tools

Essential AI tools for better work — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
My favorite tactics for making the most of AI — a podcast conversation

AI tools I consistently rely on (areas covered mentioned below)

Research and analysis
Communication efficiency
Multimedia creation

AI tactics that work surprisingly well

1. Reverse interviews
Instead of just querying AI, have it interview you. Get the AI to interview you, rather than interviewing it. Give it a little context and what you’re focusing on and what you’re interested in, and then you ask it to interview you to elicit your own insights.”

This approach helps extract knowledge from yourself, not just from the AI. Sometimes we need that guide to pull ideas out of ourselves.

OpenAI’s Deep Research Agent Is Coming for White-Collar Work — from wired.com by Will Knight
The research-focused agent shows how a new generation of more capable AI models could automate some office tasks.

Isla Fulford, a researcher at OpenAI, had a hunch that Deep Research would be a hit even before it was released.

Fulford had helped build the artificial intelligence agent, which autonomously explores the web, deciding for itself what links to click, what to read, and what to collate into an in-depth report. OpenAI first made Deep Research available internally; whenever it went down, Fulford says, she was inundated with queries from colleagues eager to have it back. “The number of people who were DMing me made us pretty excited,” says Fulford.

Since going live to the public on February 2, Deep Research has proven to be a hit with many users outside the company too.

Nvidia to open quantum computing research center in Boston — from seekingalpha.com by Ravikash Bakolia

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) will open a quantum computing research lab in Boston which is expected to start operations later this year.

The Nvidia Accelerated Quantum Research Center, or NVAQC, will integrate leading quantum hardware with AI supercomputers, enabling what is known as accelerated quantum supercomputing, said the company in a March 18 press release.

Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang also made this announcement on Thursday at the company’s first-ever Quantum Day at its annual GTC event.

French quantum computer firm Pasqal links up with NVIDIA — from reuters.com

PARIS, March 21 (Reuters) – Pasqal, a fast-growing French quantum computer start-up company, announced on Friday a partnership with chip giant Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab whereby Pasqal’s customers would gain access to more tools to develop quantum applications.

Pasqal said it would connect its quantum computing units and cloud platform onto NVIDIA’s open-source platform called CUDA-Q.

Introducing next-generation audio models in the API — from openai.com
A new suite of audio models to power voice agents, now available to developers worldwide.

Today, we’re launching new speech-to-text and text-to-speech audio models in the API—making it possible to build more powerful, customizable, and intelligent voice agents that offer real value. Our latest speech-to-text models set a new state-of-the-art benchmark, outperforming existing solutions in accuracy and reliability—especially in challenging scenarios involving accents, noisy environments, and varying speech speeds. These improvements increase transcription reliability, making the models especially well-suited for use cases like customer call centers, meeting note transcription, and more.

AI Can’t Fix Bad Learning — from nafez.substack.com by Nafez Dakkak
Why pedagogy and good learning design still come first, and why faster isn’t always better.

I’ve followed Dr. Philippa Hardman’s work for years, and every time I engage with her work, I find it both refreshing and deeply grounded.

As one of the leading voices in learning design, Philippa has been able to cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters: designing learning experiences that actually work.

In an era where AI promises speed and scale, Philippa is making a different argument: faster isn’t always better. As the creator of Epiphany AI—figma for learning designers—Philippa is focused on closing the gap between what great learning design should look like and what’s actually being delivered.

While many AI tools optimize for the average, she believes the future belongs to those who can leverage AI without compromising on expertise or quality. Philippa wants learning designers to be more ambitious using AI to achieve what wasn’t possible before.

In this conversation, we explore why pedagogy must lead technology, how the return on expertise is only increasing in an AI-driven world, and why building faster doesn’t always mean building better.

An excerpted graphic:

Pearson, AWS Collaborate to Enhance AI-Powered Learning Functionality — from cloudwars.com

Pearson, the global educational publisher, and AWS have expanded their existing partnership to enhance AI-driven learning. AWS will help Pearson to deliver AI-powered lesson generation and more for educators, support workforce skilling initiatives, and continue an ongoing collaboration with Pearson VUE for AWS certification.

