Sam Altman kicks off DevDay 2025 with a keynote to explore ideas that will challenge how you think about building. Join us for announcements, live demos, and a vision of how developers are reshaping the future with AI.

Commentary from The Rundown AI:

Why it matters: OpenAI is turning ChatGPT into a do-it-all platform that might eventually act like a browser in itself, with users simply calling on the website/app they need and interacting directly within a conversation instead of navigating manually. The AgentKit will also compete and disrupt competitors like Zapier, n8n, Lindy, and others.


AMD and OpenAI announce strategic partnership to deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs — from openai.com

  • OpenAI to deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs based on a multi-year, multi-generation agreement
  • Initial 1 gigawatt OpenAI deployment of AMD Instinct™ MI450 Series GPUs starting in 2H 2026

Thoughts from OpenAI DevDay — from bensbites.com by Ben Tossell
When everyone becomes a developer

The event itself was phenomenal, great organisation. In terms of releases, there were two big themes:

  1. Add your apps to ChatGPT
  2. Add ChatGPT to your apps

Everything OpenAI announced at DevDay 2025 — from theaivalley.com by Barsee
PLUS: OpenAI has signed $1T in compute deals

Today’s climb through the Valley reveals:

  • Everything OpenAI announced at DevDay 2025
  • OpenAI has signed $1T in compute deals
  • Plus trending AI tools, posts, and resources

Also relevant/see:



 
 

From DSC:
As usual, here are some solid items and reflections from Stephen Downes:

The AI Tsunami Is Here: Reinventing Education for the Age of AI — from downes.ca by Stephen Downes

The framework seems reasonable, overall, but I would have to ask why the model, which includes things like “dynamic, adaptive content” and “multiple perspectives and sources” and “cultivation of self-directed learning” needs to happen in a university as such. Why not develop something like this as a society-wide initiative, removing the barriers for entry, and making it an ongoing part of people’s lives?

From DSC:
Why not develop something like this as a society-wide initiative, removing the barriers for entry, and making it an ongoing part of people’s lives?

Exactly.


Artificial Intelligence in Educational Research and Scholarship: Seven Framings — from downes.ca by Stephen Downes

There are those who draw a sharp distinction between formal academic papers and blog posts, and then there’s me, who reads something like this (16-page PDF), and sees nothing more than a set of short blog posts, where “writing was conducted in a sprint over the summer of 2025 using a shared Google doc.” I’m not saying this is bad (though the resulting article is a bit loose and unfocused) but I remind readers that academic research in this domain should properly consider, and credit, not only formal journal articles, but also the original blogs where so many of the ideas are originally posted.

From DSC:
Preach it Stephen! Blogging counts — big time! In fact, I wish that many more faculty members, staff, provosts, and presidents would blog to publically share their thinking, knowledge, and reflections.

 

MoodleMoot Global Conference Notes 2025 — from onedtech.philhillaa.com by Glenda Morgan
It’s a long way from Me?rida to Edinburgh
.

Moodle Higher Ed
This kept getting underplayed, probably because its exact shape is still undetermined and it will arrive “soon” (where, to quote Marie, “soon is a relative term”). But it’s big in that Moodle HQ is developing a premium product for higher education.

The Moodle execs were careful to say that Moodle Higher Ed won’t be an LMS, per se.

So over the next few years we’re bringing something new to the Moodle product ecosystem. A tailored solution for higher education. Just as Workplace is a specialized product built on top of Moodle LMS for corporate and government needs, we’re bringing that same philosophy to higher ed with an AI assistance strategy focused on point solutions that deliver real institutional value.


Also from Phil Hill on LinkedIn:

 

What today’s students really want — and what that means for higher ed — from highereddive.com by Ellucian

Cost is too high. Pathways are unclear. Options feel limited. For many prospective, current, or former students, these barriers define their relationship with higher education. As colleges and universities face the long-anticipated enrollment cliff, the question isn’t just how to recruit—it’s how to reimagine value, access, and engagement across the entire student journey.

Ellucian’s 2025 Student Voice Report offers one of the most comprehensive views into that journey to date. With responses from over 1,500 learners across the U.S.—including high school students, current undergrads, college grads, stop-outs, and opt-outs—the findings surface one clear mandate for institutions: meet students where they are, or risk losing them entirely.

What Are Learners Asking For?
Across demographics, four priorities rose to the top:
Affordability. Flexibility. Relevance. Clarity.

Students aren’t rejecting education—they’re rejecting systems that don’t clearly show how their investment leads to real outcomes. 

