My involvement with the Centre for Humane Technology isn't an add-on to my work in schools — it is foundational to it. The questions they ask are the questions every technology leader in education should be asking, and rarely are.
Many of the tools schools adopt are designed, at their core, to maximise engagement — which in a commercial context means maximising time on platform. In an educational context, the thing most worth protecting is a student's capacity for sustained, independent attention. These two objectives are in direct conflict. The question is not whether schools notice — it's whether they act on what they notice.
The majority of EdTech platforms operate on data models that were designed for consumer markets, not for minors in a duty-of-care relationship with an institution. When a school adopts a platform, it is frequently consenting — on behalf of students and families — to data practices that most parents never read and many wouldn't accept if they did. This is a governance failure that starts with the technology adoption process, not with the platforms themselves.
The pressure on schools to adopt AI is enormous and growing. Most of that pressure comes from the technology sector, not from educational evidence. Schools that respond reactively — adopting tools because they're visible, because other schools are using them, or because a vendor made a compelling presentation — are making decisions that will shape students' intellectual development without having answered the first question: what problem are we actually trying to solve?
In most schools, technology adoption happens through a combination of individual teacher initiative, vendor relationships, and IT department capability. Very few schools have a formal process for asking whether a technology aligns with their educational values before adopting it. The result is a digital environment shaped by procurement decisions, not by educational ones. The Education Application Review Board I built at Hills Grammar was a direct response to this problem.
Before I recommend, approve, or procure any technology for a school, I ask what problem it solves — for students and teachers, not for administrators or vendors. This is a direct application of the CHT principle that technology should serve human flourishing, not the other way around. It sounds obvious. It is almost never the default.
The EdTech market is driven by novelty cycles, not by educational evidence. I bring a deliberate scepticism to new tools and platforms — one grounded in CHT's research on the gap between technology's promises and its documented effects. Shiny is not a governance standard. Evidence is.
The fact that a technology is legal, popular, or widely adopted does not make it appropriate for children. CHT's work on youth and technology — particularly their research on social media, attention, and mental health — has hardened my view that schools must hold platforms to a higher standard than the general consumer market does. We are in a duty-of-care relationship. That creates obligations most schools have not yet fully accepted.
How a school governs its technology adoption is a direct expression of what that school values. A school that has no formal process for evaluating whether a tool serves students is implicitly saying that operational convenience matters more than educational integrity. The governance frameworks I build — the Education Application Review Board, the responsible AI policy, the cyber security protocols — are not bureaucratic exercises. They are the institution's values made legible and enforceable.
CHT consistently emphasises that technology companies have eroded the social trust required for healthy communities — particularly communities built around young people. In a school context, this means that parents and families must be genuine partners in technology decisions, not recipients of communications written to manage rather than inform them. The AI communication framework I developed at Hills Grammar was built on this premise, and the community response confirmed it was the right approach.
Four CHT publications that have most directly shaped how I think about technology in schools. Each is worth the time of any school leader making technology decisions.
CHT's comprehensive synthesis of research on the relationship between social media, smartphones, and youth mental health — with a focus on the specific mechanisms through which technology affects adolescent development. Essential reading for anyone making decisions about student device use.
A structured inventory of documented harms associated with current technology platforms and design patterns — covering attention, mental health, democracy, and more. A useful anchor for governance conversations in schools about which platforms to adopt, restrict, or reject entirely.
A podcast episode exploring how AI systems are being designed to capture and hold human attention — and what that means for education, for children, and for the institutions responsible for both. The questions raised apply directly to every AI tool adoption decision a school faces.
CHT's framework for evaluating technology against humane design principles — covering attention, agency, wellbeing, and democratic values. A practical tool for school leaders building technology governance frameworks that go beyond compliance and toward genuine educational values alignment.