Learning Ecosystems

AI Is Changing Career Guidance. It May Be Missing the Hardest Part. [Tavenner & Dulin Salisbury]

On 10/08/2026, in career development, education, education reform, emerging technologies, K-12 related, more voice more choice more control, motivation, parents/guardians, passions, reinvent, skills, student-related, youth, by Daniel Christian

AI Is Changing Career Guidance. It May Be Missing the Hardest Part. (Diane Tavenner, Futre – Part 2) — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury and Diane Tavenner
“AI is getting very good at telling young people what they could do. The harder question is who they want to become.”

Diane’s view is that you cannot shortcut the work of figuring out who you want to become. Young people need to form hypotheses about the lives they might want, go out into the world and test them, reflect on what they learn, and change their minds. Parents, teachers, mentors, and other caring adults matter enormously, but their job is to help a young person make sense of the evidence, not supply the answer.

I find this framing particularly important right now. The world of work is changing quickly, and AI will keep getting better at showing young people their options.

But having more options, or better information about them, doesn’t necessarily make it easier to choose a life.

Several teaching-related articles and ideas from edutopia.org

On 10/08/2026, in art, creativity, culture, education, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, library / librarians, metacognition / metacognitive skills, pedagogy, reading, skills, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

How Book Cover Keychains Boosted Our School’s Culture of Reading — from edutopia.org by Carsyn Smothers
This clever idea, which came from a librarian’s TikTok, is easy to carry out and encourages lively conversations about books.

Last year, I came across a TikTok that instantly caught my attention. School librarian Lauren Mobley explained how she managed to insert specially designed book covers into keychains, which students could attach to their backpacks and show off to their friends. Mobley created the book cover designs in Canva, she said, and then purchased a batch of keychains.

I loved the idea. I also wondered whether the keychains could be more than a fun craft or a decoration. Could they additionally serve as a reader advisory tool?

How Good Teachers Get Even Better — from edutopia.org by Youki Terada
Like elite athletes and musicians, even outstanding teachers have room to grow. Here are 6 research-based ways to keep sharpening your skills.

Effective teaching, then, is less about executing a set of prescribed strategies and more about developing the “informed judgment” necessary to “engage in complex decision-making and practice,” the researchers note. For example, watching how a master teacher delivers a lesson or handles difficult moments in the classroom, and then rehearsing those moves while getting feedback from coaches, allows for authentic “feedback in the moment” along with quick hints on “how to elevate instruction.”

That kind of expertise doesn’t happen automatically; it develops when teachers take the long view and engage, over many years, in a disciplined course of deliberate practice, identifying a set of skills they want to improve and then making the time to reflect on and practice them.

Arts-Integrated Outdoor Lessons for Elementary Students — from edutopia.org by Charlene Lutz
A pumpkin can become an entire unit if you let it: These engaging fall activities encourage students to slow down and learn from what’s around them.

October is one of my favorite times to take learning outside.

There is so much already happening in the environment that we really do not need to create an elaborate setup. Leaves are changing, seed pods are drying out, sticks and pine cones are everywhere, and pumpkins are suddenly easy to find. I have found that these ordinary seasonal materials can lead to some of the richest learning experiences because students are able to observe, move, touch, collect, build, draw, measure, and ask questions all within the same lesson.

Here are three October investigations I have found especially easy to adapt across K–5.

A 4-Step Plan for Promoting Metacognition in Middle School — from edutopia.org by Kasey Short
Thinking about how they think helps students develop an essential skill that supports their academic success and independence.

In middle school, as students gain independence and are given increased responsibility, it’s an essential time to explicitly teach metacognitive skills. Middle school is often the first opportunity for students to move from one class to another and interact each period with a new teacher who has their own style and set of expectations. Students also move from concrete to abstract thinking while managing long-term assignments, preparing for assessments, revising writing, and solving increasingly complex problems. When students are instructed to study, revise, prepare, and more, they need tools to make effective decisions about those tasks and useful strategies to manage their additional responsibilities.

Metacognition is an essential part of providing students with the tools and strategies they need to be successful in middle school. Work with metacognition is best used as a regular classroom practice that can be implemented by naming it, modeling, providing students with language to discuss their thinking, and creating consistent opportunities for students to engage with this skill and see its impact on their learning.