 

ChatGPT: the world’s most influential teacher — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman; emphasis DSC
New research shows that millions of us are “learning with AI” every week: what does this mean for how (and how well) humans learn?

This week, an important piece of research landed that confirms the gravity of AI’s role in the learning process. The TLDR is that learning is now a mainstream use case for ChatGPT; around 10.2% of all ChatGPT messages (that’s ~2BN messages sent by over 7 million users per week) are requests for help with learning.

The research shows that about 10.2% of all messages are tutoring/teaching, and within the “Practical Guidance” category, tutoring is 36%. “Asking” interactions are growing faster than “Doing” and are rated higher quality by users. Younger people contribute a huge share of messages, and growth is fastest in low- and middle-income countries (How People Use ChatGPT, 2025).

If AI is already acting as a global tutor, the question isn’t “will people learn with AI?”—they already are. The real question we need to ask is: what does great learning actually look like, and how should AI evolve to support it? That’s where decades of learning science help us separate “feels like learning” from “actually gaining new knowledge and skills”.

Let’s dive in.

 

Digital Accessibility with Amy Lomellini — from intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com by Derek Bruff

In this episode, we explore why digital accessibility can be so important to the student experience. My guest is Amy Lomellini, director of accessibility at Anthology, the company that makes the learning management system Blackboard. Amy teaches educational technology as an adjunct at Boise State University, and she facilitates courses on digital accessibility for the Online Learning Consortium. In our conversation, we talk about the importance of digital accessibility to students, moving away from the traditional disclosure-accommodation paradigm, AI as an assistive technology, and lots more.

 

Provosts Are a ‘Release Valve’ for Campus Controversy — from insidehighered.com by Emma Whitford
According to former Western Michigan provost Julian Vasquez Heilig, provosts are stuck driving change with few, if any, allies, while simultaneously playing crisis manager for the university.

After two years, he stepped down, and he now serves as a professor of educational leadership, research and technology at Western Michigan. His frustrations with the provost role had less to do with Western Michigan and more to do with how the job is designed, he explained. “Each person sees the provost a little differently. The faculty see the provost as administration, although, honestly, around the table at the cabinet, the provost is probably the only faculty member,” Heilig said. “The trustees—they see the provost as a middle manager below the president, and the president sees [the provost] as a buffer from issues that are arising.”

Inside Higher Ed sat down with Heilig to talk about the provost job and all he’s learned about the role through years of education leadership research, conversations with colleagues and his own experience.



Brandeis University launches a new vision for American higher education, reinventing liberal arts and emphasizing career development — from brandeis.edu

Levine unveiled “The Brandeis Plan to Reinvent the Liberal Arts,” a sweeping redesign of academic structures, curricula, degree programs, teaching methods, career education, and student support systems. Developed in close partnership with Brandeis faculty, the plan responds to a rapidly shifting landscape in which the demands on higher education are evolving at unprecedented speed in a global, digital economy.

“We are living through a time of extraordinary change across technology, the economy, and society,” Levine said. “Today’s students need more than knowledge. They need the skills, experiences, and confidence to lead in a world we cannot yet predict. We are advancing a new model. We need reinvention. And that’s exactly what Brandeis is establishing.”

The Brandeis Plan transforms the student experience by integrating career preparation into every stage of a student’s education, requiring internships or apprenticeships, sustaining career counseling, and implementing a core curriculum built around the skills that employers value most. The plan also reimagines teaching. It will be more experiential and practical, and introduce new ways to measure and showcase student learning and growth over time.



Tuition Tracker from the Hechinger Report



 

From EdTech to TechEd: The next chapter in learning’s evolution — from linkedin.com by Lev Gonick

A day in the life: The next 25 years
A learner wakes up. Their AI-powered learning coach welcomes them, drawing their attention to their progress and helping them structure their approach to the day.  A notification reminds them of an upcoming interview and suggests reflections to add to their learning portfolio.

Rather than a static gradebook, their portfolio is a dynamic, living record, curated by the student, validated by mentors in both industry and education, and enriched through co-creation with maturing modes of AI. It tells a story through essays, code, music, prototypes, journal reflections, and team collaborations. These artifacts are not “submitted”, they are published, shared, and linked to verifiable learning outcomes.

And when it’s time to move, to a new institution, a new job, or a new goal, their data goes with them, immutable, portable, verifiable, and meaningful.

From DSC:
And I would add to that last solid sentence that the learner/student/employee will be able to control who can access this information. Anyway, some solid reflections here from Lev.


