ChatEDU – The AI & Education Podcast

In this episode of ChatEDU, From Messaging to Mastery, Texting Your Way to AI Literacy, Matt and Liz discuss couples therapy for a man and his AI girlfriend, OpenAI shelving adult companion features, and a pivot toward coding tools.The RundownGemini now imports personal context from other appsUniversity of Florida's Shark AI teaches K-12 machine learning through fossils and 3D prints14 ways to remind kids that AI is a machine, not a friendA new study on how 13–24-year-olds interact with AIMayor Wu wants Boston to lead on AI literacy in schoolsWikipedia bans AI-generated articlesLandmark rulings against Meta and Google over child safetyAn Irish town bans smartphones for primary students25 states target AI in educationThe White House unveils a national AI workforce training frameworkPrince William County bans AI glasses in schoolEducause's "Prompt to Practice" pushes faculty AI transparencyAgentic AI speeds up math research at UPennSolar GPS and AI are replacing physical fences for livestockAI bots have driven a 7,851 percent surge in internet trafficMelania Trump proposes robots to teach classical studiesAnthropic finds an economic divide between AI newbies and power usersBeneath the SurfaceLiz shares her firsthand experience with "Make America AI Ready," a free, week-long AI literacy course delivered via text message, discussing how SMS makes foundational AI concepts accessible to all Americans.The Bright ByteHelpany uses radar sensors to monitor seniors in living communities, reducing falls by 72% without invasive cameras.AnnouncementsLearning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth RaddayASCD:⁠ ⁠https://tinyurl.com/bde652nn⁠⁠ Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77Barnes and Noble: https://tinyurl.com/bdckf6zwOur six-week AI Micro-Credential course launching this spring in partnership with Southern Connecticut State University. Group discounts are available at Skills21.org/AI/Micro.EdAdvance is offering a Middle and High School Student AI Literacy course — email chatedu@edadvance.org to bring it to your district. ​​⁠⁠www.skills21.org/ai/learnai⁠⁠ Skills21’s FREE social media literacy course. Check it out at https://www.skills21.org/social-balance⁠⁠Register for our Spring AI Conference (5.1.26) in Litchfield, CT https://www.skills21.org/event-details/ai-in-education-spring-2026-conference Check out our new Screen Time initiativeskills21.org/ai/screenshift This episode is sponsored byThe National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing.⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.nextgenmfg.org⁠⁠ and EDIA edia.app.LinksTherapy for a man and his AI girlfriendhttps://tinyurl.com/yuwub6x8Bring your AI chat history to Gemini https://tinyurl.com/4dknmrcaUsing shark teeth to teach Florida students about AIhttps://tinyurl.com/2fe8ym3yWays to Remind Yourself (and Your Kids) AI is a Machinehttps://tinyurl.com/7fhpacyyYouth, AI, and the Relationships That Shape Themhttps://tinyurl.com/yshp99bcBoston schools and AI literacyhttps://tinyurl.com/2tz2kshkWikipedia bans AI-generated articleshttps://tinyurl.com/2cfd2pkaHow courts are rewriting the rules for Big Tech and childrenhttps://tinyurl.com/3phy49edA Phone-Free Childhood?https://tinyurl.com/4wrkhxkhOne Question Every Superintendent Should Be Askinghttps://tinyurl.com/ye25sff2National AI Policy Frameworkhttps://tinyurl.com/mstfm8ntGuidance for the use of AI-enabled glasses https://tinyurl.com/4mpvnp8eTransparent GenAI Use in Higher Educationhttps://tinyurl.com/ytbr4uymHow AI is reshaping math research workflowshttps://tinyurl.com/3szc52hdExpansion of Virtual Fencinghttps://tinyurl.com/22ykucvzAI Traffic & Cyberthreat Benchmark Reporthttps://tinyurl.com/2e5rxaapMelania and the Robot https://tinyurl.com/523buhenAmerica's next class war: AI fluencyhttps://tinyurl.com/496ns9n7Make America AI-Readyhttps://tinyurl.com/4tc9ja7hRadar-Based Fall Prevention and Motion Monitoringhttps://helpany.com

