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In this episode, Matthew sits down with Merissa Sadler-Holder, founder of Teaching with Machines and the person he credits as a catalyst in his career. They dig into what it really takes to bring AI into schools—from building student-facing AI literacy curricula to navigating the resistance, fear, and identity shifts educators face. Along the way, they explore AI as a mirror of what we value, why we're shifting from paying for time to paying for expertise, and how teachers with zero coding experience are building interactive games in minutes. It's a conversation about curiosity, change management, and why your expertise matters more now—not less.
In this conversation:
Video Chapters:
Connect with us:
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
Matt sits down with Stewart Brown, from Code for Kids (c4k.io), to dig into why so many schools are unprepared to teach AI literacy and computer science—and what it actually takes to build a foundation that sticks. From debunking the myth that CS doesn't belong in every district to rethinking what "expert in the room" even means for teachers, this conversation goes way deeper than tech tools. It's about curiosity, vulnerability, and what gets lost when we let AI do too much of the thinking for us.
Timestamps:
2:43 | The real gap in K-8 schools: why computer science often doesn't exist as a real subject
15:12 | Stewart's no-BS way of explaining AI: "It's a machine brain."
18:07 | Matthew's viral hallucination analogy — what your breakfast 20 years ago has to do with AI
19:38 | Unpacking "future-ready education" — and why it's more than a buzzword
21:54 | The mindset shift every teacher needs before stepping into an AI-driven classroom
30:56 | A college classroom story that changed how Matthew thinks about teaching
35:09 | How Code for Kids actually started — an origin story with a wild twist
40:23 | What happens to classroom engagement when teachers admit they don't know everything
47:48 | Stewart gets curious: the big open questions driving his work
51:49 | The one thing about AI that fascinates (and unsettles) everyone in the field
57:28 | Where to find Stewart and Code for Kids
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
What if curiosity, not content, is the most important skill we can teach kids? In this episode of Real Talk: The Curiosity Connection, host Matt Karabinos sits down with Amirah Cummings, founder of KIO (Kids in Orbit), to explore how AI is unlimiting education, why the traditional school system is 100% obsolete, and what it truly means to become a self-driven learner.
Amirah is a former software engineer turned educator whose work spans multilingual Montessori schooling, mission-based learning, and an entire ecosystem designed to turn kids into "Kionauts"—curious, compassionate explorers of Earth and the cosmos.
At a time when AI is "making learning infinite" and "unlimiting" students' potential, the real mission of education comes into question. Listen to the whole episode for some memorable hot takes about education and what we can do instead.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Connect with Amirah Cummings:
Connect with Matt & the Show:
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
In this episode recorded at ISTE 2026, Jethro Jones talks with Mike Lawrence. Mike shares how his school district built a culture of AI transparency using disclosure badges instead of bans, why teachers need to model the same openness they expect from students, and what's next as schools cautiously explore AI agents.
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
Building Friction, Autonomy, and Design with AI | Doan Winkel
What if the best thing AI can do for students is refuse to help them? Matt sits down with entrepreneur and educator Doan Winkel to dig into why "helpful AI" might be the worst thing to happen to learning and what to do instead.
In this episode:
Chapters:
Find Doan:
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
Jake Rupp teaches AP Lang and public speaking, and he built his TikTok following by breaking down rhetoric in bite-sized lessons. In this episode we get into what voice actually means, why AI-written text is so easy to spot, and why Jake has decided AI has no place in his classroom at all.
Jake grades without points. He built a feedback and revision system years before AI showed up, and students are still using AI to write their own reflections on their own AI-generated work. That single fact reshapes the whole conversation. We talk about a student who told him flat out she wasn't thinking about getting caught; she just needed the assignment done. We talk about the curse of knowledge and why group work and presentations fail when we assign them without ever teaching them. And we talk about whether early AI exposure builds better judgment later or just moves the desensitization earlier.
This one gets a little heated, a lot honest, and ends with Jake handing me one of the best lines I've recorded on this show.
Find Jake on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and beyond!
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn!
