AI for Education

I’m excited to share that I am speaking at the 16th Annual at the ASU+GSV Summit this April. I’ll be leading a panel on “Best Practices for Adopting GenAI in Your District,” an interactive workshop on successfully integrating Generative AI into your school district with some of our favorite partners from our work at AI for Education including Marty Sharpe, Candice Sears, Mary Beck, and Patrick Gittisriboongul. This workshop will highlight how districts around the country have developed and implemented AI guidelines, policies, and programs in their own contexts. Based on our firsthand experiences, we’ll distill the key lessons learned, best practices, and strategies for responsible AI adoption that you can adapt for your own school system. Hope you can join me April 6-9, 2025, in San Diego! #aieducation #ailiteracy #GenAI #AI

Yesterday Sam Altman announced OpenAI's plans to simplify and unify its product offerings, moving away from a confusing model selection process toward a more integrated experience. Considering how much we see the UX/UI of these tools impact their effective use, we think this is a good move. The Roadmap: • GPT-4.5 (internally known as Orion) will be released as OpenAI's final non-chain-of-thought model (think 4o) in 4-5 weeks • GPT-5 will integrate multiple technologies, including o3, into a unified system that can handle a wide range of tasks and intelligently determine when to engage in deeper thinking processes and will launch in 5-6 months • Free ChatGPT users will receive unlimited access to GPT-5 at a standard intelligence setting, with Plus and Pro subscribers getting access to progressively higher intelligence levels • The new models will incorporate multiple capabilities including voice, image, canvas, search, and Deep Research features, moving toward a more comprehensive AI solution We are looking forward to these changes, especially the simpler interface and accessibility of GPT-5 for all users. Link to the announcement in the comments and thanks to Thomas Dettling for the visualization. AI for Education #ChatGPT #GenAI #ailiteracy

Earlier this week BBC News invited me on air to discuss the impact of GenAI on education. I argued once again for the critical need for AI literacy and responsible integration of GenAI when developmentally appropriate in education vs. an outright ban. It's becoming more and more clear that AI literacy and durable skills like critical thinking need to become a universal graduation requirement. And that AI literacy resources should be freely available to everyone, not just students, but also teachers, parents, business leaders, and the wider community. At AI for Education, we very glad to see that news organizations are providing opportunities for nuanced debate on this important topic. #aiforeducation #ailiteracy #genAI #AI

The importance of AI and children's safety took center stage this week through both proposed legislation in California and direct youth participation in the UK. California's proposed SB 243 aims to protect children from AI's potential harms by requiring companies to remind young users they're interacting with AI, not humans. We recently did a deep dive into the anthropomorphization of AI and the particular dangers it poses for young people during our last webinar. And Character.AI has faced some very public scrutiny over safety in light of a tragic teen suicide last year, so we are pleased to see this legislation. In the UK, the Children's AI Summit brought 150 young voices (ages 8-18) directly into the AI governance conversation. Thei manifesto echoes similar concerns but goes further - demanding not just safety guardrails but active participation in shaping AI's future. "You'll write the laws, but we'll bear the cost" - Ethan, age 16. Their manifesto's call for "transparent, equitable, and environmentally conscious AI" focuses on 4 key areas: 1. Safety and Protection Make AI safe for children through proper safeguards, security measures, and restrictions, particularly on social media. 2. Transparency and Ethics Require companies to be open about how they use AI, remove biased data, and ensure ethical development. 3. Education and Access Create better AI literacy education and ensure all children can understand, use, and benefit from AI technology. 4. Environmental Responsibility Ensure AI development considers its environmental impact, particularly through clean energy adoption. While GenAI has great potential for young people, there is a critical need for: - AI literacy so young people can navigate this technology safely and ethically - Meaningful protections for young people that go beyond simple disclaimers - And a commitment from tech companies to responsible develop AI development in a way that considers its impact on future generations. Links in the comments to the manifesto, more information on SB243, and our webinar on the impacts on students of anthropomorphizing AI. AI for Education #aieducation #ailiteracy #responsibleAI #GenAI

This morning I had the opportunity to appear on CBS Morning News today to debate whether schools and universities should ban student AI use. I shared my perspective on why teaching AI literacy is crucial for preparing students for a future that is fast approaching. Rather than banning these tools outright, I advocated for a balanced, thoughtful approach to help students understand and use AI responsibly when developmentally appropriate. I shared one key point that has become clear to me after training so many educators: using GenAI effectively requires critical thinking and analysis, which remain essential skills for our young people. As an added bonus, one of the women that helped me get camera-ready has a freshman that goes to the High School of Art and Design, which AI for Education has worked with to build AI literacy for their educators. Thank you to CBS Morning News and Professor James Taylor (not the one you're thinking) for facilitating this important conversation about the intersection of AI and education. #ailiteracy #GenAI #AI #aieducation

If you want to dive more into the implications of reasoning models like ChatGPT-o3-mini (released over the weekend) and DeepSeek r1, I suggest reading Ethan Mollick's SubStack from today. In his blog, he delves not only into the potential impact of these reasoning models, but also looks closely at how specialized agents in research are starting to show significant promise.   Some highlights of his blog:    💡 Reasoning models (reasoners) represent a key breakthrough in two ways:  - They can be trained to compute more effectively based on examples of good problem-solving  - Their performance improves with longer "reasoning time" rather than just requiring bigger models   💡The development of AI agents is progressing along two paths:  - General-purpose agents (like OpenAI's Operator) which show promise but still face significant limitations  - Narrow, specialized agents that are already proving valuable for specific tasks   💡 OpenAI's new Deep Research demonstrates the power of specialized agents:  - Can produce PhD student-level analysis on complex topics (versus university student level for Google Deep Research)  - Accurately cites and engages with academic literature that is publicly available  - Shows "curiosity-driven" research behavior   💡 The future implications are significant:  - While these tools won't replace experts, they will shift their role toward orchestrating and validating AI-generated work  - Current narrow applications are already capable of performing work that previously required teams of highly-paid experts - Classrooms need to adapt at all levels to the fast increasing capabilities of GenAI models and tools   Link in the comments to read Mollick’s complete blog. AI for Education #aieducation #GenAI #AI #AIliteracy

Excited to announce our next free webinar: "Four Priorities of Human-Centered AI in Schools" featuring Eric Hudson. In this webinar, we will discuss how schools can build enduring approaches to AI adoption that are mission-aligned and human-centered, rather than reactive and proscriptive. In our first AI for Education webinar of 2025, we'll explore four essential priorities: • Augmentation over Automation • AI Literacy over Policy • Design over Technology • Vision over Decisions We will examine the research and delve into use cases from innovative schools on how a school's approach to AI can be an asset to its program, message, and community. Join Mandy DePriest, Eric and I on Wednesday, February 19th, 2025 at 1pm ET. If you can’t make the time, all registrants will be emailed the recording + resources. Link in the comments to learn more or register! #aieducation #GenAI #AIliteracy #AI

Things are moving very quickly, so we've created a comparison guide to help break down some of the key features of the most popular GenAI foundation models across their free and paid tiers. This side-by-side comparison of ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini shows what each model offers from basic text generation to advanced features like image analysis, voice capabilities, and integration with productivity tools. This can be particularly useful if you're deciding which platform to use for specific tasks. A few caveats: - Features and access are continuously changing, so use the link in the comments for the most up-to-date version. - There are various usage limits for most features even at the paid tiers. - This is not exhaustive, so we may have missed a few features (let us know in the comments!) Link in the comments for the PDF! AI for Education #AI #GenAI #AIliteracy