In this ChatEDU Check-In: The New Social Lab Modeling Humanity with Millions of Bots, Matt explores how researchers are moving beyond individual chatbots to study the collective behavior of millions of autonomous agents in digital societies. These studies utilize environments like Minecraft to observe how AI agents interact, organize, and evolve without human guidance.Key Takeaways:AI research is shifting toward a new field of digital sociology where thousands of autonomous agents function as a persistent collective society rather than just one to one conversational tools.Without human intervention, AI agents in simulations spontaneously developed complex social structures, including specialized labor, economic systems, and even political debates over tax reforms.Researchers successfully modeled the spread of ideologies by introducing a parody religion to a small group of agents, demonstrating how AI societies can act as digital twins to track the movement of misinformation.Matt’s Two Cents: These simulations raise a critical strategic question for educators: are these agents providing novel insights into human behavior, or are they simply mimicking human patterns as "stochastic parrots"? As we consider using AI personas for focus groups or sociological modeling, we must discern whether these digital twins offer authentic data or merely reflect the biases and behaviors already present in their training sets.Articles:The first ‘AI societies’ are taking shape: how human-like are they?https://tinyurl.com/y2uesyskThese AI Minecraft characters did weirdly human stuff all on their ownhttps://tinyurl.com/z46e2rbkSponsored by:Eduaide: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.

In this ChatEDU Check-In: The AI refugee crisis, Matt explores the growing trend of white collar professionals transitioning into teaching to escape AI driven job instability. As automation erodes roles in finance and marketing, veteran workers are seeking the human centric stability of the classroom.Key Takeaways:Experienced professionals in their 40s and 50s are fleeing corporate sectors where AI has significantly reduced income and job security.Generative AI is automating high level tasks like data summarization and document creation, allowing companies to replace entire teams with a single staff member using tools like ChatGPT.The interpersonal nature of teaching remains a unique defense against displacement, offering a career path focused on human development that AI cannot easily replicate.Matt’s Two Cents: The influx of "AI refugees" into education brings valuable real world experience to the classroom, but it also creates new competition for younger teachers entering the field. District leaders must consider how this shift affects the long term economic prospects of students as they prepare for a labor market where even high level corporate functions are being automated.Article:Meet the AI refugees: white-collar workers retrain as teachershttps://tinyurl.com/2cs2hzfsSponsored by:Eduaide: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.

Casey Cuny, a veteran high school English teacher and 2024 California Teacher of the Year who builds classroom AI tools, discusses balancing human-centered teaching with AI. He outlines a Human Start, AI Feedback, Human Finish framework. Short takes cover authentic assessment, AI fluency and prompting, student reactions to AI, and his witai.app formative-assessment tool.

A critique of teaching AI skills before ensuring basic literacy and critical reading. A defense of long-form literature as training for sustained attention and judgment. An introduction to a Slow AI Public Library that uses a quiz to recommend books to rebuild empathy, patience, and reading stamina. A personal test-drive of the quiz and a call to try the recommended reads.

In this ChatEDU Check-In: Teenage Boys and the AI Wingman, Liz explores how popular and athletic teenage boys are increasingly using ChatGPT to navigate dating and social anxieties. The episode highlights a shift where young men turn to AI for emotional support and social validation rather than their peer groups.Key Takeaways:Teenage boys are utilizing AI to vet text messages and seek feedback on their physical appearance to avoid the fear of social judgment.The agreeable nature of AI creates a risk-free environment that lacks the necessary friction and accountability found in human social interactions.Young people are bypassing human mentors to ask AI sensitive questions about consent and social behavior because it offers a judgment-free space.Liz’s Two Cents: The move toward using AI as a social wingman indicates that the fear of social stigma is currently more daunting to young men than the prospect of receiving hollow or biased advice from a chatbot. For school leaders, this highlights a growing gap in traditional mentorship and the need for schools to address how AI might be reinforcing negative patterns during formative years without the nuance of human guidance.Article:Teen boys are using ChatGPT as their wingman. What could go wrong?https://tinyurl.com/2hkcvkwhSponsored by: Eduaide.aiEduaide: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.