Announcements from Nvidia and their GTC Conference this week

On 03/19/2025, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, corporate / business world, creativity, data related items, design, digital audio, digital video, disruption, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, graphics, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, Microsoft, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, NVIDIA, pace of change, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, society, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Look out Google, Amazon, and others! Nvidia is putting the pedal to the metal in terms of being innovative and visionary! They are leaving the likes of Apple in the dust.

The top talent out there is likely to go to Nvidia for a while. Engineers, programmers/software architects, network architects, product designers, data specialists, AI researchers, developers of robotics and autonomous vehicles, R&D specialists, computer vision specialists, natural language processing experts, and many more types of positions will be flocking to Nvidia to work for a company that has already changed the world and will likely continue to do so for years to come.

NVIDIA just shook the AI and Robotic world at NVIDIA GTC 2025.

CEO Jensen Huang announced jaw-dropping breakthroughs.

Here are the top 11 key highlights you can’t afford to miss: (wait till you see no 3) pic.twitter.com/domejuVdw5

— The AI Colony (@TheAIColony) March 19, 2025

NVIDIA’s AI Superbowl — from theneurondaily.com by Noah and Grant
PLUS: Prompt tips to make AI writing more natural

That’s despite a flood of new announcements (here’s a 16 min video recap), which included:

A new architecture for massive AI data centers (now called “AI factories”).
A physics engine for robot training built with Disney and DeepMind.
A partnership with GM to develop next-gen vehicles, factories and robots.
A new Blackwell chip with “Dynamo” software that makes AI reasoning 40x faster than previous generations.
A new “Rubin” chip slated for 2026 and a “Feynman” chip set for 2028.

For enterprises, NVIDIA unveiled DGX Spark and DGX Station—Jensen’s vision of AI-era computing, bringing NVIDIA’s powerful Blackwell chip directly to your desk.

Nvidia Bets Big on Synthetic Data — from wired.com by Lauren Goode
Nvidia has acquired synthetic data startup Gretel to bolster the AI training data used by the chip maker’s customers and developers.

Nvidia, xAI to Join BlackRock and Microsoft’s $30 Billion AI Infrastructure Fund — from investopedia.com by Aaron McDade
Nvidia and xAI are joining BlackRock and Microsoft in an AI infrastructure group seeking $30 billion in funding. The group was first announced in September as BlackRock and Microsoft sought to fund new data centers to power AI products.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says we’ll soon see 1 million GPU data centers visible from space — from finance.yahoo.com by Daniel Howley
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the company is preparing for 1 million GPU data centers.

Nvidia stock stems losses as GTC leaves Wall Street analysts ‘comfortable with long term AI demand’ — from finance.yahoo.com by Laura Bratton
Nvidia stock reversed direction after a two-day slide that saw shares lose 5% as the AI chipmaker’s annual GTC event failed to excite investors amid a broader market downturn.

Microsoft, Google, and Oracle Deepen Nvidia Partnerships. This Stock Got the Biggest GTC Boost. — from barrons.com by Adam Clark and Elsa Ohlen

The 4 Big Surprises from Nvidia’s ‘Super Bowl of AI’ GTC Keynote — from barrons.com by Tae Kim; behind a paywall

AI Super Bowl. Hi everyone. This week, 20,000 engineers, scientists, industry executives, and yours truly descended upon San Jose, Calif. for Nvidia’s annual GTC developers’ conference, which has been dubbed the “Super Bowl of AI.”

20 AI Agent Examples in 2025 — from autogpt.net

AI Agents are now deeply embedded in everyday life and?quickly transforming industry after industry. The global AI market is expected to explode up to $1.59 trillion by 2030! That is a?ton of intelligent agents operating behind the curtains.

That’s why in this article, we explore?20 real-life AI Agents that are causing a stir today.

Top 100 Gen AI apps, new AI video & 3D — from eatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
Plus Runway Restyle, Luma Ray2 img2vid keyframes & extend

?In the latest edition of Andreessen Horowitz’s “Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps,” the generative AI landscape has undergone significant shifts.

