ChatEDU: AI in Education

In this ChatEDU Check-In: Students Walk Out Over AI, Liz explores high school students protesting a perceived double standard in school AI policies. Students at Evergreen High School walked out of class to demand regulations on AI use for both teachers and students. They highlighted that while educators use AI for lesson planning and grading, students are completely prohibited from using it.

Key Takeaways:
Evergreen High School students staged a walkout under the banner "Pencils, not prompts" to demand district-wide AI regulations.

Current Washington State guidelines allow educators to use AI for lesson planning and assessments, but students face strict prohibitions.

The school district established a charter to develop a formal technology plan, but full policy implementation is not scheduled until August 2028, leaving students without a clear framework for years.

Liz’s Two Cents: Student activism highlights a critical gap in school governance, as delayed policy timelines force students to navigate unfair double standards while educators freely adopt AI tools. School leadership must accelerate policy development to ensure equitable, transparent rules for artificial intelligence in the classroom.

Article:
Evergreen High School students demand AI regulation in classrooms from district: 'Pencils, not prompts'
https://tinyurl.com/494yev4j

In this ChatEDU Check-In: Women Left Behind in AI, Liz explores how women face growing disparities in the booming AI industry. The report highlights how structural obstacles and decreased corporate diversity efforts risk worsening economic and leadership gaps for female professionals.

Key Takeaways:
Women account for only 25% of new hires in AI roles compared to 50% in non-AI roles, while holding higher risk for job automation.

Rigid work schedules and limited support systems make career continuity difficult during major life events.

Corporate rollbacks of diversity programs threaten to lock in long-term leadership and income disparities.

Liz’s Two Cents: As AI reshapes the future of work, the risk extends beyond job automation to who gets a seat at the table to build and govern these tools. School leaders must ensure female students are equipped and supported to actively participate in shaping the future of technology.

Article:
The AI industry is booming. Women are getting left behind
https://tinyurl.com/2ftp7w5z

Matt and Liz unpack their 7th sold out conference takeaways and so much more this week! 

First Up
Matt sets up a hundred people at a math conference who split into cheaters, converts and whistleblowers, then reveals they are DeepMind agents that organized themselves that way. Cameron and Liz agree on which one Liz would be.
DeepMind Put 100 AI Agents in a Room and They Sorted Into Cheaters, Converts, and Whistleblowers: https://tinyurl.com/48n37925 

The Rundown
Twin Pics
Twin Pics AI Game: Reverse-Engineering Image Prompts: https://tinyurl.com/2jdsx5ck 
Gems Become Skills
Gemini Gems to Skills Transition Guide: https://tinyurl.com/mr2p6u49 
TeachFX Joins McGraw Hill
McGraw Hill Acquires TeachFX, Expanding Commitment to Great Teaching with AI Coaching Tool Designed by Educators: https://tinyurl.com/smctsype 
Project Cafe - The Urban Assembly: https://tinyurl.com/bma2mepy 
Tavus's Griffin
Tavus Griffin: Realistic AI Video Bot: https://tinyurl.com/ytvbzm5r 
Inside Alpha School's Bootcamp
Inside Alpha School's Bootcamp: Heart Monitors, Unpaid Labor, Many, Many Tweets: https://tinyurl.com/tjy2xzek 
A Flight Simulator for Teachers
UW-Whitewater Education Majors Use AI to Teach Math: https://tinyurl.com/2ajbzbzb 
Morgan State's AI Campus
Morgan State University and Google Public Sector to Build Next-Generation AI Campus: https://tinyurl.com/muh69sen  
From the ChatEDU Community
●Rooted Forward (An Nguyen): https://tinyurl.com/mr6p6n88 
●STEMBox (An Nguyen): https://tinyurl.com/3k3byb5a 

