In this special episode of the ChatEDU (She's Back! What Charli Hughes Thinks About AI, College, and More), Liz welcomes back Charli Hughes after her first year at UConn. Charli shares why she added Molecular & Cell Biology to her CS major, how professors are making AI-resistant (“durable”) assignments, how she uses AI for deep research, and a peek at her startup developing a low-cost patch to help detect radiation dermatitis and diabetic foot ulcers. Liz looks forward to welcoing Charli back next summer with more updates.

Sponsor

This episode is supported by the National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing.

Announcements

VOTE FOR MATT & LIZ (SXSW EDU)

Vote for Matt and Liz’s live ChatEDU session

⁠⁠https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753650289710001LzZM⁠⁠

Vote for Liz’s Personal Interest Project session

⁠⁠https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753465373604001edhO

In this episode of ChatEDU (Have the EDU Agents Arrived?), Matt and Liz open with GPT-5’s geography fail, a farewell to AOL dial-up, and reactions to the new ChatGPT personality. Then it’s onto a Rundown of five fast-moving stories from education and AI, a spotlight on Utah’s coordinated approach, and a deep dive into how AI agents are reshaping school operations. The Bright Byte takes us to space with Google and NASA’s new health assistant.

Story 1: Rundown

Colleges and AI: Economist Tyler Cowen says one-third of coursework should focus on AI use, limits, and interaction.

Miami-Dade Guidelines: The district plans formal teacher guidance after early Gemini pilots.

Future-Ready Skills: Arrun Kapoor calls for shifting from STEM to a balanced “THESIS” model including social sciences and creativity.

Equity in Rural AI: aiEDU launches a $1M grant program for underserved communities.

Teacher-Led Design: A study shows teachers build better AI tools when designing for classroom needs.

Story 2: Utah Gets Coordinated

Utah leads with a statewide AI specialist, embedded curriculum, paid teacher pilots, and strong infrastructure. Other states may take note.

Beneath the Surface

AI agents already manage walkthroughs, calendars, parent messages, and more. Matt and Liz explore what’s here, what’s next, and what districts should watch.

Bright Byte

A new AI-powered assistant may help astronauts treat issues when Earth is out of reach. Similar tools could soon serve rural and remote areas.

Links

AI Designs Computer Chips We Can’t Understand — But They Work Really Well

https://www.zmescience.com/science/ai-designs-chip-repubz/

AOL discontinues its dial-up internet, and we're just surprised they even offered it in 2025

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/aol-discontinues-its-dial-up-internet-and-were-just-surprised-they-even-offered-it-in-2025/

Colleges should teach how to use AI rather than skills a 'machine' can do better, a leading economist says

https://www.businessinsider.com/economist-tyler-cowen-college-students-trained-jobs-ai-work-2025-8

Miami-Dade Schools to Draft AI Classroom Guidelines

https://www.axios.com/local/miami/2025/08/12/miami-dade-public-schools-ai-guidelines-for-teachers

How AI Will Reshape K-12 and Higher Education for Future Readiness

https://www.informationweek.com/machine-learning-ai/how-ai-will-reshape-k-12-and-higher-education-for-future-readiness

aiEDU Program to Improve AI Literacy for Rural, Indigenous Students

https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/aiedu-program-to-improve-ai-literacy-for-rural-indigenous-students

Want Teachers to Learn How to Use AI for Instruction? Let Them Design the Tools

https://www.edweek.org/technology/want-teachers-to-learn-how-to-use-ai-for-instruction-let-them-design-the-tools/2025/08#:~:text=Let%20Them%20Design%20the%20Tools,-By%20Sarah%20D&text=Teachers%20may%20benefit%20from%20hands,solve%20their%20classroom%20problems%20effectively.

