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...

I wrote about the divide between high school and college English, and what we might do to bridge it, for @publicbooks.bsky.social—part of an excellent roundtable on higher ed under Trump organized by @dennismhogan.bsky.social www.publicbooks.org/toward-the-h...

Maybe of interest to the @civicsoftech.bsky.social and #literacies communities and others concerned about the growing influence of private tech in public schools.

Say it often, say it loud: "Overall, research has not supported the common-sense presumption that digital approaches to schooling are better than non-digital alternatives. At the broadest level, widespread computer use in education has been found to be associated with lower student achievement."

[clears throat]...I have another book coming out in the near future if you'd like to read a bit about LYRIC LOGIC, there are some very generous blurbs over at @columbiaup.bsky.social (my thanks to Marjorie Levinson, Oren Izenberg, Theo Davis, Nan Z. Da, and also @philipleventhal.bsky.social)

Edtech platforms "are not neutral 'tools' but complex ecosystems shaped by technical architectures, commercial imperatives, and political-economic interests." Excellent new policy brief on edtech platforms from @nepc.bsky.social and @philnichols.bsky.social

New @nepc.bsky.social policy brief with Faith Boninger: how commercial edtech undercuts key goals of public education—and what we can do about it. We look at transparency, governance, and privacy issues and offer recommendations for educators and policymakers. nepc.colorado.edu/publication/...

If you care about young people, education, and the future, this report from @nepc.bsky.social is a must read.

New policy brief: Educators should reassess the hidden impacts of ed tech ecosystems on teaching, learning, and student data. bit.ly/46C2JXT

New @nepc.bsky.social policy brief with Faith Boninger: how commercial edtech undercuts key goals of public education—and what we can do about it. We look at transparency, governance, and privacy issues and offer recommendations for educators and policymakers. nepc.colorado.edu/publication/...

📚New Pub! Contributing to our special issue series, Dominique McDaniel and Matthew Osborn write “From Platforms to Pedagogy: Exploring How Youth’s Social Media Practices Can Shape Teacher Education Through Culturally Digitized Pedagogy.” Check it out!

The final issue of our series on critical perspectives on digital platforms in ELA teacher education is published. We are so grateful to all of our brilliant contributors. Check it out!

📚New Pub! Contributing to our special issue series, @justmaybechris.bsky.social, Cherise McBride, and @anna-phd.bsky.social write on “The (Im)Possibilities of ‘Creating Digital Living Rooms’: A Black Educational Studies Perspective on Digital Platforms in Teacher Education”. Check it out!

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

Tonight in Critical Tech in Ed, we're reading @anterobot.bsky.social, @charleswlogan.bsky.social & @philnichols.bsky.social's LA Book Review on @bcmerchant.bsky.social's Blood in the Machine to talk abt why we're reading widely & critically in seeking to understand tech in edu & advocate for change.

I've been working for many months on this article on Silicon Valley's under-the-radar role in bringing AI into schools across the US. I really hope you'll read it — here's a gift link — but I'll tell you some of the highlights in this thread. (1/x)

Writing with @philnichols.bsky.social and @anterobot.bsky.social, we consider what three waves of Luddites throughout history have to offer educators in the fight against generative AI and other obnoxious machines of automation. The article is paywalled, but I'm happy to send a copy.

I can’t tell what gives me more hope: @andyliddell.bsky.social and Julie’s work at the EdTech Law Center; or Celeste, a high school students’, brilliant engagement with their work in this week’s @civicsoftech.bsky.social blog.

New pub! This collaboration with @neilgshanks.bsky.social and @lizmagill.bsky.social was driven by a shared desire to imagine economic inquiry that draws from students’ lives and experiences and disrupts the patriarchal assumptions in the neoclassical paradigm. Share with social studies teachers!

What do young people have to contribute to conversations about digital civic life? Check out this @civicsoftech.bsky.social blog from Digital Civics Club student, Athena! If you care to show support to this young writer in her first publication, leave a comment on the blog!

I’ve been engaging in digital civic inquiry with these brilliant young people for three years now, and I never want to stop! We’ve gotten to learn from and lean on each other during times when we need community and hope. Here are some insights from the experience…

What does it look like to do critical tech studies with high school students? @alliethrall.bsky.social, @philnichols.bsky.social, and Kevin Magill share their exciting project in today's Newsletter. www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/introdu...

OpenAI is now in your LMS and Trump's mandating "non-ideological" AI literacy. Here's an updated list of critical research on AI in education to make sense of it all.

Could edtech and AI in education be imagined otherwise? In our paper in latest issue of Oxford Review of Education @arathings.bsky.social, Carolina Valladares Celis, Jessica Pykett, @kerifacer.bsky.social and I surface four alternative orientations to tech in education (1/2) doi.org/10.1080/0305...

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Literacies in the Platform Society: Histories, Pedagogies, and Possibilities—edited by me and @anterobot.bsky.social—is out today! 🎉 It's been an absolute privilege to work with so many brilliant people, over multiple years, to make this book a reality. www.routledge.com/Literacies-i...

Literacies in the Platform Society: Histories, Pedagogies, and Possibilities—edited by me and @anterobot.bsky.social—is out today! 🎉 It's been an absolute privilege to work with so many brilliant people, over multiple years, to make this book a reality. www.routledge.com/Literacies-i...

