Category: Digital Strategy

Back in 2012, following the launch of one of the very first 1‑to‑1 tablet programmes in a UK school, a parent approached me at the Open Morning event and said, “I love the way you’re preparing children for the future.” I smiled and replied, “I’m not sure we’re doing that. We’re just preparing them for the present.”

It wasn’t a prepared response, and I didn’t mean to be facetious. I’ve just never thought it wise to plan other people’s futures for them, especially when it comes to children. I’ve always been cautious about projecting my biases onto any prediction. After all, when you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

That’s why I’ve remained healthily sceptical of concepts like “21st‑century skills”, which often turn out, when scrutinised, to be perfectly timeless ones: communication, problem-solving, curiosity. The sort of skill Cicero might have recognised. In any century, not just the 21st. You see, I’d rather we focus on teaching students what we know today, equipping them with the clarity, confidence and literacy they need to become the architects of their own tomorrow, not the future some old teacher (me!) can imagine for them.

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I’m not sure I subscribe to the notion that history always repeats itself, but it certainly seems to have a rhythm.

I’m (perhaps clearly) not a historian, but it is the case that throughout the ages, great technological leaps have brought not only progress, but also destabilisation. Gutenberg’s press democratised knowledge, but it also catalysed the Reformation and decades of sectarian conflict. The sailing innovations of the Spanish and Portuguese unlocked new worlds, but also ushered in centuries of colonisation and enslavement. The steam engine transformed economies and lifted millions out of agrarian poverty, while simultaneously igniting class strife and feeding the greed of new empires, the consequences of which still shape countries around the world, quite literally.

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In geopolitics, it’s often said that generals are always preparing to fight the last war. One of the most infamous examples was the Maginot line in Eastern France: a vast line of fortifications built after World War I to prevent another German invasion of France from the most obvious direction. The only problem was that France built this fortification with the last war in mind, not the next. Germany simply went around it, invading via the Netherlands instead.

Much of our educational strategy risks resembling the same kind of static defence: we design policies to hold back yesterday’s threats, while today confronts us with goalposts that are constantly shifting. Many schools, especially those in which the once solid pillar of tradition no longer bears weight, struggle to read the runes of change. But change is coming. To paraphrase William Gibson, perhaps it’s already here, just not evenly distributed. Unless we accept this uncertainly and ready ourselves to grapple with its implications, we may find ourselves blindsided by crises we didn’t imagine but could have anticipated.

Here are five “wars” I believe we’re not yet seeing clearly enough, but which are already gathering momentum.

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I’ve been noticing a pattern lately in the shape of a meme, a powerpoint slide, or a throw-away line in a workshop: “AI won’t replace you , but you’ll be replaced by someone using AI”.

It’s catchy, yes. And I’m sure it’s well-meaning and tries to covey a sense of urgency. But I’ve come to believe that messages like these do more harm than good. They don’t encourage curiosity or build confidence; rather they instil anxiety and undermine professional judgement. And perhaps worst of all, they frame teachers as a problems or obstacles, rather than professionals. I have a problem with that.

Twenty years ago, when the term Web 2.0 was coined, they used to say: “Technology won’t replace you, but you’ll be replaced by someone using technology”. And here we are two decades later. Plus ça change.

I don’t pretend to know everything about AI, or about technology, or about the future of education for that matter. But I do know a thing or two about what helps teachers grow, and what gets in the way: fear, whether of obsolescence, inadequacy, or being ‘left behind’, is rarely a helpful driver of sustainable change.

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Walk into any classroom and you’ll find three things in play: content, activity, and communication. Teachers teach; students learn (we hope); materials are shared, discussed, and acted upon. Whether the medium is pen and paper or tablet and app, the essential task remains the same: to help students acquire knowledge, make sense of it, and use it meaningfully.

The main strategies have not changed significantly, and for good reason, at least in my 20 years plus of teaching experience. What has changed is how our strategic thinking has evolved to accommodate new tools and new expectations.

Originally devised as a thought experiment to help me better understand the impact of AI’s irruption into this space, this article explores that evolution, using a series of diagrams as a heuristic to help trace how schools are adapting their teaching and learning strategies to a digital and now AI-infused world.

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