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Reposted by Ben Williamson

Schools Week @schoolsweek.bsky.social · 1h

Exclusive: Teachers will use 'deepfake' technology to create an AI avatar of themselves to deliver catch-up lessons for pupils who have missed school

Watch one of the school’s ‘deepfake’ teachers in our story below

schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-trus...

'Deepfake' teacher avatars to help pupils catch up

Academy trust staff to use AI generator to introduce resources for pupils returning to school

schoolsweek.co.uk

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Reposted by Ben Williamson

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 18h

New paper - "Brokering the brain: neuroscientific knowledge, technologies, and the translation of neuro-expertise into educational practice" - led by @dimiktz.bsky.social w Martyn Pickersgill, Jess Pykett and me from our bio-edu-data-sci project funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk doi.org/10.1080/0159...

Brokering the brain: neuroscientific knowledge, technologies, and the translation of neuro-expertise into educational practice

Educational neuroscience has expanded its influence since the 1990s, positioned as advancing new forms of intervention in educational policy and practice. Simultaneously, the gap between the neuros...

doi.org

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Science, Technology, & Human Values @sthv.bsky.social · 9h

New OnlineFirst (OA) article: "From Neighborhoods to Molecules: The Selective Appropriation of Sociology in Social Epigenetics" by Julien Larregue and Séverine Louvel @julienlarregue.bsky.social #epigenetics #biosocial #sociology #interdisciplinarity journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

From Neighborhoods to Molecules: The Selective Appropriation of Sociology in Social Epigenetics - Julien Larregue, Séverine Louvel, 2025

Social epigenetics is presented as a promising interdisciplinary avenue between the natural and social sciences to explore the links between neighborhood enviro...

journals.sagepub.com

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Shana Gadarian @sgadarian.bsky.social · 12h

Everyone who studies research methods just had an aneurysm

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14h

RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 11h

This translational activity in neuroeducation is frequently framed as emancipatory, addressing inequalities and centring critical educational expertise. However, it still foregrounds the brain, rather than its social and educational contexts, as the locus of intervention to address social problems.

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 11h

3. Commercialization involves neurotech startups seeking to translate brain science into classroom practice through commercial headsets and platforms that collect masses of brain data for product development and to offer neurofeedback to teachers, e.g. hntrbrk.com/brainco/

BrainCo: The “Harvard” Startup That Became A “Little Dragon” in China — With Brain Data From U.S. Olympians and Schoolchildren

Are you ready for your mind to be blown? How about harvested?

hntrbrk.com

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 11h

2. School partnerships where schools become brain science labs for live neurotech studies. Here schools are equipped with brainwave recording facilities to generate "ecologically valid" brain studies of children in the classroom rather than in the scanner, e.g. www.synapseschool.org/innovation/blc

Brainwave Learning Center - Synapse School

www.synapseschool.org

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 11h

1. Coalition building among networks of neuro-experts to propel evidence claims into policy - making the brain policy-relevant by selecting and presenting compelling and persuasive brain science evidence produced with state of the art neurotechnologies, e.g.
solportal.ibe-unesco.org/articles/edu...

IBE — Science of learning portal — Education 2030 Agenda targets: Implementing neuroscience findings

Significant progress has been made in ensuring the right to basic education since 2000, under the Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) frameworks.

solportal.ibe-unesco.org

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 11h

Educational neuroscience has been trying to "cross the bridge" to practice for decades. Now neurotech is seen as a way to achieve that aim. In the paper we identify 3 translational strategies as neuroeducation science has mobilized brain technologies to influence policy and practice:

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 18h

The basic structure of so much commentary, some in the guise of academic study, reduces to:

(1) generative AI products are detrimental to the goals of education

(2) therefore, the goals of education must change.

Without the tacit axiom that AI has authority behind it, that just doesn’t follow.

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 19h

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 18h

New paper - "Brokering the brain: neuroscientific knowledge, technologies, and the translation of neuro-expertise into educational practice" - led by @dimiktz.bsky.social w Martyn Pickersgill, Jess Pykett and me from our bio-edu-data-sci project funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk doi.org/10.1080/0159...

Brokering the brain: neuroscientific knowledge, technologies, and the translation of neuro-expertise into educational practice

Educational neuroscience has expanded its influence since the 1990s, positioned as advancing new forms of intervention in educational policy and practice. Simultaneously, the gap between the neuros...

doi.org

1 5 15

Reposted by Ben Williamson

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1d

“One of the negative consequences AI is having on students is that it is hurting their ability to develop meaningful relationships with teachers, the report finds. Half of the students agree that using AI in class makes them feel less connected to their teachers.”

