoax? In this episode, Gale Sinatra and Barbara Hofer talk about their new book – Science Denial: Why It Happens & What To Do About It. We discuss the psychology of science denial – from cognitive biases through to the influence of group identity – and consider the role of schools in fostering nuanced understandings of the scientific process and basic information literacies.

‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ is a key educational text - packed with radical ideas about critical pedagogy and the death of the authoritarian teacher. In this episode, we join Carlos Alberto Torres (UCLA) for a deep dive into the background against which Freire was writing, the specific contexts of his ideas, and how we should be engaging with Pedagogy of the Oppressed over 50 years since its publication.