AI Could Surpass Schools for Academic Learning in 5-10 Years — from downes.ca with commentary from Stephen Downes

I know a lot of readers will disagree with this, and the timeline feels aggressive (the future always arrives more slowly than pundits expect) but I think the overall premise is sound: “The concept of a tipping point in education – where AI surpasses traditional schools as the dominant learning medium – is increasingly plausible based on current trends, technological advancements, and expert analyses.”


The world’s first AI cabinet member — from therundown.ai by Zach Mink, Rowan Cheung, Shubham Sharma, Joey Liu & Jennifer Mossalgue

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to combine NotebookLM with ChatGPT to master any subject faster, turning dense PDFs into interactive study materials with summaries, quizzes, and video explanations.

Step-by-step:

  1. Go to notebooklm.google.com, click the “+” button, and upload your PDF study material (works best with textbooks or technical documents)
  2. Choose your output mode: Summary for a quick overview, Mind Map for visual connections, or Video Overview for a podcast-style explainer with visuals
  3. Generate a Study Guide under Reports — get Q&A sets, short-answer questions, essay prompts, and glossaries of key terms automatically
  4. Take your PDF to ChatGPT and prompt: “Read this chapter by chapter and highlight confusing parts” or “Quiz me on the most important concepts”
  5. Combine both tools: Use NotebookLM for quick context and interactive guides, then ChatGPT to clarify tricky parts and go deeperPro Tip: If your source is in EPUB or audiobook, convert it to PDF before uploading. Both NotebookLM and ChatGPT handle PDFs best.

Claude can now create and edit files — from anthropic.com

Claude can now create and edit Excel spreadsheets, documents, PowerPoint slide decks, and PDFs directly in Claude.ai and the desktop app. This transforms how you work with Claude—instead of only receiving text responses or in-app artifacts, you can describe what you need, upload relevant data, and get ready-to-use files in return.

Also see:

  • Microsoft to lessen reliance on OpenAI by buying AI from rival Anthropic — from techcrunch.com byRebecca Bellan
    Microsoft will pay to use Anthropic’s AI in Office 365 apps, The Information reports, citing two sources. The move means that Anthropic’s tech will help power new features in Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint alongside OpenAI’s, marking the end of Microsoft’s previous reliance solely on the ChatGPT maker for its productivity suite. Microsoft’s move to diversify its AI partnerships comes amid a growing rift with OpenAI, which has pursued its own infrastructure projects as well as a potential LinkedIn competitor.

Ep. 11 AGI and the Future of Higher Ed: Talking with Ray Schroeder

In this episode of Unfixed, we talk with Ray Schroeder—Senior Fellow at UPCEA and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois Springfield—about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and what it means for the future of higher education. While most of academia is still grappling with ChatGPT and basic AI tools, Schroeder is thinking ahead to AI agents, human displacement, and AGI’s existential implications for teaching, learning, and the university itself. We explore why AGI is so controversial, what institutions should be doing now to prepare, and how we can respond responsibly—even while we’re already overwhelmed.


Best AI Tools for Instructional Designers — from blog.cathy-moore.com by Cathy Moore

Data from the State of AI and Instructional Design Report revealed that 95.3% of the instructional designers interviewed use AI in their daily work [1]. And over 85% of this AI use occurs during the design and development process.

These figures showcase the immense impact AI is already having on the instructional design world.

If you’re an L&D professional still on the fence about adding AI to your workflow or an AI convert looking for the next best tools, keep reading.

This guide breaks down 5 of the top AI tools for instructional designers in 2025, so you can streamline your development processes and build better training faster.

But before we dive into the tools of the trade, let’s address the elephant in the room:




3 Human Skills That Make You Irreplaceable in an AI World — from gettingsmart.com/ by Tom Vander Ark and Mason Pashia

Key Points

  • Update learner profiles to emphasize curiosity, curation, and connectivity, ensuring students develop irreplaceable human skills.
  • Integrate real-world learning experiences and mastery-based assessments to foster agency, purpose, and motivation in students.
 

The waiting game — from college-inside.beehiiv.com by Charlotte West
College Inside breaks down the numbers from a first-of-its kind report on higher education in Illinois prisons.

For every person enrolled in higher education at Illinois prisons, someone else is waiting for their turn, according to new state data that reveals a system where access to college depends largely on where someone is incarcerated.

Right now, roughly 2,000 people in Illinois prisons are participating in higher education programs, according to a report released at the beginning of September. That’s about 1 out of every 15 people incarcerated in the state. At the same time, though, another 2,000 are stuck on waiting lists to get into classes because there’s not enough programming available.

