ChatEDU – The AI & Education Podcast

In this ChatEDU Check-In: Teens, Tweens, and AI Part Two: AI Use Outside of School, Matt explores how youth are interacting with artificial intelligence platforms outside the classroom for personal, social, and emotional reasons. The discussion centers on data from the 2026 Common Sense Media study, highlighting both the risks of social isolation and the potential for productive tool use.

Key Takeaways:
Frequent AI use correlates with increased feelings of social isolation among teenagers, suggesting digital platforms may be replacing traditional face-to-face coping mechanisms.

Youth are increasingly bypassing peers and adults, relying on automated systems for personal advice, health queries, and long-term life guidance.

A significant literacy gap exists, as only about one third of students realize AI cannot distinguish between fact and fiction, leading to unearned trust in chatbot accuracy.

Matt’s Two Cents: While schools have heavily focused on creating policies around AI cheating, there is a glaring oversight regarding AI literacy and general digital fluency. District leaders need to recognize that students are turning to AI as life coaches and health advisors without understanding how these systems work. Because nearly half of students have never discussed AI with their families, districts must expand their instructional focus beyond academic integrity to help students critically evaluate AI outputs and safely navigate these tools outside of school.

Article:
A Comprehensive Report on Teens, Tweens, and AI
https://tinyurl.com/f8s35yyz

In this ChatEDU Check-In: The Common Sense Media Census: AI Use by Tweens and Teens (2026), Matt explores how students are leaning on AI to complete their schoolwork. A substantial majority of children are incorporating these automated platforms regularly into their daily routines. This rapid integration is fundamentally changing how students approach their assignments both at home and within the classroom.

Key Takeaways:
An overwhelming 85 percent of kids who utilize AI use it for homework, with 30 percent of high school students relying on it on a daily basis.

Students facing academic difficulty, particularly regarding focus and persistence, report a significantly higher frequency of turning to AI for help.

Schools are prioritizing plagiarism prevention and policy disclosures over deeper digital literacy, leaving half of students without training on how to evaluate information accuracy.

Matt’s Two Cents: The speed of AI adoption is drastically outpacing institutional instruction, leaving a dangerous gap in student fluency. While districts are quick to lay down restrictive guardrails and policy guidelines, they are failing to have meaningful adult conversations with students about navigating these tools safely. School leaders need to move beyond simple acceptable use boundaries and actively teach students how to question and verify automated output, transforming AI from a blind shortcut into an intentional learning coach.

Article:
A Comprehensive Report on Teens, Tweens, and AI
https://tinyurl.com/f8s35yyz

In this episode of ChatEDU, Librarians at the Center, the Unsung Leaders of School AI, Matt and Liz open with a wild legal story out of Mississippi, where a federal judge canceled a trial and disqualified all four lawyers after attorneys on both sides were caught using generative AI that cited fabricated court cases.

The Rundown

Matt and Liz celebrate the regional winners at the White House, including educator Anne Win and her AP Biology students' AI work.

A free new resource using real-world AI scenarios and the SEE framework to help families and educators navigate AI in education.

Google partners with ISTE and ASCD to launch free, self-paced micro-credentials for teachers, including intro courses on Gemini, NotebookLM, and vibe coding.

Meta launches a $115M academy to train local workers in data center construction, alongside a similar $50M Google program.

OpenAI selects 26 university innovators for its inaugural cohort, giving them model access and $10,000 grants to build solutions from disaster detection to audio learning games.

The hosts look at Google's experimental "Dream Beans" photo feed, "momfluencers" pitching ChatGPT as a co-parent, and Hasbro's AI Mr. Potato Head.

Google's CEO delivers a Stanford commencement address avoiding AI entirely, following recent graduation walkouts and protests.

A recent Wired investigation finds that Elon Musk's Grok still generates non-consensual explicit deepfakes of prominent women.

Anthropic complies with US government regulations by blocking access to its Mythos and Fable models for non-Americans and foreign employees within the country.

While NAEP showed slight literacy gains for nine-year-olds, an Axios report highlights millions of low-literacy adult workers using AI to mask reading and writing gaps.

The Beneath the Surface

Matt and Liz dig into the Genesee Valley BOCES "Teaching About AI" report, which lays out eight provocations and argues that librarians are the most vital leaders for district-wide AI integration.