Utah has emerged as a national leader in figuring out AI in K-12 education

https://www.kuer.org/education/2025-08-07/utah-has-emerged-as-a-national-leader-in-figuring-out-ai-in-k-12-education

How Google and NASA are testing AI for medical care in space

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/how-google-and-nasa-are-testing-ai-for-medical-care-in-space

Sponsor

This episode is supported by the National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing.

Announcements

Vote for Matt and Liz at SXSW EDU by August 25

Fall Educator / Leader AI Micro-Credential is open: www.skills21.org/ai/micro

New AI Literacy Course now in pilot. Email [email protected] for info.

VOTE FOR MATT & LIZ (SXSW EDU)

Vote for Matt and Liz’s live ChatEDU session -

⁠https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753650289710001LzZM⁠

Vote for Liz’s Personal Interest Project (PIP) session -

⁠https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753465373604001edhO

In this episode of ChatEDU (Google Claps Back: Guided Learning in Gemini), Matt and Liz open with a whirlwind of AI developments. They share impressions of GPT-5’s quirks and memory mishaps, read a defense of the m dash, and react to the self-loathing loop from Google’s Gemini model. They also tackle AI’s limits, laugh at edible lamp business plans, and break down why threatening a chatbot won’t make it smarter.

Story #1: Rundown – GPT-5, Essay Bans, Mental Health Rules, ChatGPT Tune-Ups, AI Predictions, and a Billion Dollar Retreat

This week’s rundown includes GPT-5’s shaky rollout, a top New York high school banning summer essays to prevent ChatGPT cheating, Illinois becoming the first state to prohibit AI-led mental health therapy, and South Korea ending its national AI textbook program. They cover OpenAI’s “What we’re optimizing ChatGPT for” update, aimed at making the chatbot better at detecting distress and less likely to give overly agreeable answers, plus a study showing large language models can predict educational and psychological outcomes from childhood essays with remarkable accuracy. The segment wraps with Google’s launch of Genie 3, a text-to-3D world model that creates interactive scenes on the fly.

Story #2: Common Sense Media Assesses AI Teacher Tools

Common Sense Media’s latest AI Risk Assessment examines teacher-facing tools like Google Classroom, MagicSchool, Khanmigo, and Kiip. The report gives these platforms a moderate risk rating, noting that they perform best when built on high-quality instructional materials and teacher oversight. Risks include bias, inaccurate content, and reduced curricular coherence. Matt and Liz discuss why novice teachers may be especially vulnerable to over-reliance.

Story #3 (Beneath the Surface): Guided Learning from Google

Just days after OpenAI launched Study Mode, Google responded with Guided Learning inside the Gemini app. Matt and Liz test it live, exploring its math support, quiz generator, and visual explanations. They highlight new education-focused announcements from Google, including one year of free Gemini Pro access for college students, a billion-dollar AI education initiative, and a storybook builder that turns photos into narrated adventures.

Announcements

• Email Matt and Liz at [email protected] for info on their new Student-Facing AI Literacy Course
• Register for the Fall Micro-Credential (starts October) – skills21.org/ai/micro
• Get details on the EdAdvance AI in Education Conference & PL Series – edadvance.org/ai-conference

Links and References (as mentioned in the show)

McSweeney’s “The M Dash Responds to the AI Allegations”

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-em-dash-responds-to-the-ai-allegations

Business Insider on Gemini’s Self-Loathing Bug

https://www.businessinsider.com/gemini-self-loathing-i-am-a-failure-comments-google-fix-2025-8

Common Sense Media Teacher AI Assistant Risk Report

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ai-ratings/ai-teacher-assistants?gate=commsdistributionlink

Stanford EdTech AI Study (SchoolAI Usage)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-k-12-educators-actually-engaging-vsgme/

Google Guided Learning Blog Post – Explore Guided Learning

https://blog.google/products/gemini/storybooks/

Dan Fitzpatrick’s Google Edu Updates on Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danfitzpatrick/2025/08/06/google-takes-aim-at-chatgpt-study-mode-with-major-gemini-updates/