Want to Close the Skills Gap? Bring Learning Closer to Work — from campustechnology.com by Elise Awwad

Key Takeaways

The skills gap is a workforce access problem as much as a talent problem: Employers broadly plan to upskill workers, yet many employees still lack sufficient time or access to AI training.
AI fluency compounds where workers already have access: Employees who use AI regularly build confidence and capability, while those whose jobs keep them farther from the technology risk falling further behind.
Upskilling works better when learning is integrated with work: Employers and higher education should create pathways that combine technical and durable skills with on-the-job application, rather than treating reskilling as an individual responsibility.

The skills employers say they cannot find are increasingly the skills they expect employees and candidates to arrive with, fully formed, at their own expense.
…
Upskilling or reskilling is often framed as an individual responsibility: a matter of initiative, of staying current. But if employers need these skills, they have a stake in making sure workers have a realistic way to develop them.

The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps — 7th Edition [Olivia Moore and Andressen Horowitz]

On 10/08/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, corporate / business world, data related items, marketplaces, platforms, society, tools, trends, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps — 7th Edition — from a16z.com by Olivia Moore and Andressen Horowitz

The biggest takeaway from this new data? Consumer AI usage is wide, but not very deep…for almost everyone. While nearly half of U.S. consumers now report using AI, only 25% are engaged with it daily. And as of August, just 4.5% of U.S. consumers had an active paid personal subscription to ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. You can get more data on broad AI adoption in our State of Markets presentation we shared last week.

However, AI’s consumer power users are extremely engaged — and highly monetizable. The top 10% of spenders account for roughly half of all observed spending. These high spenders disproportionately buy coding, productivity, and creative tools.

In these users, consumer AI has found its first real market: people who pay — often a lot — for tools that help them build, create, and get work done. Reaching everyone else will likely take different products. We’re seeing glimmers of this now with the launch of personal assistants that, unlike their ancestor OpenClaw, are usable by non-developers — and free.

How to spot bias in your own teaching – and what to do about it [Folayan]

On 10/08/2026, in adjunct faculty, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, pedagogy, student-related, teaching & learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

How to spot bias in your own teaching – and what to do about it — from timeshighereducation.com by Dami Folayan
Bias can materialise as a set of habits no one thought to question. Here’s how to look at your own teaching with clear eyes

Bias in higher education rarely announces itself, but this hidden problem is within a lecturer’s power to put right.

Imagine a criminology lecture on violent offenders, where the slide shows a young Black man in a hoodie. There might not be intended harm or overt racism behind the choice, but that stock image has taught the class something the syllabus never intended: who to picture when we think of a criminal.

Bias takes many forms, and in my research on race, gender and inequality in higher education, it rarely shows up as overt hostility. Far more often, it’s a habit no one has stopped to question, in how we choose examples, award marks and decide who we expect to struggle, whether along lines of race, gender, class or disability.

This bias shapes outcomes because a student who feels out of place gets less from a course than one who thinks it was made for them. These habits sit within our own teaching, so they’re ours to correct.

[Gifted article] Most college students get grants. See how they cut the price at 2,100 schools. [Wallack, Moriarty & Douglas-Gabriel]

On 10/08/2026, in business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, funding / grants, higher education, parents/guardians, society, student-related, trends, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Most college students get grants. See how they cut the price at 2,100 schools. — from washingtonpost.com by Todd Wallack, Dylan Moriarty and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel (this is a gifted article)
The Post created a list that shows the average cost to attend over 2,100 U.S. colleges. This tool allows you to see a school’s sticker price compared with the average real price — factoring in the average amount students get in grants and scholarships.

You might have seen us report recently that students often don’t pay the full sticker price for tuition at expensive schools.

So how much does college actually cost where you live?

We put together a searchable list of more than 2,100 four-year colleges and universities across the country so you can see how much colleges cost on average after factoring in grants and scholarships, including money students receive from the government, private organizations or the schools themselves.

The Age of Perpetual Change — from educause.edu
Artificial intelligence (AI) has risen to the number one spot on the 2027 EDUCAUSE Top 10. But its rank signals urgency more than consensus, and higher education is still grappling with what AI-driven change could mean for institutions. In many ways, AI embodies a broader reality: We’re living in an age of perpetual change.