Another 700 people on supervised release — Illinois’ version of parole — are also enrolled in higher education, per the report. Those numbers include enrollment in both college classes, and career and technical education.

 

Miro and GenAI as drivers of online student engagement — from timeshighereducation.com by Jaime Eduardo Moncada Garibay
A set of practical strategies for transforming passive online student participation into visible, measurable and purposeful engagement through the use of Miro, enhanced by GenAI

To address this challenge, I shifted my focus from requesting participation to designing it. This strategic change led me to integrate Miro, a visual digital workspace, into my classes. Miro enables real-time visualisation and co-creation of ideas, whether individually or in teams.

The transition from passive attendance to active engagement in online classes requires deliberate instructional design. Tools such as Miro, enhanced by GenAI, enable educators to create structured, visually rich learning environments in which participation is both expected and documented.

While technology provides templates, frames, timers and voting features, its real pedagogical value emerges through intentional facilitation, where the educator’s role shifts from delivering content to orchestrating collaborative, purposeful learning experiences.


Benchmarking Online Education with Bruce Etter and Julie Uranis — from buzzsprout.com by Derek Bruff

Here are some that stood out to me:

  • In the past, it was typical for faculty to teach online courses as an “overload” of some kind, but BOnES data show that 92% of online programs feature courses taught as part of faculty member’s standard teaching responsibilities. Online teaching has become one of multiple modalities in which faculty teach regularly.
  • Three-quarters of chief online officers surveyed said they plan to have a great market share of online enrollments in the future, but only 23% said their current marketing is better than their competitors. The rising tide of online enrollments won’t lift all boats–some institutions will fare better than others.
  • Staffing at online education units is growing, with the median staff size increasing from 15 last year to 20 this year. Julie pointed out that successful online education requires investment of resources. You might need as many buildings as onsite education does, but you need people and you need technology.


 

GRCC students to use AI to help businesses solve ‘real world’ challenges in new course — from www-mlive-com.cdn.ampproject.org by Brian McVicar; via Patrick Bailey on LinkedIn

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — A new course at Grand Rapids Community College aims to help students learn about artificial intelligence by using the technology to solve real-world business problems.

In a release, the college said its grant application was supported by 20 local businesses, including Gentex, TwistThink and the Grand Rapids Public Museum. The businesses have pledged to work with students who will use business data to develop an AI project such as a chatbot that interacts with customers, or a program that automates social media posts or summarizes customer data.

“This rapidly emerging technology can transform the way businesses process data and information,” Kristi Haik, dean of GRCC’s School of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, said in a statement. “We want to help our local business partners understand and apply the technology. We also want to create real experiences for our students so they enter the workforce with demonstrated competence in AI applications.”

As Patrick Bailey said on LinkedIn about this article:

Nice to see a pedagogy that’s setting a forward movement rather than focusing on what could go wrong with AI in a curriculum.


Forecast for Learning and Earning in 2025-2026 report — from pages.asugsvsummit.com by Jennifer Lee and Claire Zau

In this look ahead at the future of learning and work, we aim to define:

  • Major thematic observations
  • What makes this moment an inflection point
  • Key predictions (and their precedent)
  • Short- and long-term projected impacts


The LMS at 30: From Course Management to Learning Management (At Last) — from onedtech.philhillaa.com; a guest post from Matthew Pittinsky, Ph.D.

As a 30 year observer and participant, it seems to me that previous technology platform shifts like SaaS and mobile did not fundamentally change the LMS. AI is different. We’re standing at the precipice of LMS 2.0, where the branding change from Course Management System to Learning Management System will finally live up to its name. Unlike SaaS or mobile, AI represents a technology platform shift that will transform the way participants interact with learning systems – and with it, the nature of the LMS itself.

Given the transformational potential of AI, it is useful to set the context and think about how we got here, especially on this 30th anniversary of the LMS.

LMS at 30 Part 2: Learning Management in the AI Era — from onedtech.philhillaa.com; a guest post from Matthew Pittinsky, Ph.D.

Where AI is disruptive is in its ability to introduce a whole new set of capabilities that are best described as personalized learning services. AI offers a new value proposition to the LMS, roughly the set of capabilities currently being developed in the AI Tutor / agentic TA segment. These new capabilities are so valuable given their impact on learning that I predict they will become the services with greatest engagement within a school or university’s “enterprise” instructional platform.

In this way, by LMS paradigm shift, I specifically mean a shift from buyers valuing the product on its course-centric and course management capabilities, to valuing it on its learner-centric and personalized learning capabilities.