Sponsor

This episode is supported by the National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing, helping students and educators build workforce-ready skills through innovation.

www.nextgenmfg.org

ChatEDU: Best of Beyond the Bot (Matt and Liz)

Vote for Matt and Liz’s live ChatEDU session to highlight inspiring stories of students using AI to solve real-world problems and play an interactive game from the that challenges how we protect human values in an AI-driven world.

https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753650289710001LzZM

Personal Interest Projects (Liz only)

Vote for Liz’s Personal Interest Project (PIP) session to support a hands-on, practical session that helps educators guide student-driven, standards-based projects while using AI in thoughtful and ethical ways.

https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753465373604001edhO

VOTE FOR MATT & LIZ (SXSW EDU)

Vote for Matt and Liz’s live ChatEDU session -

https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753650289710001LzZM

Vote for Liz’s Personal Interest Project (PIP) session -

https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753465373604001edhO

In this episode of ChatEDU (Choose Your Adventure - AI Tutor or Cheat?), Matt and Liz open with updates on robot massages, laundry-folding bots, and a favorite new AI memory prompt from Westport, Connecticut, followed by a global rundown, a breakthrough in 3D world modeling, and a deeper look at ChatGPT’s new Study Mode and what it reveals about student learning.

Story #1: The Rundown Goes Global and Local

From robot assistants to policy shifts, this week’s rundown spans AI headlines with big implications: NotebookLM can now build narrated slide decks, the National Science Foundation is investing $100 million in AI research, and the Presidential AI Challenge invites students and teachers to tackle real-world problems. Switzerland launches a green multilingual LLM, China and India expand AI education, and Oregon partners with NVIDIA to grow AI learning. Sam Altman warns of AI dependency, and users discover their ChatGPT chats may not be legally private, news that highlights both momentum and risk.

Story #2: A 3D World from Words

Tencent’s Hunyuan World 1.0 lets users create immersive 3D environments from a simple text prompt. Open-sourced on GitHub, it combines panoramic image generation with interactive object control. Still technical for now, it hints at uses in education, simulation, and storytelling. Today it requires Unity and Python; eventually, students could build explorable science labs or historical settings with a sentence.

Story #3 (Beneath the Surface): Study Mode and the Tutor Button

OpenAI’s new Study Mode turns ChatGPT into a Socratic tutor—on for scaffolded questions, off for full essays. Matt and Liz explore what this reveals about learning and agency, and examine the system prompt behind it. MIT warns it still draws from flawed sources, but it’s more engaging than static study guides. Custom GPTs and student-built tutors may be next. As AI reshapes education, Study Mode offers a sharper view of what’s possible, and what’s at stake.

Links and References (as mentioned in the show)

Presidential AI Challenge

https://www.ai.gov/initiatives/presidential-challenge

Swiss Multilingual LLM from WINS

https://www.winssolutions.org/switzerland-open-source-llm-new-standard/

MIT Technology Review on China’s AI Push

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/28/1120747/chinese-universities-ai-use/

Hunyuan World 1.0 GitHub

https://github.com/Tencent-Hunyuan/HunyuanWorld-1.0

Study Mode Overview (Neuron)

https://www.theneuron.ai/newsletter/chatgpt-became-your-tutor

MIT Review on Study Mode

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/29/1120801/openai-is-launching-a-version-of-chatgpt-for-college-students/#:~:text=OpenAI%20is%20launching%20Study%20Mode,academic%20year%20starts%20in%20September.

