I spoke at this event held by the Digital Futures for Children Centre at the London School of Economics & Political Science. I tried to make the case that the current ‘explosion’ in EdTech needs to be seen in terms of:

• the platformization of education – privately owned digital platforms now determining, coordinating and defining what happens in schools. Teaching and learning does not just take place between people as a relational or intergenerational exchange but now almost always through or in some ways connected to a platform. The basis for this is the power to reduce all human activity to a measurement whether this is attendance, learning progression, well-being/mental health, assessment, et cetera.

• the pedagogicisation of everyday life – how school definitions of learning influence other kinds of learning in the home as well as theories about transformations in subjectivity in terms of discipline, values and achievement. Increasing competition for well-paid jobs, decreases in social mobility and the changing role of education as a route to bettering yourself for your family now means that there is an increasing intensity in child rearing and in the home to emphasise forms of educational attainment.

A recording of the event can be found here.