Why Co-Teaching Will Be A Hot New Trend In Higher Education — from forbes.com by Brandon Busteed

When it comes to innovation in higher education, most bets are being placed on technology platforms and AI. But the innovation students, faculty and industry need most can be found in a much more human dimension: co-teaching. And specifically, a certain kind of co-teaching – between industry experts and educators.

While higher education has largely embraced the value of interdisciplinary teaching across different majors or fields of study, it has yet to embrace the value of co-teaching between industry and academia. Examples of co-teaching through industry-education collaborations are rare and underutilized across today’s higher ed landscape. But they may be the most valuable and relevant way to prepare students for success. And leveraging these collaborations can help institutions struggling to satisfy unfulfilled student demand for immersive work experiences such as internships.


From DSC:
It’s along these lines that I think that ADJUNCT faculty members should be highly sought after and paid much better — as the up-to-date knowledge and experience they bring into the classroom is very valuable. They should have equal say in terms of curriculum/programs and in the way a college or university is run.

 

When Heads Butt — from kathleendelaski.substack.com by Kathlee deLaski
An actual debate at LinkedIn Headquarters on the value of the college degree

Coincidentally published the same day, our books do take opposing views in parts. Scott is very strong on the value of the traditional degree, but wants to help students see beyond “the major,” telling them not to rely on what essentially amounts to a minority of the courses you’ll take in college to find your path to passion and employment. He urges them to find a “field of study,” to build in a broader range of self-directed experiences and classes to find your purpose and profession. (I love this and recommend his book.)

WhiIe I don’t recommend against college, “Who Needs College Anymore?” points to the growing number of employers and colleges that are offering skills-based career paths, that can be achieved with shorter term programs…that can be a stepladder to a degree, but don’t leave you credential-less if life gets in the way. I call on colleges to embrace all the market share they are leaving on the table, the 60% plus of Americans who are not getting a four-year degree, and to consider providing more modular professional pathway opportunities in addition to degrees.


Also re: higher education, see:

After years of quietly falling, college tuition is on the rise again — from hechingerreport.org
As colleges also pare back services, many students are paying more and getting less

Students nationwide are facing increases in tuition this fall of as high as 10 percent, along with new fees and rising costs for dorms and dining. And as in Pennsylvania, it’s an abrupt change from a period during which something happened that most Americans probably didn’t notice: Tuition had actually been falling, when adjusted for inflation, after decades of outpacing the cost of almost everything else.

That’s among the conclusions of The Hechinger Report’s update of its Tuition Tracker tool, which shows what students pay to go to individual colleges and universities based on their families’ incomes.

Considering the growing skepticism that college is “the magic ticket to the American dream,” said Gillen, raising tuition, for many higher education institutions, “definitely has the potential to be penny-wise and pound-foolish.” 

But universities and colleges are confronting unprecedented problems on the funding side. 

 

10 Tips from Smart Teaching Stronger Learning — from Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D.

Per Dr. Pooja Agarwal:

Combining two strategies—spacing and retrieval practice—is key to success in learning, says Shana Carpenter.


On a somewhat related note (i.e., for Instructional Designers, teachers, faculty members, T&L staff members), also see:

 

“A new L&D operating system for the AI Era?” [Hardman] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

From 70/20/10 to 90/10 — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
A new L&D operating system for the AI Era?

This week I want to share a hypothesis I’m increasingly convinced of: that we are entering an age of the 90/10 model of L&D.

90/10 is a model where roughly 90% of “training” is delivered by AI coaches as daily performance support, and 10% of training is dedicated to developing complex and critical skills via high-touch, human-led learning experiences.

Proponents of 90/10 argue that the model isn’t about learning less, but about learning smarter by defining all jobs to be done as one of the following:

  • Delegate (the dead skills): Tasks that can be offloaded to AI.
  • Co-Create (the 90%): Tasks which well-defined AI agents can augment and help humans to perform optimally.
  • Facilitate (the 10%): Tasks which require high-touch, human-led learning to develop.