Business Insider on Study Mode and Buying a Car

https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-study-mode-ai-big-life-decision-making-buy-car-2025-7

Forbes on System Prompts

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2025/08/03/deciphering-the-custom-instructions-underlying-openais-new-chatgpt-study-mode-reveals-vital-insights-including-for-prompt-engineering/

AI Agents Build COVID Vaccine (Stanford)

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/07/virtual-scientist.html

AI Immunotherapy Design

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv0422

YouTube AI Age Detection

https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/extending-our-built-in-protections-to-more-teens-on-youtube/

Announcements

Fall Micro-Credential Waitlist is Open

Get on the list at skills21.org/ai/micro

New Student AI Literacy Curriculum

Email Matt and Liz to learn more: [email protected]

In this episode of ChatEDU (A United States of AI Policy?), Matt and Liz start off with a quick rundown of AI agents and their many emerging use cases, from helping with cooking to managing spreadsheets. They also touch on AI-driven ticket pricing at Delta and the ongoing AI usage boom (2.5 billion daily prompts!). Then it’s into the three big stories shaping the AI education landscape this week.

Story 1: The Rundown – AI Goes for Gold, Canvas x OpenAI, and Baby Grok Worries

First up, AI earns a gold medal at the International Math Olympiad, with Gemini and ChatGPT solving some of the hardest problems out there. Meanwhile, OpenAI is teaming up with Canvas to integrate AI tools directly into classrooms, letting teachers build custom chatbots while maintaining visibility over student use. On the wellness side, students are confiding in chatbots about stress and sleep issues more than ever. And yes, we now have “Baby Grok,” Elon Musk’s AI toy for kids. The team raises serious concerns about young learners developing emotional bonds with bots.

Story 2: New Federal Guidance – Two Key Docs from the U.S. Department of Education

The U.S. Department of Education just released two companion documents: a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) and a new Federal Register entry. Together, they offer high-level guidance on how schools can use federal funding to support AI adoption, including instructional tools, tutoring, and professional development. The documents also promote AI and computer science literacy, including credentials and dual enrollment pathways. While the tone is more visionary than directive, the emphasis on ethical, educator-led implementation is clear.

Story 3 (Beneath the Surface): States Step Up – AI Guidance from Maine to Ohio

More than half of U.S. states have now issued official K-12 AI guidance. North Carolina’s “EVERY” framework and Georgia’s educator ethics additions stand out for their practical approach. Ohio takes it further. All schools in the state must adopt a local AI use policy by 2026. While the move is bold, Matt and Liz warn that top-down policies should still be shaped locally with student, teacher, and parent voices at the table.

Bright Byte: AI Finds Hidden Earthquakes

Researchers used machine learning to detect over 86,000 earthquakes in Yellowstone, 10 times more than previously known. This breakthrough could improve risk forecasting and support geothermal energy development.

Links and References

DCL: Dear Colleague Letter on AI Use

https://www.ed.gov/media/document/opepd-ai-dear-colleague-letter-7222025-110427.pdf

Federal Register AI Priority

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/07/21/2025-13650/proposed-priority-and-definitions-secretarys-supplemental-priority-and-definitions-on-advancing

Alongside Mental Health Chatbot

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2025-07-08-students-ai-chats-reveal-their-largest-stressors

OpenAI + Canvas Announcement

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/23/openai-chatgpt-schools-canvas-instructure

AI Wins Gold at IMO

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/humans-beat-ai-technology-google-openai-math-olympiad-machines-catching-up/

Baby Grok Announcement

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/elon-musk-announces-kid-friendly-baby-grok-ai-chatbot-designed-specifically-childrens-learning-needs

Chatbots and Toddlers

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/21/ai-chatbots-toddlers-brains

AI Quake Discovery in Yellowstone

https://phys.org/news/2025-07-machine-uncovers-earthquakes-yellowstone-caldera.html

Announcements

The Fall Teacher AI Micro-Credential waitlist is open:

skills21.org/ai/micro

To learn more about our new Student AI Literacy Course, email [email protected]

Sponsor

This episode is supported in part by the National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing, helping students and educators build workforce-ready skills through innovation.

www.nextgenmfg.org

In this episode of ChatEDU (Guardrails or Surveillance? The Great Summer Gemini Debate), Matt and Liz kick things off with a peek into robot-filled Austin, Texas. Think driverless Jaguars and winking food-delivery cubes. They also share a few updates from their trip to AESA’s summer conference. From there, they dive into three major stories shaping the fast-moving intersection of AI and education.

