Articles
Analysis, reviews, and guides on EdTech and AI in learning — from Southeast Asia and the Commonwealth.
Analysis
Does AI Homework Help Actually Hurt Learning? What the Evidence Says — and How to Tell a Crutch From a Tutor
The best controlled study to date found students using unrestricted AI did 17% worse on the real exam — while a guardrailed version that gave hints instead of answers did no harm. The technology isn't the variable. What the tool does with a question is.
July 2026 · Global, Commonwealth, Malaysia · 10 min read
Explainer
The Four Mismatches Test: a five-minute check before you choose a learning tool
Four questions — curriculum, language, price, device — that tell you whether a learning tool is built for your child's or your class's school system, or someone else's. Fail any one and it's product-export, however good the technology.
June 2026 · Malaysia, Commonwealth · 6 min read
Analysis
System-Native: Why So Many Learning Apps Don't Fit Your Child's School System, and What AI Changes
Most learning apps are built for one country's classroom and sold everywhere else. AI has made them cheaper, but cheaper is only one of four things a tool has to get right for your child or class.
June 2026 · Malaysia, Commonwealth · 9 min read
Opinion
Your kid is "doing fine". They don't know any of it.
Why "doing fine", the B+, and the parent's nagging feeling all answer different questions — and what cold recall would have caught.
April 2026 · Malaysia, Commonwealth · 6 min read
Coming soon
What changed in 2024.
The economics of one-on-one teaching collapsed. The price of a year of private tuition is now the price of a streaming subscription.
Why mastery teaching was always the rich kid's secret.
What private tutors and elite schools actually do that ordinary classrooms can't — and why the gap was a price tag, not a mystery.
The forty-year argument school keeps losing.
Researchers, teachers, and school founders have been making the same case since the 1980s. The school calendar has been winning anyway.