Based on ongoing discussions and projects exploring new technology adoption in education, Michael Gallagher, Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education, and Myles Blaney, Service Manager in DLAM, decided that the exploratory conversations they were having might be useful to share with the wider community via a podcast.

“We want to use the podcast as a means of documenting our thinking on how we are approaching particular technologies, positioning these as expanding on the teacher function (or not, in which case we are largely ignoring them), and demystifying them, hopefully, in the process. We are keen to explore if and how this new tech could impact the educational community.”

The topics themselves vary but the immediate targets are an ongoing discussion around automation and teaching (lots of demystifying necessary there), learning analytics, and adaptive learning.

These podcast represents a forthright, sincere and ultimately speculative journey through the contentious technologies most impacting higher education in our near futures. It represents our understanding of the issues as they stand at that moment, an understanding that will shift considerably over time.

All podcasts are available under Creative Commons licence from the M&M Podcast channel on Media Hopper Create.

Epsiode 1: Setting the Scene, Terms, Topics

Episode 2: Bots in Education

Episode 3: AI, Definitions, and Imaginaries of Edtech in Higher Education

Episode 4: AI utopia, dystopia and data

Episode 5: Jeremy Knox: data, justice and impacts on automation

Episode 6: Jeremy Knox discussing and reflecting on Teacherbot

[Header image, CC BY SA, Michael S. Gallagher]