Amidst a paradigm shift in technology, it looks to be the case that a failure to understand (and use) AI is a failure to prepare for a rapidly approaching future.

But plenty of questions remain. How best to support literacies related to AI? Where exactly should AI sit within a revised curriculum? And might the provision of AI tools to children (without appropriate support) simply foster a ‘copy and paste’ mindset – one which is antagonistic to learning?

In this episode, Vicki is joined by Irene Picton – senior project and research manager at the National Literacy Trust to explore recent research into children’s literacy and the debate around AI.

Talking points:

• What does literacy look like – and require – in the age of AI?
• How might children’s use of AI entrench existing inequity, and what more could schools do to support literate use of these tools?
• Are we guilty of a ‘screens = bad’ binary, or are concerns like the role of AI in EdTech warranted?
  
  

Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. Presented by Vicki Shotbolt. Tech Shock is produced and edited by Tim Malster.

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AI technologies are becoming more and more embedded in daily life – in ways that go well beyond smart speakers or nifty thermometers.

But this embedding raises lots of questions. Some people have little faith in Big Tech (or the countries trying to regulate it) to get it right. Providing it really isn’t just a matter of the optics, the now safety-less renaming of the US ‘AI Safety Institute’ to the ‘Centre for AI Standards and Innovation’ is a case in point. The planned EU legislative rollback points to a contentious roadmap.

So amid deepfakes, relationship chatbots and a reality we might describe as ‘synthetic’, what remains for trust and authenticity? How can we start thinking about harms – and mitigating them – as well as harnessing the potential of AI? In this episode, globally recognised AI expert Henry Ajder joins Vicki to explore these topics further.

Talking points:

• Just how worried should we be about AI when it comes to the ballot box?
• What does a ‘digital nutrition label’ look like, and how might this be one way to help identify what’s genuine?
• When it comes to recognising AI generated content, can increased levels of media literacy actually result in harmful overconfidence?

Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. Presented by Vicki Shotbolt. Tech Shock is produced and edited by Tim Malster.

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Understanding AI has never been more critical. It’s part of most conversations around emerging tech. It raises endless questions around safety, creativity, copyright and intellectual property. The UK government, too, now has a national focus on upskilling young people for the “AI-powered jobs of the future”.

‘Experience AI’ is a programme developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind and delivered across the UK and internationally. It helps to improve the skills and confidence of both educators and students on how AI tech works – and fosters important surrounding literacies.

In this episode, Vicki is joined by the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Ben Garside and Parent Zone’s chief of staff Megan Rose to look at the impact that Experience AI is having currently, and where the programme may be going next.

Talking points:

• Beyond understanding prompts and functionalities, how can educational resources tackle topics like the wider societal impact of AI?
• Is Experience AI meeting educator’s current needs – and are learnings (around, for example, the importance of not ‘anthropomorphising’ chatbots) landing well?
• As children around the globe gain access to AI, how do their experiences of it – and attitudes towards it – change depending on where they live?

Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. Presented by Vicki Shotbolt. Tech Shock is produced and edited by Tim Malster.

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The subject ‘RSE’ (Relationships and Sex Education) was introduced to educate pupils about sexual health as well as their relationships and intimacies with others. Is it meeting the challenge or is there a nervousness in delivery, and are we finding ways to create safe spaces that allow for open discussions?

In an era not just of smartphones and social media, but easily-accessible nudification apps, rampant online misogyny, and AI bots designed to operate as romantic partners, is RSE in its current form really up to the job of informing and supporting young people, or is it in need of re-imagining?

In this episode, Vicki is joined by the team behind the ‘Reimagining RSE’ project – The University of Surrey’s Dr Emily Setty and The University of Bedfordshire’s Jonny Hunt – to explore RSE, as well as where it might go (or may need to go) next.

Talking points:

• What makes ‘safe uncertainty’ preferable to ‘safe certainty’, and why is the former a challenging idea for parents and professionals to grapple with?
• Has the current RSE approach to sexuality prioritised discussions of risk and harm over those around empowerment?
• With the Curriculum and Assessment Review (and the Government’s response) recently released, might we get the re-imagining research tells us we need?

Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. Presented by Vicki Shotbolt. Tech Shock is produced and edited by Tim Malster.

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Contrary to what many of us would like to believe, gambling is not an exclusively over 18 activity – in fact it’s far from it. Popular sports and surrounding media burst at the seams with gambling ads, online gaming draws many monetisation techniques from the gambling industry, and enormously popular influencers often ‘win big’ on when livestreaming crypto casinos.