AI and the future of education: disruptions, dilemmas and directions — from unesdoc.unesco.org

This anthology reveals how the integration of AI in education poses profound philosophical, pedagogical, ethical and political questions. As this global AI ecosystem evolves and becomes increasingly ubiquitous, UNESCO and its partners have a shared responsibility to lead the global discourse towards an equity- and justice-centred agenda. The volume highlights three areas in which UNESCO will continue to convene and lead a global commons for dialog and action particularly in areas on AI futures, policy and practice innovation, and experimentation.

  1. As guardian of ethical, equitable human-centred AI in education.
  2. As thought leader in reimagining curriculum and pedagogy
  3. As a platform for engaging pluralistic and contested dialogues

AI, copyright and the classroom: what higher education needs to know — from timeshighereducation.com by Cayce Myers
As artificial intelligence reshapes teaching and research, one legal principle remains at the heart of our work: copyright. Understanding its implications isn’t just about compliance – it’s about protecting academic integrity, intellectual property and the future of knowledge creation. Cayce Myers explains


The School Year We Finally Notice “The Change” — from americanstogether.substack.com by Jason Palmer

Why It Matters
A decade from now, we won’t say “AI changed schools.” We’ll say: this was the year schools began to change what it means to be human, augmented by AI.

This transformation isn’t about efficiency alone. It’s about dignity, creativity, and discovery, and connecting education more directly to human flourishing. The industrial age gave us schools to produce cookie-cutter workers. The digital age gave us knowledge anywhere, anytime. The AI age—beginning now—gives us back what matters most: the chance for every learner to become infinitely capable.

This fall may look like any other—bells ringing, rows of desks—but beneath the surface, education has begun its greatest transformation since the one-room schoolhouse.


How should universities teach leadership now that teams include humans and autonomous AI agents? — from timeshighereducation.com by Alex Zarifis
Trust and leadership style are emerging as key aspects of teambuilding in the age of AI. Here are ways to integrate these considerations with technology in teaching

Transactional and transformational leaderships’ combined impact on AI and trust
Given the volatile times we live in, a leader may find themselves in a situation where they know how they will use AI, but they are not entirely clear on the goals and journey. In a teaching context, students can be given scenarios where they must lead a team, including autonomous AI agents, to achieve goals. They can then analyse the situations and decide what leadership styles to apply and how to build trust in their human team members. Educators can illustrate this decision-making process using a table (see above).

They may need to combine transactional leadership with transformational leadership, for example. Transactional leadership focuses on planning, communicating tasks clearly and an exchange of value. This works well with both humans and automated AI agents.

 

Higher ed’s ‘hunker-down mindset’ — from open-campus-dispatch.beehiiv.com by Colleen Murphy
A tight housing market and a fragile job market mean those working in higher ed have fewer options than ever.

Faculty and administrators could be just as constrained by the golden handcuffs of a 2% interest rate as everybody else. That makes them less likely to move for a new job, Kelchen said, especially since they’re unlikely to get the type of salary increase they’d need to offset more pricey mortgage payments. Plus, even finding an affordable house in the first place could be a challenge right now.

All of this contributes to what Kelchen called a “hunker-down mindset” in higher ed.

“Even if the institutions are giving out pay raises, the pay raises aren’t matching housing costs,” Kelchen said. “And then that creates a pressure to stay.”

While that might seem like a “first-world problem,” it also affects college and university staff members, Kelchen told me. Often the only way for staff members to make more money is to move universities — there aren’t the same in-house growth opportunities as there are for faculty. But that’s easier said than done.

 

A Journalist’s Toolkit for the AI Era — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan and Joe Amditis
A guest expert shares his practical tools

As news organizations scramble to update their digital toolkits, I invited one of the most tech savvy journalism advisors I know to share his guidance.

In the guest post below, Joe Amditis shares a bunch of useful resources. A former CUNY student of mine, Joe now serves as associate director of operations at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.

 

The Jobs and Degrees Underemployed College Graduates Have — from stlouisfed.org by Heather Hennerich; via Ryan Craig

Economist Oksana Leukhina, an economic policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, sat down for a conversation about underemployment, including:

  • The effects it has on college graduates’ income and careers
  • The kinds of degrees underemployed grads are more likely to have
  • The job amenities underemployed graduates have

On a somewhat-related note, also see:


Workers disagree with executives on outlook as labor market stall continues — from linkedin.com by Kory Kantenga

In this month’s edition of the State of the Labor Market, we dive deeper into recent hiring trends, including revisiting entry-level work. This edition also examines labor market churn and its importance to the overall health of a dynamic labor market. We end by taking a closer look at the growing divide between worker and executive sentiment.

 
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