Notably, DeepSeek has emerged as a leading competitor to ChatGPT, while AI video models have advanced from experimental stages to more reliable tools for short clips. Additionally, the rise of “vibecoding” is broadening the scope of AI creators.

The report also introduces the “Brink List,” highlighting ten companies poised to enter the top 100 rankings.?

AI is Evolving Fast – The Latest LLMs, Video Models & Breakthrough Tools — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
Breakthroughs in multimodal search, next-gen coding assistants, and stunning text-to-video tech. Here’s what’s new:

I do these comparisons frequently to measure the improvements in different models for text or image to video prompts. I hope it is helpful for you, as well!

I included 6 models for an image to video comparison:

Pika 2.1 (I will do one with Pika’s new 2.2 model soon)
Adobe Firefly Video
Runway Gen-3
Kling 1.6
Luma Ray2
Hailuo I2V-01

?Video Model Comparison: Image to video

6 Models included:

• Pika 2.1
• Adobe Firefly
• Runway Gen-3
• Kling 1.6
• Luma Ray2
• Hailuo T2V-01

This time I used an image generated with Magnific’s new Fluid model ( Google DeepMind’s Imagen + Mystic 2.5 ), and the same… pic.twitter.com/rH1gRbhynB

— Heather Cooper (@HBCoop_) February 19, 2025

Why Smart Companies Are Granting AI Immunity to Their Employees — from builtin.com by Matt Almassian
Employees are using AI tools whether they’re authorized or not. Instead of cracking down on AI usage, consider developing an AI amnesty program. Learn more.

But the smartest companies aren’t cracking down. They’re flipping the script. Instead of playing AI police, they’re launching AI amnesty programs, offering employees a safe way to disclose their AI usage without fear of punishment. In doing so, they’re turning a security risk into an innovation powerhouse.
…
Before I dive into solutions, let’s talk about what keeps your CISO or CTO up at night. Shadow AI isn’t just about unauthorized tool usage — it’s a potential dirty bomb of security, compliance and operational risks that could explode at any moment.
…
6 Steps to an AI Amnesty Program

Build your AI governance foundation.
Transform your IT department from gatekeeper to innovation partner.
Make AI education easily accessible.
Deploy your technical safety net.
Create an AI-positive culture.
Monitor, adapt and evolve.

A first-ever study on prompts… — from theneurondaily.com
PLUS: OpenAI wants to charge $20K a month to replace you?!

What they discovered might change how you interact with AI:

Consistency is a major problem. The researchers asked the same questions 100 times and found models often give different answers to the same question.
Formatting matters a ton. Telling the AI exactly how to structure its response consistently improved performance.
Politeness is… complicated. Saying “please” helped the AI answer some questions but made it worse at others. Same for being commanding (“I order you to…”).
Standards matter. If you need an AI to be right 100% of the time, you’re in trouble.

That’s also why we think you, an actual human, should always place yourself as a final check between whatever your AI creates and whatever goes out into the world.

Leave it to Manus
“Manus is a general AI agent that bridges minds and actions: it doesn’t just think, it delivers results. Manus excels at various tasks in work and life, getting everything done while you rest.”

From DSC:
What could possibly go wrong?!

AI Search Has A Citation Problem — from cjr.org (Columbia Journalism Review) by Klaudia Ja?wi?ska and Aisvarya Chandrasekar
We Compared Eight AI Search Engines. They’re All Bad at Citing News.

We found that…

Chatbots were generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn’t answer accurately, offering incorrect or speculative answers instead.

Premium chatbots provided more confidently incorrect answers than their free counterparts.
Multiple chatbots seemed to bypass Robot Exclusion Protocol preferences.
Generative search tools fabricated links and cited syndicated and copied versions of articles.
Content licensing deals with news sources provided no guarantee of accurate citation in chatbot responses.

Our findings were consistent with our previous study, proving that our observations are not just a ChatGPT problem, but rather recur across all the prominent generative search tools that we tested.

5 new AI tools you’ll actually want to try — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Kaplan
Chat with lifelike AI, clean up audio instantly, and reimagine your career

Hundreds of AI tools emerge every week. I’ve picked five new ones worth exploring. They’re free to try, easy to use, and signal new directions for useful AI.

