#301 A policy perspective on AI and equity: a fireside chat with Alina Sava
The Edtech Podcast
In this episode, our host Philippa Wraithmell is in conversation with Alina Sava, a Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank, discussing Alina’s journey in education and the transformative role of AI in the sector. She emphasizes the importance of equity in education, the necessity of lifelong learning, and the evolving curriculum that incorporates critical thinking. Alina highlights the need for governments to create frameworks for AI integration while ensuring that teachers remain central to the learning process. The discussion also touches on the potential digital divide in AI access...
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#300 What If CPD Actually Worked for Teachers, Not Against Them? - With Hachette Learning
The Edtech Podcast
Teachers today are genuinely time-poor. Between increasing administrative demands, constant assessment, and the rapid rise of AI, finding professional development that truly fits into a teacher’s reality can feel impossible. Too often, CPD remains one-size-fits-all detached from linguistically diverse classrooms and the real challenges educators face every day. When professional learning fails to connect with practice, the impact goes far beyond wasted hours. Essential skills such as oracy, effective EAL strategies, and healthy digital habits are overlooked, contributing to teacher burnout...
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#299 The AI Paradox: Why the World’s Poorest Classrooms Are Adopting What the West Fears
The Edtech Podcast
In many Western classrooms, the mobile phone is viewed as the "forbidden fruit", a primary source of distraction that must be banned, confiscated, or locked away in magnetic pouches. Teachers and parents alike are exhausted by the constant battle over "screen time," whilst struggling to engage students in an education system that hasn't evolved in decades. Lectures are often unengaging, leading students to drift away, yet we blame the device rather than the delivery. Is this prohibitive approach a catastrophic mistake? Stephen Hodges warns that Western nations risk being "digitally...
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#298 - SAUDI LEARN - Can AI Detect Your Emotions? Inside Saudi Arabia’s Most Ambitious Learning & Innovation Program
The Edtech Podcast
Can an AI detect your sadness? 🤔 This episode will change how you think about mental health and finance. We're at Saudi Learn speaking to the next generation of innovators! Hear from the brilliant minds behind: · Voice Recognition for Mental Health: A powerful app that charts your emotional patterns and spikes. They tell us why this is CRUCIAL 50% of people worldwide are walking around undiagnosed. · The AI Finance Advisor: We meet the team who spotted a "desperate need" for financial help, leading them to...
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#297 OpenAI: The Great Equaliser? AI and the Future of Fair Learning.
The Edtech Podcast
In this episode, Jayna Devani - International Education Lead at OpenAI, shares how ChatGPT has rapidly become one of the most widely used learning tools in the world and how OpenAI is partnering with educators, universities, and governments to support responsible, equitable AI adoption. She discusses real examples from institutions like Oxford University and national initiatives like Estonia, showing how AI can enhance learning through personalization, creativity, and teacher-led innovation. Exploring how students are using ChatGPT as a study partner, coach, and career companion, and how...
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#296 Author of Gifted? The Shift to Enrichment, Challenge and Equity
The Edtech Podcast
Imagine a child sitting in the corner of the classroom, written off as 'average' or even disruptive, yet harbouring a remarkable, untouched spark of curiosity within. Morgan Whitfield, educator and author of Gifted, invites us to delve into this poignant reality, where the label of 'gifted' often serves as an exclusionary wall that stifles potential, rather than a bridge to achievement . Through heart-stirring real-life stories, this episode challenges us to stop viewing education as an exclusive competition for a select few and start embracing every child with high, compassionate...
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#295 Nicole Ponsford - EdTech, Equity & 26,000 Voices
The Edtech Podcast
If you’ve ever felt that education is changing faster than the systems meant to support you, this podcast gives you a clearer and more human way to understand that shift. You’ll explore how inclusion, data literacy, AI and school culture can be viewed through a lens that actually reflects real lived experiences. In this episode you join Dr Nicole Ponsford, a former teacher turned researcher and founder of a platform built on more than twenty six thousand voices from schools around the world. Her work challenges long standing assumptions about data, belonging and leadership in ways that...
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#294 Universities Without Walls : Future Skills future Work
The Edtech Podcast
What if the universities of the future had no walls, no lecture halls, and no stressful exams? In this episode, Philippa Wraithmell speaks with James Newby(President & CEO, NMITE – New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering, UK) and Dr Thomas Funke (Founding President, Tomorrow University, Germany). They explore how higher education is evolving, moving away from rigid traditional systems towards models of learning that are more human, challenge-based, and aligned with the future of work. From hands-on learning and mission-driven education to the development of emotional...
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#293 One Hour to Mastery: The Science Behind Lasting Knowledge
The Edtech Podcast
This episode explores the science of long-term memory and “time-sequenced learning”, a neuroscience-based instructional approach that helps students retain knowledge deeply and efficiently. Simon explains how the technique was inspired by research showing that firing synapses in a particular sequence chemically strengthens memory — “tattooing” information into the brain. This method, initially tested in schools and later scaled digitally, can compress weeks of traditional instruction into an hour while improving retention and confidence. He and Philippa discuss: The neuroscience...
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#292 Virtual, But Real: Rethinking School with Minerva Virtual Academy
The Edtech Podcast
In this episode, host Philippa Wraithmell is joined by Hugh Viney, Founder and CEO of Minerva Virtual Academy, to explore how one online school is redefining what learning can look like. What started during lockdown as a response to students thriving outside traditional classrooms has become one of the UK’s fastest-growing accredited online schools. Hugh shares the journey from concept to community, a story shaped by mentorship, wellbeing, and flexibility. Together, Philippa and Hugh discuss how Minerva supports students who struggled in mainstream education, why connection and belonging are...
info_outlineWe've all seen the headlines - AI is revolutionising everything from how students learn to how teachers teach. The promise of personalised learning paths, automated grading, and AI teaching assistants has created a gold rush mentality in education technology. But in our rush to adopt these powerful new tools, are we moving too fast?
Today we'll explore why when it comes to AI in education, we need to learn fast but act more slowly and thoughtfully. We'll look at both the tremendous opportunities and serious risks that AI tools present for students and educators. We'll examine where AI can truly add value in education versus where human teachers remain irreplaceable. And most importantly, we'll discuss why comprehensive AI literacy and training is absolutely crucial - not just for educators, but for everyone involved in shaping young minds. Drawing on insights from leading experts on the frontlines of AI in education, we'll provide a framework for thinking about how to implement AI tools responsibly and effectively. Whether you're a teacher, administrator, policymaker or parent, this episode will give you practical guidance for navigating the AI revolution in education.
Talking points and questions may include:
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- Opportunities and risks of the tools:
- Adaptive or personalised learning paths, automated marking and feedback, content generation, analytics and teaching assistants, but also inaccuracy and lack of transparency, data risks, biases, ethics and safeguarding, and like social media, the unintended lasting consequences
- Where AI is best placed:
- Is it EdTech and tools in the classroom, the augmentation and elevation of human intelligence, or is it just learning about AI and what it can do and why (is knowledge=power enough?)
- Why it is so important that understanding and training are emphasised and why everyone needs to have such training
- Without it there can be safeguarding disasters, skills training can be insufficient, many AI tool providers are offering free training to learn to use their tool but this is consumerised and inadequate and can be ethically questionable; do we want successive generations to only be producing AI tools that are exploitative and using our data and our IP without our consent, or do we want to help people with technology and for the partnership to be of most benefit to them?
- Opportunities and risks of the tools:
Guests:
- Rt. Hon the Lord Knight of Weymouth, Jim Knight
- Rob Robson, ASCL Trust Leadership Consultant