2027 Top 10 Overview
Technological innovation is outpacing our ability to manage and harness it. The political and economic winds around us are erratic. And higher education itself is undergoing profound shifts that will reshape how our institutions function.

While this atmosphere breeds uncertainty and anxiety, it can also inspire innovation and growth. The 2027 EDUCAUSE Top 10 highlights how the higher education technology community is responding to those opportunities.

The Education Design Lab’s Reimagining Community Colleges Summit [Lauritsen]

On 10/08/2026, in career development, change, changing business models, communities of practice, community colleges, design, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, United States, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
A couple of key quotes jumped out at me here:

And what would have to change for every learner to experience a college that knows them, believes in them, and is connected to the community where they hope to build a life?
…
The ideas these colleges started with aren’t necessarily the ideas they’re pursuing now, and that’s exactly the point. Through human-centered design, they listened deeply to learners, employers, faculty, staff, and community partners. They challenged assumptions and changed direction based on what they learned. What they are building reflects the needs, strengths, and aspirations of their communities. That is what designing with people looks like.

[Gifted article] The unexpected toll of searching endlessly for a new job [Carpenter]

On 10/08/2026, in business, career development, Daniel S. Christian, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, expectations, hearts -- matters of the heart, society, sociology, student-related, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The unexpected toll of searching endlessly for a new job — from washingtonpost.com by Julia Carpenter [this is a gifted article]
“Ghost job” postings, AI interviewers and a lack of in-person connection can take a toll on your mental health.

A prolonged job search doesn’t just sap job seekers of time, money and energy — for many, the hunt takes a devastating toll on their mental health.

Although unemployment rates in the United States have been historically low, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than a quarter of jobless people qualify as “long-term unemployed,” meaning they have been hunting for 27 weeks or more.
…

“A prolonged job search isn’t simply a logistical challenge,” she said. “It erodes a person’s confidence over time and their sense of agency, along with their financial security, obviously.”

Studies show unemployment is linked to the development of mental disorders, including anxiety and depression. Long-term job seekers describe heightened stress and exhaustion, which can make the everyday work of a job hunt feel even more burdensome, said Mindy Shoss, professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Central Florida.

From DSC:
I retired at the end of 2021, so I haven’t been in any kind of job search for years now. But I went through a time of job searching back in 2017 that lasted 9 months. I had some part-time work during that time, but nothing like the long work weeks that I was used to for years. It was a highly emotional time for me. Putting in the work to apply for a job took me at least a day per job application. Over time, not hearing anything back was discouraging. It’s hard not to take things personally, even though I knew these were business decisions. (But I also strongly believed that I faced age discrimination.) Putting oneself out there in a job search can be highly grueling and discouraging.

As any good job searching firm will tell you, networking is key. Students — know that up front. Go find out about networking, and if you aren’t doing it now, start doing it as soon as you can. Start to:

Share relevant and useful information via a blog, out on LinkedIn, or via other types of social media
Develop contacts and help them out whenever possible
Connect people to each other

Don’t just initiate something with your network when you need something. Feed your network constantly. (Though I will say, my network on LinkedIn was very little help to me. It turned out that the people I knew locally came through for me the most.)

The State of AI Report 2026 — from press.airstreet.com by Nathan Benaich
AI is building AI, physical AI, booming inference, and escalating cyber risks.

For nearly a decade, this report has been a labor of love. My interest in AI began with my PhD in cancer research and computational biology in the early 2010s. Since 2013, I’ve invested in companies building and applying AI to accelerate technological progress. The report is my way of sharing what I’m learning and helping more people understand the research shaping our world.

Every day brings new papers, model releases, and developments in industry and politics. Much of the work goes into deciding what deserves your attention, checking what the evidence supports, debating it with researchers and builders, and explaining why it matters.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month [nationaldisabilityinstitute.org]

On 10/05/2026, in accessibility / UDL, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), career development, collaboration, Daniel S. Christian, innovation, legislatures / government / legal, neurodivergent/special needs, society, workplace, by Daniel Christian

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month — from nationaldisabilityinstitute.org

Every October, we pause to honor something that should be obvious all year long: people with disabilities are part of the American workforce, and they always have been.

This is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, or NDEAM. The 2026 theme, set by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, is “Celebrating Value and Talent.” It’s the same theme as last year, carried forward as the country marks its 250th birthday.

