Education’s sociodigital promises: a briefing paper and research agenda

Ben Williamson, Carolina Valladares-Celis, Arathi Sriprakash, Jessica Pykett, Keri Facer

This briefing paper is part of the work of the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures Learning Domain. Its aim is to make visible, and to open for discussion, our early thinking about how sociodigital futures are being envisaged and made in relation to four key areas with significance for formal education:

• Automating Learning: AI in education
• Interoperable Learning: Platforms and Clouds
• Immersive Learning: VR and the Metaverse
• Biological Learning: Biosensory Education Science.

It outlines our current assumptions, the literature that these are based upon, and the ethical questions and site of research that we think will follow. We hope that in making this public, we will find others – researchers, educators, policy-makers, journalists, technologists and designers - interested in the same lines of inquiry with whom we might collaborate over the lifetime of the Centre.