EdTechnical

In this short, Libby and Owen discuss a recent paper that has generated interest and discussion called ‘Generative AI Can Harm Learning’. The paper presents the findings from a thought-provoking study of nearly 1,000 students in Turkey. The study tested the effects of giving students access to two different versions of GPT-4 while studying math: one was essentially ChatGPT and the other was a version of GPT-4 that had been tailored for tutoring with a thin prompt wrapper – so it didn’t just give students the answer. The main finding (that the title is based on) is that access to generic ChatGPT had a negative effect on students’ math test results, versus the control group who studied with no access to a chatbot. Not everyone agrees that the results justify the somewhat dramatic title, or that the title reflects the most interesting findings from the study. Listen in to see what Libby and Owen think. The ‘Generative AI Can Harm Learning’ paper can be found here.Join us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production. 

This episode, Owen and Libby speak to Carmen Strigel, Senior Director of Education Technology at RTI, a non-profit global research organisation. Carmen has been the driving force behind a number of successful EdTech products built and used in low resource settings. Carmen tells Owen and Libby about Tangerine, data collection software used in more than 60 countries, and Loquat, a machine learning tool that provides feedback to teachers on their classroom talk. This episode builds on earlier interviews this season about voice AI with Alyssa van Kamp from TeachFX and Peter Foltz from the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. Carmen tells Libby and Owen aboutvoice AI in low resource settings. They also explore how contextual factors, like different pedagogies and classroom settings, influence EdTech product design in low resource settings. Carmen and Owen connect over their shared passion for assessment - watch this space for the ‘Formative Assessment Fanboy’ t-shirts proposed in the episode. Links:Carmen Strigel’s biography and publicationsInformation about TangerineInformation about LoquatJoin us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production. 

In our second short episode of the season, Owen and Libby chat about the recently released results of a US poll (conducted on behalf of Walton Family Foundation and Renaissance Philanthropy) looking at the views of teachers, parents, and students on AI chatbots. There were some surprising findings: more than 8 in 10 participants think technology in education has had a positive impact, and parents want to see AI chatbots used more in their child’s education. Listen in to hear more highlights from the poll. LinksReport on the results of the pollEdWeek article about the poll resultsJoin us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production. 

Join Becky Allen, co-founder of Teacher Tapp, a survey tool that captures teachers' insights. She discusses how teachers are using AI tools for lesson planning and the surprising trends in technology adoption, especially in English and upper primary education. Becky tackles the 'lockstep problem' in teaching, emphasizing personalized learning while acknowledging the complexity of classroom dynamics. Her insights reveal how AI could revolutionize education, but also highlights that key social interactions in classrooms may stay unchanged.

In the second episode of season two Owen and Libby speak to Alyssa Van Camp, Head of Research at EdTech start-up TeachFX. TeachFX is an app for teachers that uses voice AI (a combination of automated speech recognition and natural language processing) to analyse classroom talk and then provide automated feedback to teachers. Owen and Libby talk to Alyssa about the challenges with transcribing and analysing classroom talk and how TeachFX is overcoming some of these issues. Alyssa also shares some interesting reflections about how TeachFX approaches data privacy, and navigates the tension between being a tool for teacher development while responding to the needs of administrators (who are often the purchasers of the tool). Links:Alyssa Van CampMore information about TeachFXA recent study by previous Ed-Technical guest Dora Demszky looking at the impact of TeachFX in classroomsJoin us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production. 

In the first short episode of season two, Owen and Libby share their warm takes on two big releases from OpenAI and Google. They reflect on the OpenAI demo video of Sal Khan’s (Khan Academy’s founder) son using their latest model (GPT-4o) as a maths tutor, and Google’s paper describing how they trained and evaluated a fine-tuned version of Gemini for educational purposes. Share your takes on these announcements with us over social media or in the comments!Links:Google paper on LearnLM-TutorKey Excerpts and Owen’s Commentary on PaperGPT-4o (Omni) math tutoring demo on Khan AcademyJoin us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production. 