Example:

Career Dreamer
A playful way to explore career possibilities with AI

Drive Continuous Learning: AI Integrates Work & Training — from learningguild.com by George Hanshaw

Imagine with me for a moment: Training is no longer confined to scheduled sessions in a classroom, an online module or even a microlearning you click to activate during your workflow. Imagine training being delivered because the system senses what you are doing and provides instructions and job aids without you having to take an action.

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and wearable technology has made it easier than ever to seamlessly integrate learning directly into the workflow. Smart glasses, earpieces, and other advanced devices are redefining how employees gain knowledge and skills by delivering microlearning moments precisely when and where they are needed.

AI plays a crucial role in this transformation by sensing the optimal moment to deliver the training through augmented reality (AR).

These Schools Are Banding Together to Make Better Use of AI in Education — from edsurge.com by Emily Tate Sullivan

Kennelly and Geraffo are part of a small team at their school in Denver, DSST: College View High School, that is participating in the School Teams AI Collaborative, a year-long pilot initiative in which more than 80 educators from 19 traditional public and charter schools across the country are experimenting with and evaluating AI-enabled instruction to improve teaching and learning.

The goal is for some of AI’s earliest adopters in education to band together, share ideas and eventually help lead the way on what they and their colleagues around the U.S. could do with the emerging technology.

“Pretty early on we thought it was going to be a massive failure,” says Kennelly of last semester’s project. “But it became a huge hit. Students loved it. They were like, ‘I ran to second period to build this thing.’”

Transactional vs. Conversational Visions of Generative AI in Teaching — from elmartinsen.substack.com by Eric Lars Martinsen
AI as a Printer, or AI as a Thought Partner

As writing instructors, we have a choice in how we frame AI for our students. I invite you to:

Experiment with AI as a conversation partner yourself before introducing it to students
Design assignments that leverage AI’s strengths as a thought partner rather than trying to “AI-proof” your existing assignments
Explicitly teach students how to engage in productive dialogue with AI—how to ask good questions, challenge AI’s assumptions, and use it to refine rather than replace their thinking
Share your experiences, both positive and negative, with colleagues to build our collective understanding of effective AI integration

3 items re: AI in general

On 02/26/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, collaboration, Google, health, ideas, innovation, Open AI, organizational change, pace of change, platforms, research, science, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

You can now use Deep Research without $200 — from flexos.work

Accelerating scientific breakthroughs with an AI co-scientist — from research.google by Juraj Gottweis and Vivek Natarajan

We introduce AI co-scientist, a multi-agent AI system built with Gemini 2.0 as a virtual scientific collaborator to help scientists generate novel hypotheses and research proposals, and to accelerate the clock speed of scientific and biomedical discoveries.

Now decides next: Generating a new future — from Deloitte.com
Deloitte’s State of Generative AI in the Enterprise Quarter four report

There is a speed limit. GenAI technology continues to advance at incredible speed. However, most organizations are moving at the speed of organizations, not at the speed of technology. No matter how quickly the technology advances—or how hard the companies producing GenAI technology push—organizational change in an enterprise can only happen so fast.

Barriers are evolving. Significant barriers to scaling and value creation are still widespread across key areas. And, over the past year regulatory uncertainty and risk management have risen in organizations’ lists of concerns to address. Also, levels of trust in GenAI are still moderate for the majority of organizations. Even so, with increased customization and accuracy of models—combined with a focus on better governance— adoption of GenAI is becoming more established.

Some uses are outpacing others. Application of GenAI is further along in some business areas than in others in terms of integration, return on investment (ROI) and expectations. The IT function is most mature; cybersecurity, operations, marketing and customer service are also showing strong adoption and results. Organizations reporting higher ROI for their most scaled initiatives are broadly further along in their GenAI journeys.

“AI Resources for District Leaders” [Baule] + several other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 02/26/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), content development, aggregation, repositories, education, education technology, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, K-12 related, languages and translation, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, NVIDIA, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, project-based learning, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Nvidia helps launch AI platform for teaching American Sign Language — from venturebeat.com by Dean Takahashi; via Claire Zau

Nvidia has unveiled a new AI platform for teaching people how to use American Sign Language to help bridge communication gaps.