So if AI at work is now both real and material, the natural question for L&D is: how do we design for it? The short answer is to stop treating learning as an event and start treating it as a system.



My daughter’s generation expects to learn with AI, not pretend it doesn’t exist, because they know employers expect AI fluency and because AI will be ever-present in their adult lives.

— Jenny Maxell

The above quote was taken from this posting.


Unlocking Young Minds: How Gamified AI Learning Tools Inspire Fun, Personalized, and Powerful Education for Children in 2025 — from techgenyz.com by Sreyashi Bhattacharya

Table of Contents

Highlight

  • Gamified AI Learning Tools personalize education by adapting the difficulty and content to each child’s pace, fostering confidence and mastery.
  • Engaging & Fun: Gamified elements like quests, badges, and stories keep children motivated and enthusiastic.
  • Safe & Inclusive: Attention to equity, privacy, and cultural context ensures responsible and accessible learning.

How to test GenAI’s impact on learning — from timeshighereducation.com by Thibault Schrepel
Rather than speculate on GenAI’s promise or peril, Thibault Schrepel suggests simple teaching experiments to uncover its actual effects

Generative AI in higher education is a source of both fear and hype. Some predict the end of memory, others a revolution in personalised learning. My two-year classroom experiment points to a more modest reality: Artificial intelligence (AI) changes some skills, leaves others untouched and forces us to rethink the balance.

This indicates that the way forward is to test, not speculate. My results may not match yours, and that is precisely the point. Here are simple activities any teacher can use to see what AI really does in their own classroom.

4. Turn AI into a Socratic partner
Instead of being the sole interrogator, let AI play the role of tutor, client or judge. Have students use AI to question them, simulate cross-examination or push back on weak arguments. New “study modes” now built into several foundation models make this kind of tutoring easy to set up. Professors with more technical skills can go further, design their own GPTs or fine-tuned models trained on course content and let students interact directly with them. The point is the practice it creates. Students learn that questioning a machine is part of learning to think like a professional.


Assessment tasks that support human skills — from timeshighereducation.com by Amir Ghapanchi and Afrooz Purarjomandlangrudi
Assignments that focus on exploration, analysis and authenticity offer a road map for university assessment that incorporates AI while retaining its rigour and human elements

Rethinking traditional formats

1. From essay to exploration 
When ChatGPT can generate competent academic essays in seconds, the traditional format’s dominance looks less secure as an assessment task. The future lies in moving from essays as knowledge reproduction to assessments that emphasise exploration and curation. Instead of asking students to write about a topic, challenge them to use artificial intelligence to explore multiple perspectives, compare outputs and critically evaluate what emerges.

Example: A management student asks an AI tool to generate several risk plans, then critiques the AI’s assumptions and identifies missing risks.


What your students are thinking about artificial intelligence — from timeshighereducation.com by Florencia Moore and Agostina Arbia
GenAI has been quickly adopted by students, but the consequences of using it as a shortcut could be grave. A study into how students think about and use GenAI offers insights into how teaching might adapt

However, when asked how AI negatively impacts their academic development, 29 per cent noted a “weakening or deterioration of intellectual abilities due to AI overuse”. The main concern cited was the loss of “mental exercise” and soft skills such as writing, creativity and reasoning.

The boundary between the human and the artificial does not seem so easy to draw, but as the poet Antonio Machado once said: “Traveller, there is no path; the path is made by walking.”


Jelly Beans for Grapes: How AI Can Erode Students’ Creativity — from edsurge.com by Thomas David Moore

There is nothing new about students trying to get one over on their teachers — there are probably cuneiform tablets about it — but when students use AI to generate what Shannon Vallor, philosopher of technology at the University of Edinburgh, calls a “truth-shaped word collage,” they are not only gaslighting the people trying to teach them, they are gaslighting themselves. In the words of Tulane professor Stan Oklobdzija, asking a computer to write an essay for you is the equivalent of “going to the gym and having robots lift the weights for you.”


