ChatEDU: AI in Education

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

A hundred teens drafted an “AI bill of rights” that lets accused students appeal. Two Connecticut students on why they also barred teachers from AI grading and so much more.

First Up
Matt and Liz open on Muse from Meta, a new agent shaped like a Labubu with a Tamagotchi-style keycharm version on the way. It is outpacing early ChatGPT mobile on downloads and daily users, and Matt gave it his personal email to audit what he is subscribed to.
Muse: https://tinyurl.com/5c4mexxv 

The Rundown
Notebook Learns to Tutor
The New Gemini Notebook Update Is Turning AI Into a Personal Tutor: https://tinyurl.com/587s527v 
The Paradox of the Worried West
Americans Fear AI Will Make the World Worse, Love It Anyway: https://tinyurl.com/422p2kb4 
When Robots Get Arms
When AI Gets Arms, "Just Say No" Stops Being a Safety System: https://tinyurl.com/ytubb37a 
A Warning on Kids and AI
Ex-Google Safety Chief Warns AI Could Harm Children More Than Social Media Did: https://tinyurl.com/2w6rduau 
Firestorm at Dartmouth
Dartmouth's Provost Quietly Used AI in His Published Work. It's Touched Off a Campus Firestorm.: https://tinyurl.com/55vbs5t4 
The Overhang (Ethan Mollick): https://tinyurl.com/2urrvcjw 
Generative UI Simulations
Enabling Teachers to Create Learning Interactives with Generative UI: https://tinyurl.com/474dby4j 

Beneath the Surface
Bena Mejia Romero and Anthony Darbilli represented Connecticut in Boston, where a hundred teens, two per state, drafted the Student First Act. They walk through their own AI use cases and the bill from Boston which includes an amendment requiring evidence and an appeal before a student is accused of AI misuse, rationale on why teachers were barred from grading with AI, and the parent section they both pushed back on.
The Student First Act: https://tinyurl.com/ypfxzrxz 

Bright Byte
The Gates Foundation's 2026 Goalkeepers Report casts AI as either a global equalizer or a widener of existing gaps, backed by a billion dollar commitment and a 12 to 18 month window to steer deployment toward equity.
2026 Goalkeepers Report: AI, Equity, and the Choice We Can't Delay: https://tinyurl.com/y337m8kw 

Announcements
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: Blue Books Won't Fix It, Liz explores the shift back toward paper blue books for exams and how international test results challenge the idea that technology is the main driver of declining student achievement. Higher education institutions are increasingly returning to analog blue books for in-person exams to counter generative AI cheating. Meanwhile, recent PISA results demonstrate that high-performing nations maintain top student achievement while operating heavily digitized schools, suggesting classroom technology is not the root cause of recent score drops.

Key Takeaways:
Higher education institutions are returning to analog blue books for in-person exams to prevent AI cheating, leading to steep increases in paper exam booklet sales.

PISA test results show top-performing countries like Singapore and Estonia maintain high achievement while heavily utilizing classroom technology.

The decline in U.S. reading scores post-2022 does not align with the timeline of 1-to-1 device adoption, pointing to other factors such as chronic absenteeism.

Liz’s Two Cents: Returning to analog blue books and banning classroom technology misplaces the blame for academic declines and may hinder long-term academic recovery. Schools must build intentional curricula that protect student thinking rather than simply removing technology under the assumption that it will automatically improve student outcomes.

Articles:
What The PISA Results Really Show Us About Technology And Curriculum
https://tinyurl.com/bdddn8nj
Blue Books Are Back. Is That a Good Thing?
https://tinyurl.com/yc4n4pu7