Story #1: The Rundown Returns

There’s no summer slowdown here. From Turnitin’s big pivot with its Clarity platform to Harvard Business School’s AI tutors and a Common Sense Media study on teen AI companions, Matt and Liz work through a packed list. Along the way, they demo NotebookLM’s new interactive features, revisit the Kittle voice agent, and highlight a troubling move by Elon Musk’s Grok: anime bots and vulgar red pandas designed to keep kids engaged and perhaps manipulated.

Story #2: Beyond the Bot

This week’s Beyond the Bot segment features student-driven innovation from Kenya to New Zealand. First up, a recap of the Africa AI Literacy Week Hackathon, where university students tackled agricultural challenges with custom bots, crop-prediction models, and offline tools. Then Matt and Liz spotlight the InSpirit AI Scholars Program, a standout opportunity for high school students to build real-world AI skills through guided mentorship from top-tier grad students.

Story #3 (Beneath the Surface): Guardrails or Surveillance?

It’s the summer’s hottest debate: Should student AI chats be monitored or private? Matt and Liz break down reactions to Google’s Gemini launch, which skipped the teacher dashboards favored by MagicSchool, SchoolAI, and Brisk. On one side: concerns about safety, transparency, and accountability. On the other: powerful arguments about student agency, trust, and AI literacy. This story puts competing philosophies head to head and asks what kind of AI education we really want.

Bright Byte

This week’s Bright Byte highlights a peer-reviewed study showing how AI is helping hotels and restaurants slash food waste. Using computer vision and deep learning, AI-powered tracking devices identified where food was being lost.

Links and References:

Turnitin Clarity press release-

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/turnitin-delivers-turnitin-clarity-to-bring-transparency-and-responsible-ai-to-the-writing-process-supporting-academic-integrity-in-education-302504889.html

Harvard Business Publishing: AI tutors in accounting

https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/ai-tutor-bots-harvard-business-school

Common Sense Media: AI Companions Report-

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/16/health/teens-ai-companion-wellness

InSpirit AI Scholars Program-

https://www.inspiritai.com/

Africa AI Literacy Week Hackathon (Ish Kenya)-

https://tech-ish.com/2025/07/03/ai-africa-agri-tech-sector/

Bright Byte-

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X25001072

Announcements

The Skills21 Student AI Literacy Course will be available for the fall.

To learn more or bring it to your school, email Matt and Liz at [email protected]

Sponsor

This episode is supported in part by the National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing, helping students and educators build workforce-ready skills through innovation.

https://www.nextgenmfg.org/

In this episode of ChatEDU (College Degrees to Beat the Bot), Matt and Liz kick things off with a voice AI agent for small businesses (including Liz’s very own Studio 217) and trippy new uses for chatbots. From there, they dig into the fast-moving world of robotics, sharing stories of clumsy soccer-playing humanoids, robot warehouse takeovers, and AI-assisted classroom companions. Then, they go Beneath the Surface with a deep dive on seven college majors that may just “beat the bot” — plus an acronym from MIT you’ll actually want to remember. Finally, this week’s Bright Byte delivers a surprising (and heartwarming) AI breakthrough in infertility treatment.

Story #1 — Tsunami of Early-Summer AI Stories

Matt and Liz cover a load of stories in the AI news including prompt injection in academic papers, reports from ISTE, and reported big K-12 AI investments.

Story #2 — Robots on the Rampage

Humanoid robots fall down (a lot) in 3-on-3 soccer matches. Amazon’s warehouse bots are on the rise, and on track to outnumber human workers. Misty II charms students in special education, and Hugging Face releases a DIY robot you can program yourself. It’s fun, freaky… and definitely closer than you think.