Deloitte will make Claude available to 470,000 people across its global network — from anthropic.com

As part of the collaboration, Deloitte will establish a Claude Center of Excellence with trained specialists who will develop implementation frameworks, share leading practices across deployments, and provide ongoing technical support to create the systems needed to move AI pilots to production at scale. The collaboration represents Anthropic’s largest enterprise AI deployment to date, available to more than 470,000 Deloitte people.

Deloitte and Anthropic are co-creating a formal certification program to train and certify 15,000 of its professionals on Claude. These practitioners will help support Claude implementations across Deloitte’s network and Deloitte’s internal AI transformation efforts.


How AI Agents are finally delivering on the promise of Everboarding: driving retention when it counts most — from premierconstructionnews.com

Everboarding flips this model. Rather than ending after orientation, everboarding provides ongoing, role-specific training and support throughout the employee journey. It adapts to evolving responsibilities, reinforces standards, and helps workers grow into new roles. For high-turnover, high-pressure environments like retail, it’s a practical solution to a persistent challenge.

AI agents will be instrumental in the success of everboarding initiatives; they can provide a much more tailored training and development process for each individual employee, keeping track of which training modules may need to be completed, or where staff members need or want to develop further. This personalisation helps staff to feel not only more satisfied with their current role, but also guides them on the right path to progress in their individual careers.

Digital frontline apps are also ideal for everboarding. They offer bite-sized training that staff can complete anytime, whether during quiet moments on shift or in real time on the job, all accessible from their mobile devices.


TeachLM: insights from a new LLM fine-tuned for teaching & learning — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
Six key takeaways, including what the research tells us about how well AI performs as an instructional designer

As I and many others have pointed out in recent months, LLMs are great assistants but very ineffective teachers. Despite the rise of “educational LLMs” with specialised modes (e.g. Anthropic’s Learning Mode, OpenAI’s Study Mode, Google’s Guided Learning) AI typically eliminates the productive struggle, open exploration and natural dialogue that are fundamental to learning.

This week, Polygence, in collaboration with Stanford University researcher Prof Dora Demszky. published a first-of-its-kind research on a new model — TeachLM — built to address this gap.

In this week’s blog post, I deep dive what the research found and share the six key findings — including reflections on how well TeachLM performs on instructional design.


The Dangers of using AI to Grade — from marcwatkins.substack.com by Marc Watkins
Nobody Learns, Nobody Gains

AI as an assessment tool represents an existential threat to education because no matter how you try and establish guardrails or best practices around how it is employed, using the technology in place of an educator ultimately cedes human judgment to a machine-based process. It also devalues the entire enterprise of education and creates a situation where the only way universities can add value to education is by further eliminating costly human labor.

For me, the purpose of higher education is about human development, critical thinking, and the transformative experience of having your ideas taken seriously by another human being. That’s not something we should be in a rush to outsource to a machine.

 
 

Anthology Declares Bankruptcy, Blackboard to Remain as the Core — from onedtech.philhillaa.com by Phil Hill
The official Chapter 11 plan is to recapitalize around Blackboard and sell off SIS/ERP and CRM/Student Success to competitors

Anthology Inc., the Veritas Capital-backed education-software provider has sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US after a failed attempt to sell the company or parts of the business outside of court protection.

The company filed for Chapter 11 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, according to a statement on Tuesday. It listed assets and liabilities of $1 billion to $10 billion each in its petition, court documents show.

As part of the process, the firm will focus on its core teaching and learning business, which will be recapitalized with at least $50 million of new cash and its debt completely written off, Anthology said in a press release. The deal is backed by investors that include Oaktree Capital Management LP and Nexus Capital Management, and expected to be completed by early 2026.


