Edtech Leader | Empowering Educators Through AI, Community & Active Learning | Thought Leader | Head of AI for the Anglican Schools Corporation
Sydney, Australia
Joined October 2007
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Barker's Year 7 coding unit used an AI agent built to never give answers, only ask questions. Students logged each interaction and teachers could see where kids got stuck. AI as scaffold, not shortcut. A classroom case study, not an evaluation.
barker.institute/news/good-pβ¦
AERO's new AI guidance warns students may develop "illusions of knowledge", overestimating what they understand. It doesn't urge banning AI, and it admits the evidence is thin. The pedagogy question: how do students test what they really know?
afr.com/policy/health-and-edβ¦
UNSW researchers got chatbots to drop their safety rules by training them to mimic drunken speech. It worked across every method tested. Schools buying AI tools should ask vendors if they've been red-teamed. AI safety is a governance question.
theeducatoronline.com/k12/neβ¦
Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (nearly 300 schools, ~120,000 students) is working on AI governance and policy. Its leader: "With high-tech, we need to be deeply human." Systems this size should publish their frameworks.
ewtnaustralia.com/vatican/caβ¦
A Ballina distance-education teacher won a $15,000 NSW scholarship to study how AI can spot gaps in understanding and give targeted support before students move on. For isolated, high-needs learners, the test is connection, not just efficiency.
timesnewsgroup.com.au/tweedcβ¦
Survey of AI-using Australian families: 3 in 4 parents say their school-aged kids use AI for schoolwork; only 42% regularly discuss it with them. A third say kids aged 5-12 use AI regularly. Adoption is outpacing the conversation - at home and at school.
theeducatoronline.com/k12/neβ¦
New survey of Australian schools: 60% are extremely interested in education-specific AI and 61% now have formal student AI policies. The hype phase is ending. Schools want tools built for learning goals, not generic chatbots. A healthier conversation.
theeducatoronline.com/k12/neβ¦
Mathspace exposed data on 1M+ students after a flaw sat unpatched for 3 weeks. A UNSW audit found most school apps start harvesting kids' data in seconds. Who vets the apps in our classrooms? Children's data deserves one national standard.
theeducatoronline.com/k12/neβ¦
Meet Fletch: La Trobe's AI robot that role-plays an angry parent so new teachers can practise tough conversations before real ones. Parent aggression is rising. This is AI done right - not replacing relationships, preparing teachers to protect them.
educationhq.com/news/the-ai-β¦
A Sydney tutoring company told parents to ditch tutors for AI, calling human teaching obsolete. AI can drill content. It can't spot the misconception behind a mistake or care whether your child grows. Tools support learning. Teachers make it happen.
afr.com/policy/health-and-edβ¦
Big news for @Google #Gemini users in #ANZ this week. Notebooks (Previously #NotebookLM) is now embedded as part of @GeminiApp itself. It is now clearer how Notebooks can be used in Gemini Chats and Gems. This is truly now a suite rather than a bunch of disconnected products.
Australian teachers rank 4th in the OECD for AI use and 3rd for stress. Teachers aren't turning to AI out of curiosity. They're using it to survive the workload. AI should give teachers time back, not disguise a system running on burnout.
ieu.asn.au/ieu-speaks-securiβ¦
WA just banned smart glasses in every public school. AI is moving from screens to faces. For schools the question isn't only what students can see, it's what their devices can record. Welfare and consent have to lead as wearables arrive.
Source: thewest.com.au/news/educatioβ¦
26,000 students. Homework scores up 18% with AI. Exam scores down 20% within six months. When AI does the thinking, students don't build it. The answer isn't bans or blind adoption. It's task and assessment design that keeps students doing the thinking.
abc.net.au/news/2026-09-20/yβ¦
It has been another amazing year in #SouthAfrica sharing #GenAI knowledge at #InnovateEdu. I leave inspired, humbled and amazed by the passion of the local #teachers. I feel I have learned more than I imparted, and is that not how a conference should be?
#CloudEDU #EdTechSA
More info can be found in the official press release: prnewswire.com/news-releasesβ¦
I am in #HongKong for the week of Feb 17th for the 21st Century Learning Conference ( #21CLHK ) and am keen to meet #InternationalSchool #teachers or #Schools looking for free #PD on @quizizz or the chance to give us feedback so we can meet the needs of #HongKong education.
Just reply to this post or DM me!
Or, if you know an #educator you think would be interested, please pass this post along.
#quizizz #ESL #professionaldevelopment #feedback #youcanwithquizizz
This will be my last post here. This is a bittersweet day because, after 17 years of #twitter, Iβm officially pulling the plug and moving to @bluesky.
I miss what was and am genuinely hopefully for what will be. You can now find me at bsky.app/profile/eduridden.bβ¦