Beneath the Surface
Matt and Liz rebuild the two keynotes from the October 2nd Fall AI Conference. Matt's Pace or Pause frame sorts the week's news into what schools should slow down and what they should amplify, and Jonathan's case against sledgehammer bans argues you cannot step into the same stream twice.
ChatEDU Ep. 130, on Meta's Muse: https://tinyurl.com/y5aamzj9 
Muse privacy failure - Meta's Muse AI agent shared someone's address without their permission: https://tinyurl.com/jpybd5p4 
The Daily on Meta's Muse: https://tinyurl.com/3rd2nmuc 
US datacenter discharged large amounts of pollution for almost a year with no permits: https://bit.ly/4yDweFt 
How to be an AI minimalist: https://tinyurl.com/52nxjrey 
AI4MiddleSchools expands nationwide effort to prepare students for an AI-powered future: https://tinyurl.com/3jv2a39e 
The Digital Delusion (Jared Cooney Horvath): https://tinyurl.com/5bwfkt5d 
Restoring Childhood (Peter Gray): https://tinyurl.com/2fkazvn2 

Bright Byte
Anthropic stood up a wet lab and pointed roughly 950 Claude agents at 200,000 reverse transcriptase enzymes for 21 hours. They surfaced a previously uncharacterized bacteriophage system, with human scientists running every bench experiment.
Claude discovers a novel enzyme system: https://tinyurl.com/2khcu2vs 

Announcements
Register for our Winter Microcredential and upcoming AI events: https://tinyurl.com/43jwkwyp
Purchase Learning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth Radday on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77
Check out our middle / high school Student AI Literacy course: www.skills21.org/ai/learnai
Explore Skills21’s FREE social media literacy curriculum: https://www.skills21.org/social
Address Screen Time concerns: skills21.org/ai/screenshift
Read From Panic to Proof: A Data-Driven Approach to Screen Time (ASCD Educational Leadership): https://tinyurl.com/4pwdu68

Sponsor
The National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing: Bridging Education and Industry to Build Tomorrow’s Technical Workforce -https://www.nextgenmfg.org

In this ChatEDU Check-In: A Route Around the Degree, Matt explores Andreessen Horowitz's launch of an AI-focused school as an alternative to traditional higher education. The initiative provides practical instruction in building AI products and startups without traditional coursework or tuition fees.

Key Takeaways:
Andreessen Horowitz is launching a tuition-free, unaccredited one-year academy designed for tech entrepreneurs focused on building AI products.

Major tech companies and industry leaders from Google, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, and Palantir are supporting the initiative financially and as instructional staff.

The firm plans to expand the initiative into a two-year paid program targeting recent high school graduates and early university students.

Matt’s Two Cents: AI has placed traditional universities in a vulnerable position amid shifting enrollments and labor market changes, making alternative pathways worth watching as market demand tests their long-term value against traditional degrees

Article:
Andreessen Horowitz launches AI school as college alternative
https://tinyurl.com/yz5wpmyp

"In this ChatEDU Check-In: The Techlash That Wasn't, Matt explores how states actually reacted to the big tech backlash of 2026." Despite media headlines depicting a widespread removal of classroom technology, actual state policy decisions have taken a far more restrained approach. Enacted state laws generally avoid sweeping bans and instead implement moderate, targeted guardrails.

Key Takeaways:
State policy outcomes in 2026 reflect restrained regulatory measures rather than total tech bans.

Legislation focused restrictions primarily on younger grade levels while protecting targeted learning tools and high-impact interventions.

Regulatory decisions are outpacing current academic research on how digital tools and AI affect student learning across different contexts.

Matt’s Two Cents: Rather than waiting for clear signals from academic research or reacting to alarmist public headlines, school leaders must proactively collect and analyze local data. By synthesizing survey feedback, curriculum goals, and real-world classroom audits, districts can make informed decisions about where to lean into technology and where to scale back.

Article:
How States Actually Responded to the Ed Tech Backlash of 2026
https://tinyurl.com/3rbwzxcm