*New publication alert* I'm excited to share "Literacy as a Framework for Computing Education: Affordances, Constraints, and New Directions," a chapter @jmhiggs.bsky.social, @sepehrvakil.bsky.social, and I wrote for Literacies in the Platform Society: Histories, Pedagogies, and Possibilities. 🧵

📚 Check out another new pub from our special issue series on digital platforms in ELA teacher education: “Teachers’ Orientations Toward Texts and Tools: Critical (Re)Consideration of a Remix and Restory Assignment as a Teacher Educator."

I ran a literary salon with brilliant youth literary scholars! Check out that work in this new article in Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ)! Youth reveal powerful links between literary interpretation & social justice education! #literacies, #edusky, #iteachenglish, #literacy doi.org/10.1002/rrq....

This article was a labor of love, & I’m so glad it’s published! It’s OPEN ACCESS, so please feel free to download and share! Article Link: ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #Literacies #EnglishEducation #Colonialism #TextSelection #Afrofuturism #AcademicSky #EduSky

My first article in LMT! We discuss Delanda’s theory of “parametrization” as offering a useful methodological tool for multiscalar digital inquiry.

🟨 New Publication in #LMT 🟪 In this paper @philnichols.bsky.social, LeBlanc & @alliethrall.bsky.social offer ‘parametrization' to better capture the interplay of digital practices as territorialized and coded in different ways, across different scales. Read more (🔓): tinyurl.com/58m4zrdp

I made an argument in favor of keeping works of “serious literary value” in public schools. slate.com/life/2025/05...

Hell yeah. Here's my manifesto: close reading for all. On Sigrid Nunez, and Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Erich Auerbach, and why close reading is an answer to AI. Thanks to @brandyjensen.bsky.social, rockstar editor, who rules. For @defector.com defector.com/close-readin...

Thrilled to share "Parametrizing 'the digital': Education research methods for platform ecologies" — new from me, Robert LeBlanc, and @alliethrall.bsky.social in @lmt-journal.bsky.social. Paywalled now, but will be OA soon (reach out for a PDF in the meantime) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thrilled to share "Parametrizing 'the digital': Education research methods for platform ecologies" — new from me, Robert LeBlanc, and @alliethrall.bsky.social in @lmt-journal.bsky.social. Paywalled now, but will be OA soon (reach out for a PDF in the meantime) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I wrote about close reading. What it is, why it matters, and what John Guillory gets right and wrong in his recent On Close Reading. Offers a sneak peek of a little of what @johannawinant.bsky.social and I are up to in our forthcoming Close Reading for the 21C www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Schools are flooded with edtech. But it's not only sold to them. Emerging "edtech brokers" do intermediary work to build teachers' trust in edtech, synchronize their practices to platforms, and shape teachers' professional identities as pedagogic "innovators". New paper doi.org/10.1080/0962...

Google got beat by OpenAI at its own game, and now this "gift" strategy is an attempt to counter. For more on the Googlization(s) of education, read Niels Kerssens, @philnichols.bsky.social, and @lucipangrazio.bsky.social in @lmt-journal.bsky.social:

Mark your calendars! Our Business Meeting is combined w/ @writinglit.bsky.social & features a stellar panel: Drs. @earlaguilera.bsky.social, @amystorn.bsky.social, @philnichols.bsky.social & Detra Price on Advancing Dialogue in Critical #Literacies, Writing & Civic Engagement in a Postdigital Era.

"When Google or OpenAI pushes out products or services to schools, we have no obligation to use these innovations.... Educators should feel empowered to make decisions that are driven by the values embedded in ... public education, not the growth projections of edtech futures markets." 👏👏

"What is actually being changed by this thing?... What new challenges might these changes introduce? And for whom? Would addressing those challenges exacerbate, or distract us from addressing,... challenges related to quality, equitable education?" @philnichols.bsky.social on "innovation" in school

"Deep down, my hope is that this book makes it easier for education, as a field, not to get swept up in whatever the latest innovation-of-the-day is (eg MOOCs, makerspaces, the metaverse, generative AI) and, instead, to respond with questions: ... www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/buildin...

Re-sharing this interview I did with @jbpleasa.bsky.social about my book, Building the Innovation School, for this week's @civicsoftech.bsky.social newsletter. If the themes are of interest, you can still register for tonight's CoT Book Club discussion (8ET): www.civicsoftechnology.org/events.

Let's talk about this idea of "innovation" in schools. What does it mean? How does it play out? Who decides what's innovative? @jbpleasa.bsky.social talks with @philnichols.bsky.social about "Building the Innovation School" - our next book club book! www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/buildin...

Our special issue ‘Rents, assets and governance in digitalised education’ is now published! Check it out: www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjem20/c...

Grateful that I got to think through “platformed privatization” with @philnichols.bsky.social in our newly published chapter in the Research Handbook on Education Privatization and Marketization! Check it out!

New chapter with @alliethrall.bsky.social on "platformed privatization" — i.e., how platform technologies smooth the way for private interests to secure footholds in, and control over, public education. www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/b... Paywalled, but as always, reach out if you'd like a PDF!

Join me and @philnichols.bsky.social tonight!