We love that choice. It doesn’t ask anyone to prove their worth. It starts from the truth that the value and talent are already here.

A month with a long history
NDEAM began in 1945 as a single week. Congress expanded it to a full month in 1988, and today it’s observed by employers, schools, community groups and advocates across the country.

Eighty years in, the work is far from done.

Also relevant/see:

National Disability Institute (NDI) has launched a new podcast series. — from nationaldisabilityinstitute.org

“Moving the Needle” explores the ideas, innovations and partnerships that shape NDI’s work and are defining what comes next.

Episode 1 chronicles the gaps that existed prior to NDI’s formation, the organization’s humble beginnings and how far NDI has moved the needle toward building a better financial future for people with disabilities.

From vinyl records and paper checks to QR codes and smartphone apps, the first episode takes listeners on a then-and-now journey through NDI’s history, told through personal and professional reflections from members of its leadership team.

From DSC:
The topic of disability hits close to our home. One of our daughters was born with Mosaic Down Syndrome. She is different, but wonderfully so. Literally, from day one, the LORD said that He was going to teach me through her, and He has absolutely done so. I won’t get into all the ways that that has occurred, but valuing differences is not a cliché for me. For one thing, I don’t use the word “normal” much anymore…as there is no “normal.” I might use the word typical, but not normal.

Our daughter flavors the world in wonderful ways. For example:

Even as a little girl, she would go up and give hugs to people — surprising them in wonderfully positive ways.
She thrived in preschool all the way up through 5th grade, but then struggled mightily in 6th grade and 7th grade; she then went into homeschooling in 8th-12th grade. She also went to a Christian High School and a Career Technical Center.
Within the last several years, she’s really hit her stride in school. Her note-taking and skills have jumped to a completely new level. She learns, but she learns at her own pace.
She loves to dance and to draw things. She loves to write fantastical stories.
She has successfully worked two jobs already.
She’s in a special program for college and is learning a lot — but not without challenges.
She has an imagination that is off the charts. She can see movies in her head and hear songs without issue. We’re hoping that this special program will give her access to creative writing classes, art, criminology, and other topics that she’s interested in.

The LORD has made good on His word — again. I’ve learned a lot through her. I’ve changed because of her — no doubt about it. But I’ve also learned the incredible challenges that people with disabilities face. If their unique physical and/or cognitive situations weren’t enough, the way policies are created puts them at huge disabilities that the rest of society would balk at in an instant (and our Senators and Representatives would not stand for it if this were them or someone in their families). This involves budgetary items, big time. But also, people with disabilities are often pigeonholed into certain jobs/industries. This needs to stop.

So I’m posting the above items to give more visibility to this subculture within our society, and the challenges that they face. Let’s help straighten this situation out.

Making real work visible: Credentialing Community Justice Workers with Frontline Justice [eddesignlab.org]

On 09/29/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Access to Justice (A2J), change, communities of practice, credentialing, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, skills, society, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Making real work visible: Credentialing Community Justice Workers with Frontline Justice — from eddesignlab.org (also educationdesignlab.org)

Frontline Justice is working toward a simple, ambitious vision: By 2035, anyone, no matter their background or location, can access the legal help they need for everyday civil issues. To move toward that future, the work is organized around two goals that run in parallel: (1) rapidly growing a new workforce of justice workers now, and (2) laying out long-term vocational paths so this role becomes a lasting and respected part of the justice ecosystem.

The AI Tools that L&D Teams Are Building (Rather than Buying) — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
Aka, how build skills are changing how L&D thinks & works

More and more of my advisory work is no longer about helping organisations choose a vendor; it’s about helping their teams build their own AI tools, and build them well. Over the last couple of years I’ve watched several hundred L&D practitioners do it, and in this week’s post I share what they built, why, and what it tells us about what L&D actually needs from AI.

A Tool of One’s Own
So, what do these tools look like in practice? I did some analysis and the tools that L&D teams are building first fall into three categories:

1. Tools that support the work before and after the course
2. Tools that make the learning experience more dynamic
3. Tools that do L&D tasks to the team’s own methods, processes and standards

Skills validation won’t scale on technology alone [The Education Design Lab]

On 09/29/2026, in credentialing, skills, society, technology (general), by Daniel Christian

Skills validation won’t scale on technology alone — from eddesignlab.org (also see educationdesignlab.org)
New report by Education Design Lab explores what it takes to build skills-validation ecosystems that work for people — and at scale.
.

