Leon Furze

In GenAI is Normal Edtech, Leon Furze draws on Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor's framework of "AI as normal technology" to argue that GenAI is following predictable patterns seen in previous technological shifts. He acknowledges widespread exhaustion among educators—whether from vendor hype and student misuse, or from negativity against a potentially helpful tool—and suggests these feelings are normal responses to technology cycles we've experienced before.

In Processes are More Important than Prompts, Leon Furze argues that "prompt engineering" has become less important as GenAI technologies have matured. His early 2023 article focused heavily on crafting perfect prompts, but technological improvements—multimodal inputs (PDFs, images, spreadsheets), internet access, thinking models, and research applications—have reduced the need for lengthy contextual prompts.

In What Happens When the AI Bubble Bursts?, Leon Furze argues the current GenAI bubble will inevitably burst, much like the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

In Technology is Actually Pretty Great, Leon Furze argues that the problem isn't technology itself but corporate capture of digital life in education. Returning from a hiatus spent finishing his PhD and developing a new course, he reflects on how OpenAI's problems—privacy, sustainability, copyright, labour exploitation—are symptoms of the broader tech industry.

In What Do Educators Want to Learn About GenAI?, Leon Furze shares findings from a survey of approximately 3,000 educators across K-12, early childhood, universities, TAFEs, and related industries spanning multiple countries.

n Professional Development for AI in Schools: A Three-Dimensional Approach, Leon Furze presents a framework for supporting teachers in developing expertise with GenAI.

In Artificial Intelligence in Vocational Education, Leon Furze reflects on his experience at the Future Skills Organisation National Forum in Canberra, arguing that the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector is ideally positioned to meaningfully integrate GenAI.

In Five Principles for Rethinking Assessment with Gen AI, Leon Furze argues that assessment reform should focus on good pedagogical practice rather than policing AI use. While the AI Assessment Scale has become widely adopted, Furze emphasizes that the principles behind it—validity, authenticity, transparency—were important long before ChatGPT.

In About, With, Through, Without, Against: Five Ways to Learn AI, Leon Furze pushes back against simplistic binaries about whether AI helps or harms learning. He argues that young people are adaptable and capable, and proposes five overlapping approaches to thinking about AI in education. Learning about AI covers AI literacy—how to use and understand the technology—but Furze warns against making every teacher responsible for teaching AI skills. Learning with AI includes tutor chatbots and using AI for feedback, though he remains skeptical about personalized learning claims. Learning through AI treats the technology as a conduit or medium, like semantic search engines.

In Open Source AI is Going Mainstream, Leon Furze explores the growing significance of open source artificial intelligence beyond the GPT-5 hype cycle. He begins by clarifying what "open source AI" actually means, noting that the term has become contentious—many so-called "open source" models from companies like Meta are more accurately described as "open weights," since their underlying architecture, training processes, and datasets remain proprietary. True open source projects expose their entire codebase to public examination and adaptation.

He explores how learning management systems already constrain pedagogy by forcing educators to systematize learning into predetermined formats, and questions what happens when OpenAI's chatbot takes control of content production across these platforms. Furze is particularly concerned about OpenAI's study mode—which he found pedagogically flawed despite claims of expert input—and sees it as part of a larger strategy to position the company as the solution to problems it helped create.