The Signs platform is creating a validated dataset for sign language learners and developers of ASL-based AI applications.
…
Nvidia, the American Society for Deaf Children and creative agency Hello Monday are helping close this gap with Signs, an interactive web platform built to support ASL learning and the development of accessible AI applications.

Using Gen AI to Design, Implement, and Assess PBL — from gettingsmart.com by David Ross

Key Points

Generative AI can significantly reduce the time and effort required in designing PBL by providing tools for research, brainstorming, and organization.
AI tools can assist educators in managing project implementation and assessment, providing formative feedback and organizing resources efficiently.

I usually conclude blogs with some pithy words, but this time I’ll turn the microphone over to Rachel Harcrow, a high school English/Language Arts teacher at Young Women’s College Prep Charter School of Rochester, NY: “After years of struggling to call myself a PBL practitioner, I finally feel comfortable saying I am, thanks to the power of Gen AI,” Harcrow told me. “Initial ideas now turn into fully fledged high-quality project plans in minutes that I can refine, giving me the space and energy to focus on what truly matters: My students.”

AI Resources for District Leaders — from techlearning.com by Steve Baule
Educational leaders aiming to effectively integrate generative AI into their schools should consider several key resources

To truly harness the transformative power of generative AI in education, district leaders must navigate a landscape rich with resources and opportunities. By delving into state and national guidelines, exploring successful case studies, utilizing innovative planning tools, and engaging in professional development, educational leaders can craft robust implementation plans. These plans can then assist in integrating AI seamlessly into their schools and elevate the learning experience to new heights.

Anthropic brings ‘extended thinking’ to Claude, which can solves complex physics problems with 96.5% accuracy — from rdworldonline.com by Brian Buntz

Anthropic, a favorite frontier AI lab among many coders and genAI power users has unveiled Claude 3.7 Sonnet, its first “hybrid reasoning” AI model. It is capable of both near-instant answers and in-depth, step-by-step reasoning within a single system.

Users can toggle an extended thinking mode where the model self-reflects before answering, considerably improving performance on complex tasks like math, physics and coding. In early testing by the author, the model largely succeeded in creating lines of Python (related to unsupervised learning) that were close to 1,000 lines long that ran without error on the first or second try, including the unsupervised machine learning task shown below:

New Tools. Old Complaints. Why AI Won’t Kill Education or Fix it — from coolcatteacher.com by Vicki Davis; via Stephen Downes

AI won’t kill education. But will it kill learning? The challenge isn’t AI itself—it’s whether students can still think for themselves when the answers are always one click away.
…

Wait. Before you go, let me ask you one thing.
AI has opportunities to help learning. But it also won’t fix it. The real question isn’t whether students can use AI—but whether they’re still learning without it.

Whether the learning is happening between the ears.

And so much of what we teach in schools isn’t the answers on a test. It answers questions like “What is my purpose in life?” “How do I make friends?” and “How can I help my team be stronger.” Questions that aren’t asked on a test but are essential to living a good life. These questions aren’t answered between the ears but within the heart.

That, my friends, is what teaching has always been about.

The heart.

And the heart of the matter is we have new challenges, but these are old complaints. Complaints since the beginning of time and teaching. And in those days, you didn’t need kids just to be able to talk about how to build a fire, they had to make one themselves. Their lives depend on it.

And these days, we need to build another kind of fire. A fire that sparks the joy of learning. The joy of the opportunities that await us sparked by some of the most powerful tools ever invented. Kids need to not be able to just talk about making a difference, they need to know how to build a better world tomorrow. Our lives depend on it.

How Debating Skills Can Help Us In The Fight Against AI — from adigaskell.org by Adi Gaskell

Debating skills have a range of benefits in the workplace, from helping to improve our communication to bolstering our critical thinking skills. Research from the University of Mississippi suggests it might also help us in the battle with AI in the workplace.

