Toolkit for reflecting on the use of digital and AI technologies in learning and teaching

Making Part 1 of the Glasgow AI toolkit interactive

I recently attended an event where Dr Mark Peart, Dr Gabriella Rodolico and Leon Robinson launched their Toolkit for reflecting on the use of digital and AI technologies in learning and teaching (School of Education, University of Glasgow). It’s a flexible resource for educators to examine their assumptions, analyse their practice and plan a professional enquiry, and it explicitly offers no prescribed answers.

The ideas chimed with what I’d already been doing. Back in 2020 and 2021 I discussed some of the issues around digital education, and Part 1’s focus on surfacing our assumptions about technology before we judge any tool picks up many of the same threads. You can watch that talk here: https://youtu.be/Fxrzq9W6E9k?si=5fI3ucdqr3lJgpMt

I saw immediate value in the toolkit, and I could see even more if it were interactive. So I built an interactive version of Part 1, “Uncovering assumptions and views on educational technology”. You can choose an adopter profile, react to six contested claims, locate yourself on the rubric, and circle your GenAI reactions. Your answers get saved in your own browser, and you can download or print them to revisit later in the toolkit.

The interactive version of Part 1 of the toolkit.

Below is an unofficial adaptation, not a Glasgow resource, and the authors haven’t endorsed it. The toolkit is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0, so my version is free to use and credits the original. The full toolkit is available at https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/366744/. If you work in education, I’d recommend reading it.

The original version:

• Peart, M., Rodolico, G., & Robinson, L. (2026). Toolkit for reflecting on the use of digital and AI technologies in learning and teaching. University of Glasgow.

The interactive version of Part 1:

• Hosseini, D. (2026). Part 1: Uncovering assumptions and views on educational technology. https://www.dustinhosseini.com/blog/eaao64nmon009gk39ri83ivo3nvtjc. Adapted from Peart, M., Rodolico, G., & Robinson, L. (2026). Toolkit for reflecting on the use of digital and AI technologies in learning and teaching. University of Glasgow. https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/366744/

Part 1:

Uncovering assumptions and views on Educational Technology

Before getting started:

Before analysing specific practices, it is worth surfacing the assumptions you already hold about digital and AI technologies. These starting assumptions, often unexamined, shape how readily new tools are noticed, trusted, or resisted (Rogers, 2003; Dale et al., 2021; Selwyn, 2016; 2022). The activities in part 1 are designed to make those assumptions visible and acknowledge them, not to judge them.

A note before you start: There's no need to overthink your answers here. Go with your gut. The value of this part isn't in getting the 'right' profile, it's in having something concrete to look back on later on this reflective journey.

1

Which profile represents your views to the greatest extent?

Rogers' innovation theory (2003) describes a spectrum of adopter types, from those who try new ideas first to those who adopt only when left with no choice. Where you place yourself is not a fixed trait, it can vary by context and technology, but naming a starting point helps you notice how your own views shape your reaction to digital and AI technologies, specifically (Watty et al., 2016; Dale et al., 2021). Take a look at the options below and select the profile that represents your views to the greatest extent:

Are you not fully represented by these profiles? In your own words, reflect on how you think, feel, and act in relation to digital and AI technologies in education.

Now that you've named your instinctive stance, let's pressure-test it. The statements below are the kind of claims you've probably heard in a staffroom, a policy briefing, or a LinkedIn post... Some sound like common sense, but each one is genuinely contested among researchers. Go with your first thought before you second-guess it.

2

Engage with the following prompts and note what you think and/or feel about them.

These statements are common, contested claims about digital and AI technologies in education that circulate in media, policy and staffroom conversation. Reacting to them individually surfaces assumptions that might otherwise stay implicit.

Reacting to individual claims is useful, but assumptions rarely sit on a single dimension. The rubric below asks you to locate yourself across six related questions. Think of it as a more fine-grained self-portrait than Activity 1's single profile.

3

Use the self-assessment rubric and highlight which of the following statements, or parts of the statements, best summarise your views of Educational Technology (EdTech)?

Selwyn's work (2016; 2022) resists both techno-optimism and techno-scepticism, encouraging instead a critical, questioning stance towards digital and AI technologies in relation to educational purpose and pedagogical implications. This rubric is not a test, so there is no "correct" statement, but a way of locating your current thinking across several dimensions at once.

Select as many statements as you like in each row. Select a highlighted statement again to remove it.

4

Circle the GenAI reactions that best describes you.

Everything so far has been about digital and AI technologies in education in general. GenAI deserves its own moment, because it tends to provoke stronger or mixed feelings than a new app or platform usually does. In the next activity, don't be surprised if you circle several reactions that seem to pull in different directions.

Would you like to add any other reactions?

Hold onto everything you've just written. You'll come back to it again, later in the toolkit.

So, why have we started here:

This activity is intended to support a deeper understanding of your own beliefs, assumptions, and values about technology and education. By making these views explicit, it becomes easier to recognise how they shape the ways we interpret, evaluate, and respond to digital technologies in educational contexts. Developing this self-awareness is an important step in becoming a more critical and reflective practitioner, as our perspectives often influence both what we notice and what we take for granted.

Neil Selwyn (2022) encourages us to question common assumptions about technology and to recognise that technologies are not neutral tools with fixed outcomes. Instead, he argues that our understanding of technology is shaped by social, cultural, political, and educational contexts. This perspective helps us identify the assumptions underpinning our views of technology and invites us to critically examine claims about innovation, improvement, and progress in education. It is important to note that this represents one way of understanding technology and education, rather than a definitive or universally accepted position.

As a next stage of learning...

As a next stage of learning, it may be helpful to explore sociotechnical perspectives. These approaches move beyond focusing solely on technology or individual beliefs and instead consider how technologies, people, institutions, policies, and social practices interact and shape one another. Revisiting your reflections after engaging with sociotechnical theories may help you identify new insights and develop a more nuanced understanding of technology in education.

Additional resources and further reading:

• Selwyn, N. (2022). Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates (3rd ed.). Bloomsbury.
• Engage with Raspberry Pi Foundation's Hello World Publication: raspberrypi.org/blog/hello-world-30-out-now-critical-thinking-in-the-age-of-ai

References cited in Part 1

Dale, R., Robertson, S., & van der Velden, R. (2021). Digital education after COVID-19: Critical reflections on the digitalisation of education. Postdigital Science and Education, 3(2), 447–467. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00200-8

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). Free Press.

Selwyn, N. (2016). Is technology good for education? Polity Press.

Selwyn, N. (2022). Education and technology: Key issues and debates (3rd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.

Watty, K., McKay, J., & Ngo, L. (2016). Innovators or inhibitors? Accounting faculty resistance to new educational technologies in higher education. Journal of Accounting Education, 36, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaccedu.2016.03.003

Download my reflections Print or save as PDF Clear my answers

Adapted from Toolkit for reflecting on the use of digital and AI technologies in learning and teaching by Peart, M., Rodolico, G., & Robinson, L. (2026), School of Education, University of Glasgow. Available at eprints.gla.ac.uk/366744. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Changes made: Part 1 has been rebuilt as an interactive web page (selectable options, saving, export). Layout, illustrations and the guide character are new drawings. Minor wording changes: the Activity 1 "circle" instruction now says "select", one grammatical slip ("shapes") was corrected, and the dash in the second statement was replaced with a comma. The text of the rubric, profiles, statements and reactions is otherwise unchanged. Adapted by Dustin Hosseini. This is not an official University of Glasgow resource and does not imply endorsement by the original authors.