Rising Use of AI in Schools Comes With Big Downsides for Students

A report by the Center for Democracy and Technology looks at teachers' and students' experiences with the technology.

www.edweek.org

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Reposted by Ben Williamson

Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 1d

This important report reveals that increased AI use in schools:

-causes teachers and students to have more concern about AI

-makes students feel less connected to teachers

and that 71% of teachers worry AI weakens critical thinking & research skills.

Hand in Hand: Schools’ Embrace of AI Connected to Increased Risks to Students

Artificial intelligence (AI) has continued to alter the educational experiences of teachers, students, and parents during the 2024-25 school year. The frequency and variety of AI uses continues to gro...

cdt.org

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 1d

"Why would OpenAI and Microsoft spend $23 million to give 'free training' on how to use AI to teachers? Because they love teachers? No. Because they want to get their products into public schools in an attempt to cultivate the education market. ... To automate teachers, in other words."

Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 2d

It takes no special technical expertise to know that
1) AI's main value proposition today is automating labor,
2) AI is going to supercharge economic inequality, and
3) If we do not get out in front of that policy-wise, we are fools.

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/thinking-o...

Thinking of AI as a Social Problem

No need to know the unknowable. The knowable is bad enough.

www.hamiltonnolan.com

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 3d

Scholarslop: The Dangers of an Algorithmic Idea of the University - great piece by @berrydm.bsky.social

"academics will need to find new means to defend the university and contest the use of scholarslop before it is too late" stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

Scholarslop: The Dangers of an Algorithmic Idea of the University

Understanding digital media, technology, theory, culture and society.

stunlaw.blogspot.com

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 4d

This is so good from Cory Doctorow on all the tricks Amazon uses to get both consumers to pay more, and how businesses on the platform end up paying it 45-51 cents on every dollar.

Plus he rightly calls for regulatory change, not just individual consumer action
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and ...

www.theguardian.com

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 5d

Vibe literacy (pejorative) is absolutely what these companies are trying to sell. I used that exact phrase when telling my boss why I wanted to keep my students as far from LLM instruments as possible.

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 5d

I searched "vibe learning" for fun recently and found exactly what I expected and let out the kind of sound you'd expect from someone realizing the end of their time in this world was just minutes away basescripts.com/what-is-vibe...

What is Vibe Learning

Vibe Learning represents a revolutionary shift in how we approach education and skill acquisition, moving beyond traditional passive methods to an active, AI-partnered journey of discovery. Coined …

basescripts.com

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 5d

At least Max Ventilla actually went and bought a pile of progressive education books instead of getting a chatgpt autosummary on demand techcrunch.com/2013/04/03/m...

Aardvark Co-Founder Max Ventilla Departs Google To Read A Lot Of Books On Education | TechCrunch

One of the early proponents of social search and part of Google’s social team has left the company, and he has a big reading list ahead of him. Max Ventilla, co-founder of early social search company ...

techcrunch.com

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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 5d

Listening to this for the first time since it came out, partially to review my own research on Vista Equity, now a seeming target of kleptocratic antitrust suit.

But, omg, @ajdouglas.bsky.social, Jared Loggins, @kgrotke.bsky.social Crystal Sanders, Jelani Favors, & @bakerdphd.bsky.social are 🔥🔥🔥.

Philanthrocapitalism U

Podcast Episode · The American Vandal · S11 E7 · 1h 34m

podcasts.apple.com

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 5d

I searched "vibe learning" for fun recently and found exactly what I expected and let out the kind of sound you'd expect from someone realizing the end of their time in this world was just minutes away basescripts.com/what-is-vibe...

What is Vibe Learning

Vibe Learning represents a revolutionary shift in how we approach education and skill acquisition, moving beyond traditional passive methods to an active, AI-partnered journey of discovery. Coined …

basescripts.com

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Reposted by Ben Williamson

Morticia Frump-Addams (She/Her) @morticia-frump.bsky.social · 5d

Private equity companies are the bane of society.

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 5d

“The first ethics panels, created in response to testing scandals in the 1960s and ’70s, were nonprofits based at universities and hospitals. But in recent years, private-equity investors have increasingly reshaped them as for-profit endeavors.” cc @profgoldberg.bsky.social

How Private Equity Oversees the Ethics of Drug Research

www.nytimes.com

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 5d

Laziness *is* the new innovative forward-thinking of the future

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 5d

Or if they're feeling especially lazy they could magic it up with NotebookLM for maximum efficiency and lack of care for education

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 5d

Private equity in education turns things like academic work, student data, and administration into different things - objects that can be valued and generate returns as assets they own and control. Whether that's good for education is doubtful. PE is just after a slice of that $10t edu-pie.

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