This season Libby Hills from the Jacobs Foundation and AI researcher Owen Henkel continue to speak with leading researchers, practitioners and educators on the Ed-Technical podcast series about the cutting edge of AI in education. They will break down complex AI concepts into non-technical insights to better understand what the research says and help educators sift the useful insights from the AI hype. In the first episode of Season 2, Libby and Owen speak with Peter Foltz about his work at the intersection of cognitive science, AI, and education over the past few decades. Peter discusses his experience building an automated essay scoring system in the late 1990s, which provided students with immediate, formative feedback on their writing. Peter reflects on the potential of large language models to enhance these systems by offering more substantive feedback to help students become better thinkers, not just better writers.They then discuss the challenges and opportunities of using speech-to-text AI in educational settings. Peter’s team uses AI to analyze student conversations during group work, providing insights into collaboration, respect, and equity within teams that is fed back to the students to reward positive contributions. Despite the technical difficulties of accurately capturing audio in noisy classrooms, Peter highlights the potential of these tools to support teachers in assessing and fostering effective teamwork among students. They also touch on the importance of co-designing these technologies with teachers, students, and parents to ensure their appropriate and acceptable use in the classroom.Guest and resourcesPeter’s personal webpage, and google scholar pageNSF Institute for Student-AI Teaming Overview of student collaboration toolJoin us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production. 

In this final episode of season 1 Owen and Libby pull out highlights from each episode. They reflect on some of the common themes, and their lingering questions after season 1. They ask, if a model’s not perfect, how good does it have to be before it stops being useful at all? And they share their appreciation for their many guests who are ex-teachers. Owen also shares his personal wish for more adversarial discussions in season 2, which Libby may or may not grant. We'll be back for season 2 in May! Join for our long promised episodes on voice AI, as well as a possible episode live from Daytona Beach for Spring Break…Guests and resourcesCheck out our page on BOLD for all Ed-Technical episodesJoin us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production. 

This week we're doing our third short episode - a chat between Libby and Owen about the more speculative or out-there EdTech ideas they could get behind (or not). Listen to find out who’s into calculators and who’s into roboteachers……Join us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production. 

Introduction: Join two former teachers - Libby Hills from the Jacobs Foundation and AI researcher Owen Henkel - for the Ed-Technical podcast series about AI in education. Each episode, Libby and Owen will ask experts to help educators sift the useful insights from the AI hype. They’ll be asking questions like - how does this actually help students and teachers? What do we actually know about this technology, and what’s just speculation? And (importantly!) when we say AI, what are we actually talking about? In the second part of this episode, Libby and Owen talk again to EdTech investors from Rethink Education, Educapital, Achieve Partners, Sparkmind, Brighteye Ventures and Reach Capital. Our guests spend their days helping founders grapple with the operational realities of building an EdTech business. They discuss where they see some of the challenges and opportunities presented by AI from a business (rather than a product) perspective. They share reflections about the value of less shiny and more operational EdTech, schools’ fatigue with new product pitches that claim to use AI, and how they see the market evolving. Join us next time for an exciting episode about voice AI!Guests and resourcesEbony Brown, Rethink Education Jonathan Denais, Educapital Daniel Pianko, Achieve Partners Kai Talas, SparkmindBen Wirz, Brighteye VenturesJennifer Wu, Reach CapitalFor Buzzsprout only:ContactJoin us on social media: https://twitter.com/BOLD_insights and Libby Hills, https://twitter.com/libbylhhills and Owen Henkel, https://twitter.com/owen_henkel Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletterStay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design Join us on social media: BOLD (@BOLD_insights), Libby Hills (@Libbylhhills) and Owen Henkel (@owen_henkel)Listen to all episodes of Ed-Technical here: https://bold.expert/ed-technical Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter: https://bold.expert/newsletter Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning: https://bold.expertCredits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Anabel Altenburg for content production.