Story #3 (Beneath the Surface) — College Majors that Beat the Bot

Cognitive science, bioinformatics, creative tech, and more. Forbes calls these “AI-durable” degrees that blend human creativity, ethics, and empathy with AI savvy. Matt and Liz also explore MIT’s EPOCH framework for future-proof skills: Empathy, Presence, Opinion, Creativity, Hope. Whether you’re advising students or thinking about your own next move, this one’s worth the listen.

Bright ByteAfter 18 years of infertility, AI called STAR (Sperm Tracking and Recovery) helped a couple conceive by finding viable sperm human eyes missed, no invasive surgery required. Sometimes AI really is a miracle worker.

Links and References

11 Labs AI Voice Agent Tool

https://elevenlabs.io/app/talk-to?agent_id=agent_01jzxnd7e5fsv9cvve4g6np8v7

Hugging Face Reachy Mini Robot 

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/hugging-face-opens-up-orders-for-its-reachy-mini-desktop-robots/

ISTE AI in Education Highlights

https://www.edweek.org/technology/can-ai-make-history-class-more-fun-for-students/2025/07

OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft Invest in AI/K-12

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danfitzpatrick/2025/07/08/microsoft-openai--anthropic-fund-a-national-ai-academy-for-teachers/

Japan Times on AI Peer Review Hacks

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/07/04/japan/ai-research-prompt-injection/

3 v 3 Robot Soccer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPL7sK0pJOE

Amazon Scales Robots

https://unionrayo.com/en/amazon-new-autonomous-robots/

Misty II

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danfitzpatrick/2025/07/07/how-an-ai-robot-helped-silent-kids-speak/

Forbes: College Majors to Beat the Bot 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhernholm/2025/06/30/7-college-majors-that-prepare-you-to-lead-in-an-ai-driven-economy/

MIT EPOCH Framework on Human Capabilities

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/these-human-capabilities-complement-ais-shortcomings

CNN on STAR AI and Infertility Breakthrough

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/03/health/ai-male-infertility-sperm-wellness

Sponsor

This episode is supported in part by the National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing — nextgenmfg.org

In this episode of ChatEDU (Viral or Villain - Is the AI Backlash Just Beginning?), Matt and Liz open with travel updates from Liz’s time at ISTE/ASCD, shoutouts to listeners met on the road, and a quick prompt hack before diving into three big stories shaping the tension between AI’s rapid adoption in schools and growing backlash in society. From AI-powered literacy tools to global assessment changes and the tension between usage and resistance, this episode explores what happens when AI goes viral, and when the backlash begins.

Story #1: Amira’s AI Literacy Screening in Newark

Newark Public Schools is rolling out Amira, an AI-powered literacy screener assessing K-3 students by listening to them read aloud. The tool helps identify fluency challenges and personalizes interventions while emphasizing augmentation, not replacement, of teachers. While promising for early literacy, experts highlight the need for human oversight, particularly for English learners, to ensure equitable outcomes.

Story #2: PISA Adds AI Literacy to Global Assessments

The OECD’s PISA assessment will add a Media and AI Literacy domain in 2029 to measure students’ critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and ability to navigate misinformation in an AI-mediated world. Using simulations of search engines, social media feeds, and chatbot interactions, this marks a major shift in what global assessments will value, preparing systems to measure skills relevant to the digital age.

Story #3 (Beneath the Surface): The Walton Study, Wired, and the Growing AI Backlash

A new Walton Family Foundation survey with Gallup shows teachers are saving nearly six weeks a year using AI while improving lesson quality and work-life balance. Meanwhile, 97% of Gen Z students are using AI for homework, test prep, and college essays. Yet, a rising backlash is building outside schools as concerns over automation, environmental impact, and copyright issues grow. Matt and Liz discuss what leaders should do to pair intentional AI adoption with policy, dialogue, and equity to navigate the coming tension.

