Is AI changing how we learn?

As the Digital Education and AI for Advancing Pedagogy Hub at The Centre for Teaching Excellence, we are delivering the online course "Teaching Data in Primary Schools". This professional learning course for primary teachers in Scotland will be hosted by CfTE Online, the Centre for Teaching Excellence’s digital platform at the University of Glasgow and will run from 28 September to 11 December 2026.

Over the past few years, we’ve listened carefully to what children and young people actually think about AI. Some are excited by the possibilities of new technologies. Others are worried about privacy, bias, or what AI might mean for their future careers. Many are still trying to figure it out.

Dr Gary Quinn, Assistant Professor of Sign Linguistics at Heriot-Watt University and sign linguist and member of the Scottish Sensory Centre (SSC) BSL Glossary Development Team at the University of Edinburgh, has written a blog post for our Kerr Fry project website to share highlights from the first international Deaf Tech Conference, at TU Wien, where he presented the newly launched AI in BSL project.

We are now approaching the end of our second trimester as the Digital Education and AI Hub at The Centre for Teaching Excellence, during which we have reached around 250 teachers, headteachers and education practitioners across Scotland.

This spring Judy Robertson, Jasmeen Kanwal and Kate Farrell held three AI literacy information sessions for parents and families for Education Scotland's Parentzone, with 158 people attending across the series.

On the 12 June 2026, we had the pleasure to host a symposium of senior school leaders and education leaders in Scotland at the Informatics Forum, The University of Edinburgh. Over 70 delegates joined us from all across the country, some travelling from as far as the Highland Council, to share experiences and concerns on the use of AI in schools, and collaboratively build consensus on the way forward for Scottish education.

We have had a busy first trimester at the Centre for Teaching Excellence as the Digital Education and AI Hub, working with our cohort of Teacher Associates to inform research questions around AI and learning and delivering professional learning workshops for teachers in Scotland.

On the 31st March 2026, we had the pleasure of hosting a group of young people at the Edinburgh Futures Institute for a performance reflecting critically and creatively on the ethics around the use of AI in schools. Our programme lead Judy Robertson chaired the event.