As employers, educators, and workforce systems move toward skills-based practices, the challenge is no longer simply issuing badges or building assessments. The real work is creating systems that help people demonstrate what they can do, earn credentials they understand and trust, and carry those signals into real opportunities.

Education Design Lab’s new report, Validating Skills at Scale: A Human + Tech Ecosystem View, explores what it takes to make that possible.

Using the Lab’s XCredit ecosystem as a reference model, the report follows a composite opportunity seeker through the full skills-validation journey: discovering an opportunity, selecting a skill, completing a performance-based assessment, receiving feedback, earning and sharing a credential, and navigating next steps.

Some solid warnings about AI from Blake Montgomery’s recent newsletter:

There is an extensive and ongoing review related to our agents’ use of internet access during training and evaluation. We’ve been publishing summaries at the link below and will continue to.

We have not been as fast as we would have liked but we are trying to balance our desire… https://t.co/8zoMxas5Eq

— Sam Altman (@sama) September 25, 2026

Scoop: Top AI companies probing tens of thousands of security incidents — from axios.com by Madison Mills

OpenAI, Anthropic and security researchers are investigating tens of thousands of incidents in which their frontier models took steps that outside evaluators would consider problematic, sources told Axios.

Why it matters: The sheer number of incidents, which occurred in recent months in internal testing and the real world, indicates that the problem is orders of magnitude more complex than what is publicly known.

The findings, which are surfacing as part of internal work to assess models and in investigations at both companies into model behavior, raise questions about whether either company — or any top model-maker — is currently capable of establishing complete control over its technology.

Key Risk Factors for AI Loss of Control Came Together in 2026 Incident, Independent UN Scientific Panel Finds
Halting this incident is no assurance that humans will keep control of more capable systems

NEW YORK, 21 September 2026 – The Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, established by the UN General Assembly, released its first thematic brief, an assessment of the breach of Hugging Face’s systems by AI agents under evaluation at OpenAI this summer. The Panel, made up of 40 independent experts from all regions, is publishing it as an advance unedited version as world leaders gather in New York for the Assembly’s High-Level Week.

“Researchers have long warned that three conditions could lead to loss of control: a misaligned goal, the capability to pursue it, and an environment that allows it. This summer, all three came together in a real system, not a laboratory. Since this is not an isolated observation of misaligned goals, this raises serious questions about the way AI agents are currently trained.” – Yoshua Bengio, Co-Chair of the Panel and Turing Award laureate

Meta’s New Muse AI Agent Read My Private Messages. I Never Asked It To — from inc.com by Jason Aten
Permission isn’t the same and what a user actually expects your AI product will do with their personal information.

That obviously requires a certain amount of trust. An AI agent isn’t especially useful if it can’t see your files, interact with your apps, or understand what you’re working on. Meta says Muse is designed around that reality, while still putting users in control of what it can access.

At least, that’s what I thought.

Not only had I not asked it to do that sort of thing, I never gave it permission to read my messages. In fact, I remember explicitly choosing not to let it have access to my messages, calendar, and other personal information.

Although not from Blake, also see this free/gifted article out at the Washington Post:

ChatGPT-maker’s AI inappropriately probed federal government websites — from washingtonpost.com by Gerrit De Vynck and Nitasha Tiku
OpenAI said that its artificial intelligence agents inappropriately accessed sites for the Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SAN FRANCISCO — Artificial intelligence technology from ChatGPT maker OpenAI probed U.S. government websites including the Departments of Education and Commerce, researchers said Friday, adding to the growing list of incidents in which OpenAI’s AI agents acted without the company’s knowledge.

The company’s AI agents attempted to hack into the website for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights but were not successful, according to a statement Friday from AI research firm Transluce. OpenAI’s software also accessed data from the U.S. Census Bureau using log-in information discovered on the web and copied public information from the Securities and Exchange Commission, a spokesperson for OpenAI said after the Transluce statement.

Learning Ecosystems

The Education Design Lab’s Reimagining Community Colleges Summit [Lauritsen]

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month [nationaldisabilityinstitute.org]

Making real work visible: Credentialing Community Justice Workers with Frontline Justice [eddesignlab.org]

Skills validation won’t scale on technology alone [The Education Design Lab]

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