But awareness of underage gambling – and child financial harms more generally – is at least increasing. And with a recent statutory levy on gambling operators set to generate £100m+ a year in the UK, there may finally be a budget to research, understand and tackle gambling-related harms.

In this episode, Vicki is joined by director of the Coalition to End Gambling Ads, Will Prochaska to explore the gambling in 2025 – and to discuss a roadmap to combating the darker, dodgier side of the industry.

Talking points:

• From the National Lottery to scratch cards and The Grand National, gambling doesn’t always seem to be necessarily problematic. So are those of us who are against newer, online forms of gambling simply killjoys – or is there more at play?
• With gambling ads constantly shifting to less regulated or spotlighted spaces, is a total ban the only way to avoid an unending game of whack-a-mole?
• As gambling companies are now required to pay towards the new levy, how likely is it that they’ll also work on proactively minimising harm?

Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. Presented by Vicki Shotbolt. Tech Shock is produced and edited by Tim Malster.

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As the Tech Shock podcast returns for its 11th season, Vicki is joined by Sara Grimes, McGill University professor and expert in child rights and ethical game design, to explore the views of young gamers – and the current industry at large.

2025 research from Ofcom shows that 97% of 8-17 year-olds game online. But as the industry continues to grow in popularity – and of course value – we’re left facing the same set of problems (and some newer ones to boot).

Age ratings remain confusing to the parents left to interpret them; in-game advertising is not the elephant in the room, but simply in the room; monetisation and gambling are still one step ahead of regulation; and child creators lack basic rights when it comes to intellectual property.

But to properly understand gaming in 2025 we first need to understand the lived experiences of child gamers themselves – with this also giving us a firm basis to begin asking some important questions, and demanding answers.

Talking points:

• What does direct research with children reveal about gaming and age-appropriate game design?
• Why is it that, within gaming, children aren’t viewed as serious creators with intellectual property rights?
• Is the industry now so problematic that we require a gaming regulator – and what might good regulation in such a complex space actually look like?

Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. Presented by Vicki Shotbolt. Tech Shock is produced and edited by Tim Malster.

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Media literacy. It’s at the core of a three-year strategy from Ofcom, featured in DSIT’s ‘Digital Inclusion Action Plan’ and looks set to make more than just a fleeting appearance in the reviewed curriculum this autumn. It’s also one means of combating mis- and disinformation as well as online financial harms and misogyny. In short, it’s being recognised by many – and rightly so – as essential.

Designed to build critical media literacy skills across UK communities, Everyday Digital is a national media literacy programme from Parent Zone and originally funded by DSIT. The programme helps parents to understand media literacy and build simple habits which can be incorporated into their everyday lives – and those of their children.

In this episode, Vicki is joined by Everyday Digital expert and member of the Parent Zone team, Megan Rose to discuss what’s next for the programme, including how it’s being scaled to meet a growing need, and how professionals can get involved.

Talking points:

• Are parents really ever ‘hard to reach’ or do we just need more media literacy initiatives in the supermarket?
• What impact did evaluation show Everyday Digital to have, and why do we need to move away from endless pilots?
• With risks and harms evolving (alongside our responses to them) what’s next for Everyday Digital – and Parent Zone more generally?

Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. Presented by Vicki Shotbolt. Tech Shock is produced and edited by Tim Malster.

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After a shift to online learning during COVID-19, EdTech – everything from digital whiteboards and eBooks to Google Classroom and virtual reality equipment – is an industry that’s gone from strength to strength in terms of size, scope and profitability.

But as the UK is beginning to see a narrative form around the virtues of a ‘screen free’ childhood and, further abroad, countries like Sweden move back to more ‘traditional’ methods of teaching, many parents are left questioning the current use of EdTech and its effect on their children.

To help understand how we should approach the growing presence of EdTech, as well as what ‘good’ EdTech might look like, Vicki is joined by Natalia Kucirkova, Professor of Early Childhood and Development at the University of Stavanger, Norway, and Director of the International Centre for EdTech Impact.

Talking points:

• Could possible harms warrant us taking the ‘precautionary principle’ when it comes to EdTech in schools?
  
  
• How exactly does ‘transparency’, ‘accountability’, and ‘fairness’ play into principles of ‘ethical’ EdTech?
  
  
• Is independent research and evaluation really enough to keep Big Tech accountable?

Tech Shock is a Parent Zone production. Follow Parent Zone on social media for all the latest on our work on helping families to thrive in the digital age. Presented by Vicki Shotbolt. Tech Shock is produced and edited by Tim Malster.

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