Also see this posting out on LinkedIn:

 

Law Punx: The Future of the Legal Profession, With Electra Japonas — from artificiallawyer.com by Richard Tromans aand Electra Japonas

Takeaways:

  • The legal profession is undergoing significant changes due to AI.
  • Lawyers must adapt their skill sets to thrive in the future.
  • Drafting will become less important as AI takes over.
  • Understanding the ‘why’ behind legal work is crucial.
  • Lawyers will need to design systems and guardrails for AI.
  • The role of lawyers is shifting from executors to architects.
  • Law schools need to teach legal technology and systems design.
  • Client demands are changing the way law firms operate.
  • Law firms must adapt to new client expectations for efficiency.
  • The future of law will require a blend of legal knowledge and tech skills.

“We don’t want an opinion from you. We want a prompt from you.”


Legal Education Must Change Because of AI – Survey — from artificiallawyer.com
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Guest Column: As AI Helps Close the Justice Gap, Will It Save the Legal Profession or Replace It? — from lawnexts.com by Bob Ambrogi

The numbers are stark: 92% of low-income Americans receive no help with substantial civil legal problems, while small claims filings have plummeted 32% in just four years. But AI is changing the game. By making legal procedures accessible to pro se litigants and supercharging legal aid organizations, these tools are reviving dormant disputes and opening courthouse doors that have been effectively closed to millions.

 

U.S. Law Schools Make AI Training Mandatory as Technology Becomes Core Legal Skill — from jdjournal.com by Fatima E

A growing number of U.S. law schools are now requiring students to train in artificial intelligence, marking a shift from optional electives to essential curriculum components. What was once treated as a “nice-to-have” skill is fast becoming integral as the legal profession adapts to the realities of AI tools.

From Experimentation to Obligation
Until recently, most law schools relegated AI instruction to upper-level electives or let individual professors decide whether to incorporate generative AI into their teaching. Now, however, at least eight law schools require incoming students—especially in their first year—to undergo training in AI, either during orientation, in legal research and writing classes, or via mandatory standalone courses.

Some of the institutions pioneering the shift include Fordham University, Arizona State University, Stetson University, Suffolk University, Washington University in St. Louis, Case Western, and the University of San Francisco.


Beyond the Classroom & LMS: How AI Coaching is Transforming Corporate Learning — from by Dr Philippa Hardman
What a new HBR study tells about the changing nature of workplace L&D

There’s a vision that’s been teased Learning & Development for decades: a vision of closing the gap between learning and doing—of moving beyond stopping work to take a course, and instead bringing support directly into the workflow. This concept of “learning in the flow of work” has been imagined, explored, discussed for decades —but never realised. Until now…?

This week, an article published Harvard Business Review provided some some compelling evidence that a long-awaited shift from “courses to coaches” might not just be possible, but also powerful.

The two settings were a) traditional in-classroom workshops, led by an expert facilitator and b) AI-coaching, delivered in the flow of work. The results were compelling….

TLDR: The evidence suggests that “learning in the flow of work” is not only feasible as a result of gen AI—it also show potential to be more scalable, more equitable and more efficient than traditional classroom/LMS-centred models.


The 10 Most Popular AI Chatbots For Educators — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Educators don’t need to use each of these chatbots, but it pays to be generally aware of the most popular AI tools

I’ve spent time testing many of these AI chatbots for potential uses and abuses in my own classes, so here’s a quick look at each of the top 10 most popular AI chatbots, and what educators should know about each. If you’re looking for more detail on a specific chatbot, click the link, as either I or other Tech & Learning writers have done deeper dives on all these tools.


…which links to:

Beyond Tool or Threat: GenAI and the Challenge It Poses to Higher Education — from er.educause.edu by Adam Maksl, Anne Leftwich, Justin Hodgson and Kevin Jones

Generative artificial intelligence isn’t just a new tool—it’s a catalyst forcing the higher education profession to reimagine its purpose, values, and future.

As experts in educational technology, digital literacy, and organizational change, we argue that higher education must seize this moment to rethink not just how we use AI, but how we structure and deliver learning altogether.


At This Rural Microschool, Students Will Study With AI and Run an Airbnb — from edsurge.com by Daniel Mollenkamp

Over the past decade, microschools — experimental small schools that often have mixed-age classrooms — have expanded.