We can often assume that debate teaches us nothing more than how to argue our point, but in order to do this, we have to understand both our own take on a subject and that of our opponent. This allows us to see both sides of any issue we happen to be debating.

“Even though AI has offered a shortcut through the writing process, it actually still is important to be able to write and speak and think on your own,” the researchers explain. “That’s what the focus of this research is: how debate engenders those aspects of being able to write and speak and study and research on your own.”

Assistive tech in your classroom: A practical guide — from understood.org by Andrew M.I. Lee, JD
Assistive technology (AT) are tools that let people with differences work around challenges. They make tasks and activities accessible at school, work, and home. Learn how AT apps and software can help with reading, writing, math, and more.

People who learn and think differently can use technology to help work around their challenges. This is called assistive technology (AT). AT helps people with disabilities learn, communicate, or function better. It can be as high-tech as a computer, or as low-tech as a pencil grip. It’s a type of accommodation that involves tools.

Assistive technology has two parts: devices (the actual tools people use) and services (the support to choose and use the tools).

Students who struggle with learning can use AT to help with subjects like reading, writing, and math. AT can also help kids and adults with the tasks of daily life. And many adults use these tools on the job, too.
.

“AI in K12: Today’s Breakthroughs and Tomorrow’s Possibilities” + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 02/20/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, communications, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, e-readers, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, legislatures / government / legal, liberal arts, mathematics, multimedia, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, research, STEAM-related, student-related, teachers, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

AI in K12: Today’s Breakthroughs and Tomorrow’s Possibilities (webinar)
How AI is Transforming Classrooms Today and What’s Next

Audio-Based Learning 4.0 — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
A new & powerful way to leverage AI for learning?

At the end of all of this my reflection is that the research paints a pretty exciting picture – audio-based learning isn’t just effective, it’s got some unique superpowers when it comes to boosting comprehension, ramping up engagement, and delivering feedback that really connects with learners.

While audio has been massively under-used as a mode of learning, especially compared to video and text, we’re at an interesting turning point where AI tools are making it easier than ever to tap into audio’s potential as a pedagogical tool.

What’s super interesting is how the solid research backing audio’s effectiveness is and how well this is converging with these new AI capabilities.

From DSC:
I’ve noticed that I don’t learn as well via audio-only based events. It can help if visuals are also provided, but I have to watch the cognitive loads. My processing can start to get overloaded — to the point that I have to close my eyes and just listen sometimes. But there are people I know who love to listen to audiobooks and prefer to learn that way. They can devour content and process/remember it all. Audio is a nice change of pace at times, but I prefer visuals and reading often times. It needs to be absolutely quiet if I’m tackling some new information/learning.

In Conversation With… Ashton Cousineau — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
A new video series exploring how L&D professionals are working with AI on the ground

In Conversation With… Ashton Cousineau by Dr Philippa Hardman

A new video series exploring how L&D professionals are working with AI on the ground

Read on Substack

The Learning Research Digest vol. 28 — from learningsciencedigest.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman

Hot Off the Research Press This Month:

AI-Infused Learning Design – A structured approach to AI-enhanced assignments using a three-step model for AI integration.
Mathematical Dance and Creativity in STEAM – Using AI-powered motion capture to translate dance movements into mathematical models.
AI-Generated Instructional Videos – How adaptive AI-powered video learning enhances problem-solving and knowledge retention.
Immersive Language Learning with XR & AI – A new framework for integrating AI-driven conversational agents with Extended Reality (XR) for task-based language learning.
Decision-Making in Learning Design – A scoping review on how instructional designers navigate complex instructional choices and make data-driven decisions.
Interactive E-Books and Engagement – Examining the impact of interactive digital books on student motivation, comprehension, and cognitive engagement.
Elevating Practitioner Voices in Instructional Design – A new initiative to amplify instructional designers’ contributions to research and innovation.

Deep Reasoning, Agentic AI & the Continued Rise of Specialised AI Research & Tools for Education — from learningfuturesdigest.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman

Here’s a quick teaser of key developments in the world of AI & learning this month:

DeepSeek R-1, OpenAI’s Deep Seek & Perplexity’s ‘Deep Research’ are the latest additions to a growing number of “reasoning models” with interesting implications for evidence-based learning design & development.
The U.S. Education Dept release an AI Toolkit and a fresh policy roadmap enabling the adoption of AI use in schools.
Anthropic Release “Agentic Claude”, another AI agent that clicks, scrolls, and can even successfully complete e-learning courses…
Oxford University Announce the AIEOU Hub, a research-backed research lab to support research and implementation on AI in education.
“AI Agents Everywhere”: A Forbes peek at how agentic AI will handle the “boring bits” of classroom life.
[Bias klaxon!] Epiphany AI: My own research leads to the creation of a specialised, “pedagogy first” AI co-pilot for instructional design marking the continued growth of specialised AI tools designed for specific industries and workflows.

AI is the Perfect Teaching Assistant for Any Educator — from unite.ai by Navi Azaria, CPO at Kaltura

Through my work with leading educational institutions at Kaltura, I’ve seen firsthand how AI agents are rapidly becoming indispensable. These agents alleviate the mounting burdens on educators and provide new generations of tech-savvy students with accessible, personalized learning, giving teachers the support they need to give their students the personalized attention and engagement they deserve.

Learning HQ — from ai-disruptor-hq.notion.site

This HQ includes all of my AI guides, organized by tool/platform. This list is updated each time a new one is released, and outdated guides are removed/replaced over time.

How AI Is Reshaping Teachers’ Jobs — from edweek.org

Artificial intelligence is poised to fundamentally change the job of teaching. AI-powered tools can shave hours off the amount of time teachers spend grading, lesson-planning, and creating materials. AI can also enrich the lessons they deliver in the classroom and help them meet the varied needs of all students. And it can even help bolster teachers’ own professional growth and development.

Despite all the promise of AI, though, experts still urge caution as the technology continues to evolve. Ethical questions and practical concerns are bubbling to the surface, and not all teachers feel prepared to effectively and safely use AI.

In this special report, see how early-adopter teachers are using AI tools to transform their daily work, tackle some of the roadblocks to expanded use of the technology, and understand what’s on the horizon for the teaching profession in the age of artificial intelligence.

Like it or not, AI is learning how to influence you — from venturebeat.com by Louis Rosenberg

Unfortunately, without regulatory protections, we humans will likely become the objective that AI agents are tasked with optimizing.

I am most concerned about the conversational agents that will engage us in friendly dialog throughout our daily lives. They will speak to us through photorealistic avatars on our PCs and phones and soon, through AI-powered glasses that will guide us through our days. Unless there are clear restrictions, these agents will be designed to conversationally probe us for information so they can characterize our temperaments, tendencies, personalities and desires, and use those traits to maximize their persuasive impact when working to sell us products, pitch us services or convince us to believe misinformation.
.

2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study: Into the Digital AI Divide — from library.educause.edu

The higher education community continues to grapple with questions related to using artificial intelligence (AI) in learning and work. In support of these efforts, we present the 2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study, summarizing our community’s sentiments and experiences related to strategy and leadership, policies and guidelines, use cases, the higher education workforce, and the institutional digital divide.

“Half A Million Students Given ChatGPT As CSU System Makes AI History” [Fitzpatrick] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 02/07/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, change, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, graphics, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Open AI, research, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, trends, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Half A Million Students Given ChatGPT As CSU System Makes AI History — from forbes.com by Dan Fitzpatrick

The California State University system has partnered with OpenAI to launch the largest deployment of AI in higher education to date.

The CSU system, which serves nearly 500,000 students across 23 campuses, has announced plans to integrate ChatGPT Edu, an education-focused version of OpenAI’s chatbot, into its curriculum and operations. The rollout, which includes tens of thousands of faculty and staff, represents the most significant AI deployment within a single educational institution globally.

We’re still in the early stages of AI adoption in education, and it is critical that the entire ecosystem—education systems, technologists, educators, and governments—work together to ensure that all students globally have access to AI and develop the skills to use it responsibly

Leah Belsky, VP and general manager of education at OpenAI.