In this episode of ChatEDU, Is AI Saving Time or Adding Tasks at School and at Work?, Matt and Liz explore the polarizing reality of AI productivity. After a celestial jingle for Liz’s book and news of Meta’s post-mortem patent, the hosts discuss educators moving beyond chatbots to "vibe code" custom school solutions for operational hurdles.The RundownAccidental emails show educators using Replit and vibe coding to build sub coverage apps and data dashboards.A simple custom instruction fix to prevent ChatGPT from baiting users with follow-up questions at the end of every response.Anna Mills shares UC Irvine strategies for students to challenge AI bias and treat bots as sparring partners.A look at ChatGPT’s new ability to generate interactive math and physics simulations, like adjustable Pythagorean theorem models.This "AI for Education" tool helps students reflect on whether they are using AI strategically or simply offloading their thinking.Matt’s commentary explains how these three roles help students and teachers navigate AI ethics.The latest updates from Google’s research tool, including cinematic video overviews and native support for ePub files.News of a metadata leak in the higher ed version of ChatGPT that exposed research repository names.Why hundreds of University of Colorado faculty and students are pushing back against a 2 million dollar OpenAI contract.The story of Grammarly’s Expert Review feature and why it was pulled after using journalist personas without consent.USAII’s Global Hackathon and the Quad City Herald show students solving real-world business problems with AI.Beneath the SurfaceMatt and Liz discuss AI’s recursive risks, citing Amazon’s AI-driven outages and employee workload spikes. Dan Meyer joins to debunk AI time-saving myths for teachers, concluding that while AI accelerates expectations, interpersonal teaching remains automation-proof.Bright BytePaul Cunningham used ChatGPT and AlphaFold to create a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine for his dog, Rosie. Despite lacking a medical background, his experimental treatment successfully shrunk her tumors, proving AI’s power when driven by personal motivation.AnnouncementsLearning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth RaddayASCD:⁠ ⁠https://tinyurl.com/bde652nn⁠⁠ Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77Barnes and Noble: https://tinyurl.com/bdckf6zwOur six-week AI Micro-Credential course launching this spring in partnership with Southern Connecticut State University. Group discounts are available at Skills21.org/AI/Micro.EdAdvance is offering a Middle and High School Student AI Literacy course — email chatedu@edadvance.org to bring it to your district. ​​⁠⁠www.skills21.org/ai/learnai⁠⁠Skills21’s FREE social media literacy course. Check it out here -⁠ ⁠https://www.skills21.org/social-balance⁠⁠This episode is sponsored by The National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing.⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.nextgenmfg.org⁠⁠LinksMeta Patent: Posthumous AI Postinghttps://tinyurl.com/34ja5ddeStop ChatGPT Follow-Up Baithttps://tinyurl.com/ytmrwtv9ChatGPT Interactive Math Visualshttps://tinyurl.com/55ztmer2GenAI Self-Reflection Checklisthttps://tinyurl.com/mtcuuxkzNotebookLM Video Overviewshttps://tinyurl.com/4kutwdtuNotebookLM more useful for students and book lovershttps://tinyurl.com/v5cnv2r8ChatGPT Edu Leaks Project Metadatahttps://tinyurl.com/mr2h42t3CU Community Fights AI Rollouthttps://tinyurl.com/2f6hmd8uGrammarly AI "Expert" Backfirehttps://tinyurl.com/4fn93kw3USAII 2026 Global AI Hackathon Openshttps://tinyurl.com/bdzbzkd9AI Youth Corps to Aid Local Bizhttps://tinyurl.com/rrsc4netAI Use Wreaks Havoc on Amazon Core Businesshttps://tinyurl.com/yr99nyxkStudy: AI Increases Amazon Workloadhttps://tinyurl.com/3393cz3aDoubt: AI Saving Teachers Timehttps://tinyurl.com/37vu2jw9Tech Boss’s AI Dog Cancer Vaccinehttps://tinyurl.com/3vrprpva

In this ChatEDU Check-In: Anthropic Reshapes College Coding Courses, Matt explores the accelerating race between tech giants to embed proprietary AI models into higher education curricula. The episode highlights a major partnership between Anthropic and the nonprofit CodePath, which aims to provide students at over 1,000 institutions with the same sophisticated tools used by industry professionals.Key Takeaways:Anthropic is targeting community colleges, historically black colleges, and Hispanic serving institutions to ensure first generation students are not left behind as technology evolves.Tech giants like Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft are competing for early exposure, offering free subscriptions and funding to establish their specific platforms as the workforce standard.Employer expectations are forcing universities to update courses multiple times a year, shifting the focus from simple certificates to portfolios that prove real world AI competency.Matt’s Two Cents: This is a high stakes battle for future consumer loyalty. While these partnerships provide universities with best in class software they couldn't otherwise afford, they also risk "locking in" students to specific proprietary ecosystems. University leaders need to develop clear internal rubrics to evaluate these corporate deals, balancing the immediate need for speed and resources against long term platform independence.Article Link:https://tinyurl.com/3uamvtvmSponsored by: Eduaide.aiEduaide.ai: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.

A look at why colleague-to-colleague sharing, not top-down mandates, drives real AI adoption. Discussion of how private, improvised use stalls collective learning and creates risks. Exploration of leaders creating permission structures and rewarding peer helpers to turn social capital into scalable practice. Notes on tailoring training to specific grade levels and disciplines rather than one-size-fits-all.

Kavitta Ghai, co-founder and CEO of Nectar, built a campus AI operating system after experiencing time poverty as a student. She discusses scaling AI support across 116 community colleges, integrating assistants into LMS platforms, and creating document‑grounded tutoring, advising, and career coaching. Short talks cover technical interoperability, measurable student outcomes, and plans to expand into K‑12 and nationwide.