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:00 Jake's background teaching rhetoric and how his TikTok lessons grew out of the classroom
21:00 AI and student voice, the cognitive offload problem
24:00 The student who said "I wasn't thinking about you at all"
30:00 Jake's gradeless classroom and why it hasn't stopped AI misuse
36:00 The curse of knowledge and why we assign skills we never teach
41:00 Tech giants, AI in schools, and the shift from preference to reliance
50:00 The doctor question, and proving what you actually know
56:00 Gen Z, work ethic, and whether AI anxiety is about something else
1:01:00 Student disgust at AI generated feedback and Jake's non-negotiables
1:05:00 Being curious about the future, without AI
1:07:00 Wrap-up and where to find Jake
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
What does it mean to be a "cautious advocate" in the age of AI?
In this episode of Artificial Intelligence Real Talk, host Matthew sits down with Dr. Alfonso Mendoza Jr. ("Dr. Fonz"), educator, ed-tech veteran, and host of the My EdTech Life podcast, for a wide-ranging and deeply honest conversation about what it really means to bring technology into classrooms with intention.
Dr. Fonz brings over a decade of experience as a digital learning coordinator, a doctoral perspective on data and ed tech policy, and a refreshing willingness to pump the brakes when everyone else is flooring it. Together, Matt and Dr. Fonz dig into the lessons learned from the early days of generative AI hype, the growing tech backlash, and what cautious advocacy actually looks like in practice.
In this episode, you'll hear:
What are you most curious about when it comes to AI and the future of education?
Connect with Dr. Fonz:
MyEdTechLife podcast
LinkedIn
Timestamps
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
Matt Karabinos sits down with Aaron Makelky—former history teacher turned Community & Developer Relations Manager at Descript—to explore the wild, humbling, and often hilarious journey of discovering AI. From a student showing Aaron ChatGPT after a Thanksgiving break to both men leaving the classroom within a month of each other, this episode is a real conversation between two educators who went all-in on AI before it was mainstream. They dig into the "tech lash" in schools, Aaron's powerful "snow globe" analogy for how schools operate, why every staff needs AI scouts, how they're raising AI-literate kids at home, and what vibe coding is really unlocking for everyday people. After this episode, you should be asking yourself, "are you consuming, or are you building?"
Timestamped Show Notes
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
What does it actually mean to use AI responsibly in education? In this episode, host Matthew sits down with educator, author, and automation advocate Jethro Jones to explore the difference between AI that builds you up versus AI that holds you back. Jethro introduces the concept of cognitive equity — using AI to expand what you're capable of — versus cognitive debt — using it to skip the learning that matters. They dive deep into practical frameworks for deciding what to automate, why students aren't really "cheating" with AI (and what we should do about it instead), and what truly meaningful learning looks like. Whether you're a teacher, administrator, or lifelong learner, this conversation will challenge how you think about school, work, and what it means to actually grow.
Guest: Jethro Jones — educator, author, and automation advocate. Find him at @JethroJones on all social platforms and at his new web site Optimization Doc.
Host: Matthew — AI & Emerging Technology Consultant, Central Pennsylvania.
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
In this introductory episode, Jethro welcomes Matt Karabinos as the new host of Artificial Intelligence: Real Talk — formerly A Vision for Learning. Matt shares his background as a recently-practicing classroom teacher and his current work helping schools, educators, students, and administrators make sense of AI in education.
Together, Jethro and Matt explore what makes AI different from past edtech initiatives: it is not just another tool, search engine, or “vending machine.” Used well, AI can become a thought partner that helps teachers reimagine lessons, create new learning experiences, and solve real classroom problems without starting from scratch.
Matt also introduces the mindset behind his CURVE framework, beginning with curiosity. For educators wondering where to start, this conversation offers a simple invitation: be curious, try something small, and let AI help you see new possibilities for teaching and learning.
In this episode
Key takeaways
Guest
Matt Karabinos is a former classroom teacher and current emerging technology and project specialist. He supports schools and educators as they navigate AI policy, classroom practice, student use, professional learning, and the broader shifts AI is bringing to education. He also runs student programs and regional competitions, including FIRST LEGO League, Scholastic Quiz League, Reading Competition, and Math24.
Find Matt on TikTok: @MrKAllDay
We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL.
Learn more about Renaissance:
As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.
IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.
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