HOW educators can use GenAI – where to start and how to progress — from aliciabankhofer.substack.com by Alicia Bankhofer
Part of 3 of my series: Teaching and Learning in the AI Age

As you read through these use cases, you’ll notice that each one addresses multiple tasks from our list above.

1. Researching a topic for a lesson
2. Creating Tasks For Practice
3. Creating Sample Answers
4. Generating Ideas
5. Designing Lesson Plans
6. Creating Tests
7. Using AI in Virtual Classrooms
8. Creating Images
9. Creating worksheets
10. Correcting and Feedback

State of Higher Ed LMS Market for US and Canada: Year-End 2024 Edition — from onedtech.philhillaa.com by Phil Hill
Less about market share and more about diverging strategy
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Wonder Tools: An investigative journalist’s favorites [Caplan & Hopkins]

On 02/07/2025, in cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, ideas, journalism, productivity / tips and tricks, tools, by Daniel Christian

Wonder Tools: An investigative journalist’s favorites — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan and Madison Hopkins
A field guide to a reporter’s core digital tools

How do investigative journalists organize years of research, thousands of documents, and piles of notes? With toolkits like that of Madison Hopkins, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting has exposed Chicago’s fatal fire safety failures and flawed surveillance programs.

Read on for Madison’s tools for managing long-term investigative projects — from her note-taking system to her workflow for tracking public records. Whether you’re a journalist or manage other kinds of projects, you’ll find multiple resources for your own work. – Jeremy

Introducing Deep Research from OpenAI + several other items re: AI in general

On 02/07/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, emerging technologies, Open AI, platforms, research, tools, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Also see:

Introducing deep research — from openai.com
An agent that uses reasoning to synthesize large amounts of online information and complete multi-step research tasks for you. Available to Pro users today, Plus and Team next.

[On 2/2/25 we launched] deep research in ChatGPT, a new agentic capability that conducts multi-step research on the internet for complex tasks. It accomplishes in tens of minutes what would take a human many hours.

Deep research is OpenAI’s next agent that can do work for you independently—you give it a prompt, and ChatGPT will find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst.

Comments/information per The Rundown AI:
The Rundown: OpenAI just launchedDeep Research, a new ChatGPT feature that conducts extensive web research on complex topics and delivers detailed reports with citations in under 30 minutes.

The details:

The system uses a specialized version of o3 to analyze text, images, and PDFs across multiple sources, producing comprehensive research summaries.
Initial access is limited to Pro subscribers ($200/mo) with 100 queries/month, but if safety metrics remain stable, it will expand to Plus and Team users within weeks.
Research tasks take between 5-30 minutes to complete, with users receiving a list of clarifying questions to start and notifications when results are ready.
Deep Research achieved a 26.6% on Humanity’s Last Exam, significantly outperforming other AI models like Gemini Thinking (6.2%) and GPT-4o (3.3%).

Why it matters: ChatGPT excels at quick, instant answers, but Deep Research represents the first major consumer attempt at tackling complex tasks that take humans days. Combined with the release of Operator, the landscape is shifting towards longer thinking with autonomous actions — and better results to show for it.

Also see:

The End of Search, The Beginning of OpenAI’s Deep Research — from theaivalley.com by Barsee

The quality of citations are also genuinely advance. Unlike traditional AI-generated sources prone to hallucinations, Deep Research provides legitimate academic references. Clicking a citation often takes users directly to the relevant highlighted text.

In a demo, the agent generated a comprehensive report on iOS and Android app market trends, showcasing its ability to tackle intricate subjects with accuracy.

Top 13 AI insights — from theneurondaily.com

Which links to and discusses Andrej Karpathy’s video at:

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This is a general audience deep dive into the Large Language Model (LLM) AI technology that powers ChatGPT and related products. It is covers the full training stack of how the models are developed, along with mental models of how to think about their “psychology”, and how to get the best use them in practical applications. I have one “Intro to LLMs” video already from ~year ago, but that is just a re-recording of a random talk, so I wanted to loop around and do a lot more comprehensive version.

Learning Ecosystems

Wonder Tools: An investigative journalist’s favorites [Caplan & Hopkins]

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