Gareth Morgan Consultancy Ltd

05/10/2026

05/10/2026

Wow. I have never seen this video from the ARC Conference in 2025, and I'm completely blown away. I am fully aware of Sophie Winkleman and her work, along with others like Jonathan Haidt and Dr Jared Horvath, in highlighting issues around young people and the damaging effects on them from smartphones, social media and edtech in the classroom, but to see her speak so clearly, passionately and eloquently is something else. If you are a teacher or a parent, take some time to sit down and watch this 20 min video.
She finishes the speech with a similar point that I have been recently making - show me the evidence.
"If we want to produce a generation of responsible citizens, we must flip the current argument on its head. Rather than constantly having to prove the screen is blighting childhood, we should simply be asking, "Where is the evidence to prove that it is safe?"

What are your thoughts on this, especially learners use of digital technologies in the classroom?

05/10/2026

It’s been really interesting to see over the last couple of years, more and more primary schools moving across to Instagram as their primary public social media platform. More and more photographs and videos of young children are therefore being shared by teachers. However, how much thought has been given by your school to what happens to that image of a child that has been uploaded? AI LLMs have basically been trained on every image that has ever been uploaded onto the web. Meta, the owners of Facebook and Instagram, will train its AI on your uploaded images and video. Therefore, the images of your children are being used to train AI products that can generate the AI child sexual abuse materials (videos and images) that are referred to in this Guardian article. Do you think it’s time to stop and think, “Why are we uploading these images of our children in the first place?”

Also, the DCF mentions pupils being aware of their digital footprint. Are you happy as a school with adding to a young child’s ’digital footprint’?

Lastly, it’s still quite unbelievable that almost weekly I see primary schools posting images of children holding certificates that clearly show their full names on them.

We are encouraged to develop our learners into “ethical and informed” citizens, but are we as schools behaving in ethical and informed ways ourselves? I keep coming back to a question in the Science and Technology AoLE, which I shall amend slightly, “Just because we can 'upload and share', does that mean we should?”

What are your thoughts on how your school shares images via social media channels or via your website?

Abuse material monitor says number of AI images assessed this year is already 40% higher than last year’s total

04/10/2026

A "pipeline of future users." https://trib.al/gsKDtZS

03/10/2026

The latest Ofcom study found that upper primary school children are already spending nearly 3 hours a day online, therefore in front of screens. Do you think that the Welsh Government should be encouraging even more screen time for our young learners through using this app? One last thought, is there any evidence that this particular application will improve learner standards in maths? This would certainly help both teachers and parents decide whether they should even promote this product.

What are your thoughts on this?

Got children aged 6 to 11? Jump into a world of number fun with Mini Puzzle!

Let your children count, giggle, and explore their way through colourful activities - from number systems and telling time, to shapes, money, and probability.

Find out more and download the app:
https://hwb.gov.wales/repository/resource/b36f0e46-5b2d-4d40-b869-30e44f4741d9

01/10/2026

My latest blog on Khan Academy's Khanmigo AI tutor which a large study found offered no extra benefits to learners. Similar issues in the study were highlighted that I had previously found when using Google's Gemini Guided Learning and Microsoft's Study and Learn AI chatbots.

What are your experiences of using generative AI tutors? Both Google and Microsoft's products just remind me of personalised learning programs that have been around for many decades. I can't really work out what a generative AI chatbot is bringing that is new, and the issues that already existed around edtech personalised learning approaches, seem to me, to be exactly the same; problems with engagement and motivation to learn, learner distraction, self directed study, appear to be the same problems as they have always been. Your thoughts?

A reflection on an article about Khanmigo, Khan Academy's AI tutor and how a study found no extra benefits for learners in using it.

01/10/2026

I'm just going to leave this here...

28/09/2026

You think that your conversations are ‘private’ between you and your generative AI chatbot? Think again. Another story demonstrating the human aspect behind AI.
“ Human contractors being exposed to horrific, unpleasant, or traumatizing material is, of course, not new. Big tech companies, and especially social networks, have used armies of contractors for years to moderate user generated content. AI companies, too, have used poorly paid workers overseas to train their AI models or, in the case of OpenAI, make them less toxic. What is different in this latest Copilot episode, and 404 Media’s reporting on contractors at other AI companies like OpenAI, is that the content humans are reviewing are prompts and uploads that chatbot users may assume are private, and that the contractors are not looking at this material to train the models to filter out offensive images or for some other safety concern. The training is to make the responses by the chatbots better: more informative, friendly, and clearer.”
Highlights the urgent need for critical AI literacy for both learners and teachers.
Use technology with your eyes open.

Humans Are Reading Copilot Prompts — And They're Horrified

https://www.404media.co/humans-reading-copilot-prompts-images/

18/09/2026

Coming on the back of Australia’s ban on social media for under 16s, ‘The Australian’ reports in an article titled, “Schools hit pause on digital teaching”, states across Australia appear to be reflecting on their schools use of digital technologies, with many now cutting back on the amount of time learners will be accessing technologies in the classroom. Both Sweden and Denmark have also recently announced similar concerns about digital technology in the classroom and their governments are rolling back many years of technology heavy strategies in the classroom to focus on non-tech literacy and numeracy skills.

“NSW this week revealed that public school students will be limited to as little as 15 minutes of screen time each day in an effort to reverse plummeting test scores and curb rampant digital distraction in classrooms.
Victoria has announced similar screen-time limits for primary school students and will ban bring-your-own devices, while device-free learning will be mandated in high schools from 2027.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has called for a “digital detox’’ and a renewed focus on reading books and a return to pen-and-paper lessons in an effort to reverse record-low global test results and underwhelming NAPLAN results.”

“The Northern Territory, Tasmania and ACT are also considering screen time reforms.
Mr Clare said he had been “inundated with support” from teachers and parents backing a digital detox and said the issue would be discussed by state and territory education ministers at their next meeting in November.
“We know the impact screens have on our kids at home; it also has an impact on the classroom,” he said. “The evidence is now pretty clear. The more time kids spend online, the more likely they are to fall behind.”

What are your thoughts on what many states in Australia are recommending with regards to the use of digital technologies in the classroom by our learners?



https://apple.news/AoYy3roYhTxKDnzl_3QH_pA

18/09/2026

A ten year old child is regularly using Minecraft at school to complete tasks. After school finishes they return home, head straight to their bedroom, and spend hours immersed in exactly the same game. These are children who are, by any reasonable definition, exhibiting signs of digital addiction.
By taking a commercial product built on highly engaging, gaming principles, which trigger continuous dopamine release to keep a player hooked and then rebranding it as a classroom learning necessity, is the school complicit in normalising and fuelling digital addiction in young learners?
What do you think? Is there much deep learning going on or is it just addictive, digital baby sitting?