Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social

Researching data, tech, futures, and biological sciences in education | Senior Lecturer and co-director at the Centre for Research in Digital Education | University of Edinburgh | Editor of Learning, Media and Technology @lmt-journal.bsky.social

New article just out exploring how "educational genomics" scientists propose using polygenic scores as the basis for policy and practice interventions, and what this geneticization of education entails. doi.org/10.1177/14749041261432392
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The "Davos of Education" 🤪🤡
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The only reason ASU+GSV Summit exists is so venture capital investors can shape education to suit their ROI expectations of the financial cut they can get from that global $8-10 trillion education pie. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767724.2023.2272134
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The future of education always seems to rely on ahistorical, fictional expectations of the value of the sector that are calculated by the finance sector. And then investors act on those expectations, and the future gets made in the ways finance imagined. www.morganstanley.com/ideas/education-system-technology-reboot
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For years the edtech investing industry has been circulating these massive calculations about the $8-10 trillion education market. These numbers aren't real, surely. They're fictional estimates intended to incite investment with expectations of future returns. www.holoniq.com/notes/10-trillion-global-education-market-in-2030
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It's the edtech investors' annual party and deal-making event at ASU+GSV this week so expect crazy speculative discourse and even wilder value claims.

This $8 trillion valuation of the global education sector (and the implied mega returns possible), for example - where does that come from?
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Reposted by Ben Williamson
mattbarnum.bsky.social's profile picture
Matt Barnum @mattbarnum.bsky.social
4h
NEW Just a few years ago Sal Khan was predicting that AI was poised to revolutionize education. But his experience launching an AI-powered tutor, Khanmigo, has been sobering, he says.

The hope that it would quickly become a super-tutor still seems a long way off.
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/09/sal-khan-reflects-on-ai-in-schools-and-khanmigo/
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Wow did the US teachers' union AFT vibe code its National Academy for AI Instruction website, because it's a complete mess. Like, the *worst* homepage, not at all reassuring as a source of expert knowledge on AI really.
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Rest of World @restofworld.org
9h
Students in China are renting AI glasses for $6 a day to scan exam questions and get answers in real time restofworld.org/2026/china-ai-glasses-cheating-privacy-boom/?utm_campaign=row-social&utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1775914080
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The technical architecture of academic publishing looks like being re-engineered rapidly with "agentic AI" developed in partnerships between publishers and big tech. Really, all academics and editors want is a *functioning* system of publication. Is it too much just to ask for that?
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Will AI agents and automated editors be the first readers of your next academic journal submission?

"The system makes preliminary evaluative judgments that humans then review. The human role shifts from doing the assessment to auditing the assessment." scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/04/08/ai-rollout-is-a-people-problem-a-pulse-on-all-things-ai-part-2/
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Reposted by Ben Williamson
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social
1d
Co-sign this whole thread with the addendum that forced usage of LMS, especially Canvas, will help goose lagging AI diffusion rates for the industry’s next capital raise.
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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social
1d
But hey don’t worry it’s not totally ineffectual, it still does all the bad stuff!
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Altmetric @altmetric.com
1d
Thanks again @benpatrickwill.bsky.social - we owe you an update.

Scienmag and Bioengineer have been removed from the Altmetric dataset.

AI has a role to play in the world, but AI-journalism slop, concealed or not, is not it.

New attention page: www.altmetric.com/details/184570117/news
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Reposted by Ben Williamson
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social
1d
May I interest you in ÂŁ10k for humanities or social science research? Our small grants scheme is open. Apply by 3rd June.

We allocate through partial randomisation - awarding randomly between all applications that meet our quality threshold
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/schemes/ba-leverhulme-small-research-grants/
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“So far I am not seeing the revolution in education,” admits chief learning officer of organization responsible for generating much of the hype about genAI in education www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/09/sal-khan-reflects-on-ai-in-schools-and-khanmigo/
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Reposted by Ben Williamson
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social
8d
It's me in the Financial Times, detailing the deep and pernicious influence of one-size-fits-all management consultancy in our universities... Take a look! 👇
www.ft.com/content/5032f1bd-7196-4636-82b6-16ed040f99f1
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The above post is the script for a keynote at the European Conference on Educational Research @ecer-eera.bsky.social and doubles as a summary of our research funded by The Leverhulme Trust @leverhulme.ac.uk analyzing the emergence of "educational genomics".
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Genetic data are increasingly used in research on educational outcomes, with proposals even being made to use DNA for policy and practice. It's already controversial science, and its potential applications pose many risks.
codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/03/27/the-birth-of-the-bio-edu-data-sciences/
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Good piece on "Frankenstein citations" in academic publishing, illustrating why the scale of the problem has proven hard to quantify, and why coming up with technical fixes like submission screeners remains more troublesome than it would first seem
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00969-z
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Reposted by Ben Williamson
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social
10d
My university: "Copilot is Microsoft's AI-powered productivity service that uses large language models (LLMs) to help you create content, analyze information, summarize documents, and complete tasks more efficiently."

Microsoft: LOL
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Katy Hayward @katyhayward.bsky.social
11d
What is the public purpose of the #University in an age of #AI everywhere?

I had a go at answering this whopper of a question in the latest issue of the Journal of the British Academy @britishacademy.bsky.social
#democracy #discernment

doi.org/10.5871/jba/014.a04
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Amanda Marcotte @amandamarcotte.bsky.social
12d
Melania Trump's robot stunt was unsettling, but here reason is worse: to promote replacing human teachers with robots.

This is no one-off. It's the newest front in the GOP war on education.

Conservatives hate kids learning to think for themselves.

www.salon.com/2026/03/30/why-maga-fears-human-teachers/
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social
14d
Grammarly made an AI to sell shitty writing advice with famous writers' names on it.

This bullshit illustrates a trend in the tech industry: shipping features as quickly as you can write lines of code, with no way to tell if they are any good until something breaks or someone sues you.
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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social
14d
We're in with the same folks: "Scotland’s largest university has turned to Nous Group at the same time as it is making savings that could lead to nearly 2,000 job losses. Staff say they were misled about the extent of its work."
www.theferret.scot/consultancy-advising-edinburgh-huge-cuts/
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Dr Nick Dickinson @nickdickinson.bsky.social
14d
Predictably, Matt Goodwin's GB News debate was a disaster. He opens with defending the idea "everyone" uses AI tools for research now, and it's entirely legitimate. So the book is undeniably a product of using LLMs on some level. 1/
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Annie Abrams @annieabrams.bsky.social
15d
"Human teachers...had disagreed with the things the State had wanted them to teach. Sometimes they had wanted their students to read books." www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/03/melania-plato-ai-humanoid-instructor-classroom/686569/?gift=jQN1t1D1nkO2TQodBiz5KM140u0Mfe5SFZDw8y8NT5c&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
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Academe @academemagazine.bsky.social
15d
@psuaaup.bsky.social's David Kinsella writes in #Academe about the spread of AI-enabled tools in higher education consulting: “The experience at PSU suggests that what is being sold as decision intelligence is better understood as a new frontier in academic austerity.”
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social
15d
Since today is officially National AI Literacy Day, I think it might be helpful to share work that challenges “literacy” as the best framework for teaching about and against AI and other technologies. 🧵
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On "AI Literacy Day" I suggest reading "The (im)possibility of AI literacy" by @lucipangrazio.bsky.social questioning whether "literacy" is even the right response to AI and, if so, how a meaningful AI literacy could build on the history of "critical digital literacies" doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2026.2615553
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