The Bright Byte

Mayo Clinic researchers have validated an AI model that scans routine CT scans to flag pancreatic cancer up to three years before diagnosis, roughly doubling specialists' early-detection rate.

Announcements

Purchase Learning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth Radday
Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77

Seeing through the Machine – Teaching Bias as an Equity Practice in AI - Dr. Elizabeth Radday - https://tinyurl.com/4ybwkn7a

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-balance⁠⁠⁠

Address Screen Time concerns - ⁠skills21.org/ai/screenshift⁠ 

Links

Presidential AI Challenge Champions
https://tinyurl.com/yt55wrju

SEE GenAI Literacy Snapshot
https://tinyurl.com/yt2fxr3r

Google AI Educator Series on Teaching with AI
https://tinyurl.com/2pzdfse2

Meta launches $115 million data center job guarantee
https://tinyurl.com/3wrv43me

Growing the next generation of American workers
https://tinyurl.com/ytbp7jn5

OpenAI names first ChatGPT Futures class to back student AI projects
https://tinyurl.com/mpb6amc4

Momfluencers Are Pitching AI as a Better ‘Coparent’ Than Men
https://tinyurl.com/36dzrmyc

Hasbro to license AI versions of Mr. Potato Head
https://tinyurl.com/2x27mz3m

Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act
https://tinyurl.com/mupadpn9

Google CEO skips AI in Stanford commencement address
https://tinyurl.com/4746h6re

Grok Is Still Hosting Sexualized Deepfakes
https://tinyurl.com/mttanc48

Students show gains in reading and math
https://tinyurl.com/yrwc4vj5

AI is masking America's "post-literate" workforce
https://tinyurl.com/jt2ke2ej

Teaching About AI: A Report for the K-12 Field
https://tinyurl.com/zfkthmzu

Mayo Clinic AI detects cancer 3 years before diagnosis
https://tinyurl.com/5dpbk4bt

In this ChatEDU Check-In: Why Users Are Moving to DuckDuckGo, Liz explores how user backlash against Google's major artificial intelligence search overhaul is driving significant traffic to alternative platforms." This shift highlights a growing consumer demand for traditional search experiences that prioritize user control over automated summaries.

Key Takeaways:
Google is transforming its traditional link-based search engine into a conversational engine that prioritizes AI-generated overviews, causing user dissatisfaction.

DuckDuckGo has seen a major surge in traffic and mobile app downloads, growing up to 18 percent week-over-week as users seek out search options without forced AI integration.

While DuckDuckGo does offer its own private AI tools, its core appeal lies in giving users strict privacy protections and the ultimate choice in whether or not they interact with the technology.

Liz’s Two Cents: Users are pushing back against forced AI integration, showing that they value choice and control over automatic automation. For school district leaders, this serves as a critical reminder that when introducing new technologies, providing clear options to opt-out or choose traditional methods can significantly reduce user friction and building trust.

Article:
DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search
https://bit.ly/4xdzuqF

In this ChatEDU Check-In: Reality of the Learning Stall, Liz explores a computer science professor's experience with an undergraduate student who used an AI agent to complete a research project. The student relied entirely on the AI tool, leaving him completely unable to explain the logic of the code or notice critical flaws in the research methodology. This scenario highlights how automated tools can create an illusion of progress while halting actual learning.

Key Takeaways:
Invalid Experimentation: The AI generated the code, training data, and test data, creating a closed simulation that made the study scientifically invalid, which the student failed to notice.

Stalled Skill Development: Over-reliance on large language models prevents students from learning fundamental, discipline-specific skills, such as navigating and reading raw computer code.

The Illusion of Flawlessness: AI is optimized for user satisfaction and compliance, which can easily mislead inexperienced users into believing fundamentally flawed work is perfect.

Liz’s Two Cents: Generative AI removes the productive friction and tension necessary for true learning, creating a dangerous feedback loop where students mistake easy completion for actual understanding. School leaders must design learning experiences that require students to engage with basic fundamentals, ensuring automated tools do not bypass the cognitive struggle required to build genuine skills.

Article:
The Anatomy of a Learning Stall
https://bit.ly/4dY7fEX