Bright Byte: Microsoft’s MAI-DXO Diagnoses Faster and Cheaper

In healthcare, Microsoft’s MAI-DXO has diagnosed 85% of complex medical cases accurately while lowering costs by reducing unnecessary testing. This signals how AI can streamline diagnostics, save money, and improve care, if implemented with thoughtful clinical validation.

Links and References

Amira Literacy Screening (Chalkbeat + NJ.com)

https://www.nj.com/mosaic/2025/06/newark-launches-ai-tool-to-boost-literacy-for-struggling-students.html

PISA Media & AI Literacy Domain – OECD Announcement

https://www.oecd.org/en/about/projects/pisa-2029-media-and-artificial-intelligence-literacy.html

Walton/Gallup AI Survey – Teach for Tomorrow Report

https://www.gallup.com/analytics/659819/k-12-teacher-research.aspx

Wired on AI Backlash – Reese Rogers, June 28

https://www.wired.com/story/generative-ai-backlash/

Microsoft MAI-DXO Diagnostic Orchestrator

https://microsoft.ai/new/the-path-to-medical-superintelligence/

Skills21 AI Resources and Policy Samples

skills21.org/ai/resources

Sponsor: National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing

nextgenmfg.org

In this episode of ChatEDU (Check Please: Is Your AI Paying Off?) Matt and Jonathan open with updates about Liz’s at ISTE/ASCD. From there, they tackle a practical and philosophical look at AI’s rapid growth, job impacts, classroom adoption, and hidden trade-offs as leaders rethink what to automate. The episode closes with a bright byte on how AI is helping India map heat risks, proving that machine learning can drive real-world climate adaptation.

Story #1: The AI Resume Arms Race

Matt and Jonathan unpack a recent New York Times piece on how employers are overwhelmed by a flood of AI-generated resumes, while companies fight back with AI-powered screening tools. It’s an HR arms race with clear parallels to the college essay challenge, forcing educators and employers alike to rethink what authentic assessment and hiring should look like in the age of generative AI.

Story #2: What Gets Measured Gets Automated

Pulling from a Harvard Business Review analysis, Matt and Jonathan explore which tasks AI will automate first, from grading quizzes to lesson planning to even attendance tracking via facial recognition. They discuss where AI makes sense, where human judgment is still essential, and how this ties into deeper conversations about what education is truly for in an AI-saturated world.

Story #3 (Beneath the Surface): Is Your AI Actually Adding Value?

Going deeper, they highlight an HBR “AI Value Audit” to help educators and leaders assess when using AI saves time versus when it erodes critical learning, skill development, and human connection. They apply this audit live, pulling real tasks from ChatGPT histories and discussing which uses genuinely amplify their work—and which risk making things shallower.

Bright Byte: India Uses AI to Map Heat Risks

India is now using AI and satellite data to map heat vulnerability building-by-building across major cities. This lets communities target interventions like cool roofs and green spaces, helping residents adapt to extreme heat events made worse by climate change. It’s a crisp example of how AI can drive practical climate resilience at scale.

Announcements

The Summer Micro-Credential is still open, with a special ISTE/ASCD promo for attendees. skills21.org/ai/micro

Links and References

Anthropic’s Claudius Experiment

https://time.com/7298088/claude-anthropic-shop-ai-jobs/

NYT on AI and Hiring

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/technology/ai-spending-openai-amazon-meta.html

Harvard Business Review: What Gets Measured Gets Automated

https://hbr.org/2025/06/what-gets-measured-ai-will-automate

Harvard Business Review: Audit Your AI Use

https://hbr.org/2025/06/recalculating-the-costs-and-benefits-of-gen-ai

India Heat Mapping with AI

https://www.wired.com/story/india-is-using-ai-and-satellites-to-map-urban-heat-vulnerability-down-to-the-building-level/?utm_source=chatgpt.com.

Sponsor

This episode is supported in part by the National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing

www.nextgenmfg.org