Some superintendents have touted the promise of microschools as a means for public schools to better serve their communities’ needs while still keeping children enrolled in the district. But under a federal administration that’s trying to dismantle public education and boost homeschool options, others have critiqued poor oversight and a lack of information for assessing these models.

Microschools offer a potential avenue to bring innovative, modern experiences to rural areas, argues Keith Parker, superintendent of Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools.



Are We Ready for the AI University? An AI in Higher Education Webinar with Dr. Scott Latham


Imagining Teaching with AI Agents… — from michellekassorla.substack.com by Michelle Kassorla
Teaching with AI is only one step toward educational change, what’s next?

More than two years ago I started teaching with AI in my classes. At first I taught against AI, then I taught with AI, and now I am moving into unknown territory: agents. I played with Manus and n8n and some other agents, but I really never got excited about them. They seemed more trouble than they were worth. It seemed they were no more than an AI taskbot overseeing some other AI bots, and that they weren’t truly collaborating. Now, I’m looking at Perplexity’s Comet browser and their AI agent and I’m starting to get ideas for what the future of education might hold.

I have written several times about the dangers of AI agents and how they fundamentally challenge our systems, especially online education. I know there is no way that we can effectively stop them–maybe slow them a little, but definitely not stop them. I am already seeing calls to block and ban agents–just like I saw (and still see) calls to block and ban AI–but the truth is they are the future of work and, therefore, the future of education.

So, yes! This is my next challenge: teaching with AI agents. I want to explore this idea, and as I started thinking about it, I got more and more excited. But let me back up a bit. What is an agent and how is it different than Generative AI or a bot?

 

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:

 

Top 50 Legal Employers Hiring Now: Where the Opportunities Are in 2025 — from jdjournal.com by Fatima E

For lawyers, paralegals, compliance professionals, and legal tech specialists, 2025 is shaping up to be a strong hiring year. According to a new LawCrossing report, the Top 50 Legal Employers Hiring Now highlights a wave of open positions across law firms, corporations, government agencies, and universities — a snapshot of where demand is highest and where job-seekers should be focusing their efforts.

The Types of Employers on the List
The Top 50 Legal Employers Hiring Now spans a diverse set of organizations:

  • Corporate Legal Departments: …
  • Law Firms: …
  • Government Agencies: …
  • Universities and Nonprofits: …

This diversity means opportunities exist for professionals at many career stages, whether you are a new graduate seeking entry-level work, a mid-career attorney looking for stability, or a seasoned litigator hoping to move in-house.


Also see:

Law StudentsRecord-Breaking Law School Enrollment as Applicant Boom Reshapes Legal Education — from jdjournal.com by Fatima E
.

Record-Breaking Law School Enrollment as Applicant Boom Reshapes Legal Education

.
U.S. law schools are experiencing a surge unlike anything seen in over a decade, with first-year J.D. classes hitting record sizes this fall. The unprecedented boom follows an 18 % year-over-year jump in applications, fueled by a mix of economic uncertainty, political engagement, and strong job prospects for recent graduates.


Also see:

Lawyers Council Explores Legal Innovation with Arizona Chief Justice Timmer — from iaals.du.edu

On September 16, members of the IAALS Lawyers Council gathered in downtown Denver to discuss the growing momentum of alternative business structures with Arizona Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer and Jess Bednarz, IAALS’ Director of Legal Services and the Profession.

Arizona is on the frontlines of this movement, and Chief Justice Timmer talked about how alternative business structures have led to meaningful innovations in how lawyers in Arizona provide legal services.

Chief Justice Timmer credits a culture of innovation in Arizona for providing the ability for lawyers and businesses to try new ways of delivering legal services. She emphasized that lawyers are still at the heart of the practice of law in these alternative business structures, and that the structures allow lawyers to have added resources to innovate and reach more clients. This creativity has led to businesses and innovations that make the legal system easier to access, like financial planners and lawyers combining businesses or an app that helps people start the process of expunging criminal records.

 

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.
 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian