An excellent book and one that doesn't quite fit the usual review format, Leading Change , is well-worth the read for system leaders in business and school. So rather than pursue my usual review format - review followed by assessment. These Review-ishes will be more of a digital notebook offering up what I see as highlights especially in the context of school leadership. Today's review-ish is on Leading Change by John P. Kotter. Kotter's emphasis lies in differentiating betw

Eric Curts published an awesome post on creating Graphic Novels with Gemini and Notebook LM. Highlights : As easy as graphic novels are to consume, creating them is a much more challenging task. Certainly the best graphic novels are going to be created by skilled and hard-working authors and illustrators, and I strongly encourage everyone to support them in this work. However with new AI tools, educators and students now have free options to enter into this world and create b

This week's review is on AI Goes to Church by Todd Korpi.  There is a clear need for our religious leaders to think deeply about AI and its role in ministry, institutions, and society - especially in its contrast to human nature. Todd Korpi, a protestant professor and church leader, seeks to do so in AI Goes to Church. Korpi struggles to engage directly with deeper theological or philosophical issues; focusing on a pastoral response. Korpi proceeds systematically, establishi

This week's review is on If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares. Also informing this piece, their supporting website, https://ifanyonebuildsit.com/ , and the following review articles: " The case for AI doom isn't very convincing " by Timothy B. Lee. Understanding AI . Substack. September 25, 2025. " Book Review: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies " by Scott Alexander. Astral Codex Ten. Substack. September 11, 2025. Long a Cassandra of the

These are in no specific order and I'll try to include a note on accountability - but based on my reading and research, here's where I think we will go in 2026. The fundamental hallucination error of LLMs won’t be fixed but will be worked on I increasingly agree with those on the outside that big data and training cannot fix the hallucination problem - a crucial deficit for broader AI adoption and deployment - especially in sensitive industries. In 2026, this will continue to

This week's review is on Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Leonard Sax . Leonard Sax is a "family physician, psychologist, and acclaimed author" (back cover) who presents a case of five factors affecting boys (drawn from observations, discussions, and limited studies) in this book published in 2007. Like Bad Therapy , I found myself nodding along with the problem, some of the diagnosis, and drawing

Anthropic joined Google and OpenAI in announcing its newest model in the last two weeks - but unlike the other two companies - it is gate-kept for paying customers. (The other two will throttle access for free users). Some are claiming Claude Opus 4.5 is the best - not something I'm prepared to evaluate or argue; however - Anthropic did announce some other news : Claude for Nonprofits includes three things: discounted access of up to 75% to Claude, connectors to new nonprofi

This week's review is on Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech   by Brian Merchant. Part history, part anti-capitalist screed, part-analysis; Brian Merchant offers a fast-paced inter-connected cultural history and analysis of the present and past Luddite movements. He does so to reclaim the word "Luddite" - pointing out that these rebels were "technologists themselves; they did not hate the machines, though they did not hold any undue respect fo

This week's review is on More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI   by John Warner. The biggest problem with AI and education is that our system is geared not towards a deeper purpose but instead towards some promise of college and career advancement. The cleverest students realize this and play the system (completion grades, extra credit, clubs, et al.) in order to succeed; but little learning happens in this context. No better demonstration of this than

Jumping off from The Rundown : The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use ChatGPT Projects to build a private, shareable workspace with uploaded SOPs, custom instructions, and project-specific memory for onboarding new hires smoothly. Step-by-step: Open ChatGPT , enable the sidebar, select "Projects," then "New project," and name it (e.g., "Onboarding") Upload your SOP files to the Project, balancing context carefully to avoid overloading the AI's memory Share

ChatGPT is certainly the brand-name of AI but Google's education-focused approach has long-made it my go-to recommendation for educators in the classroom. On Wednesday, OpenAI made a new announcement aimed at closing that gap: A secure ChatGPT workspace that supports teachers in their everyday work so they can focus on what matters most—plus admin controls for school and district leaders. Free for verified U.S. K–12 educators through June 2027. Is this one more way to keep th

Brandon Schneider from School Marketing Insider (a must read for anyone involved in school marketing) offers a jumping off prompt for competitive research: "I'm analyzing competitor messaging for [your school type]. Please review these websites: [list 3-5 URLs] For each school, identify: 1. Their main value proposition 2. The 3-5 key programs they emphasize 3. The emotional tone of their messaging 4. Any unique positioning Then summarize: What patterns exist? What gaps

This week's review is on Leadership & Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action by Michael Fullan. Fullan is back and better than ever... If it can feel that Fullan's books are the latest cinematic universe - sharing many of the same elements while moving forward at a regular pace - I can't argue with you. Made with Sora. This would have been an amazing cover. In this case, Fullan looks at systemness and sustainability approaching how schools, districts, and systems can crea

A review of the magazine issue from the Bishop Barron-led Word on Fire Institute. A beautifully-produced magazine that serves as just the...

Drawing on an idea from Teaching with AI : "AI can analyze the reviews, judgments, or social media posts of groups large and small"(location 1091). Often times, those of us marketing or promoting schools, struggle to articulate a compelling message. AI can be a great support here - serving as a test marketing system. Made with Sora. First, compile some basic demographic data - ages of parents and target groups, socio-economic status, background, location, et al. - these can b

This week's review is on Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust by Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis . In the nearly six years since its publication, Gary Marcus has remained a staunch contrarian even as Generative AI has exploded in financing, development, and implementation across the tech, business, and education worlds. Rebooting AI marks his first real entry into a critique of where the field was heading and the limitations imposed by those choices. Thi

From Pluribus News: TECHNOLOGY: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed legislation requiring app store operators to ascertain a user’s age when they first set up accounts on personal devices like iPhones and Androids. The first-of-its-kind measure is meant to allow easier age-gating for app developers, to provide minors with an age-appropriate experience. ( Pluribus News ) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Newsom vetoed legislation that would have banned minors from accessing com

This week's review is on Teaching with AI - A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning by Jos é Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson. A book which states its aim clearly - focusing on the how, not necessarily the why or why not of using AI in teaching. Bowen and Watson present a brief overview on what AI is, before proceeding to Teaching (which includes a discussion of cheating, policies, and quality) and Learning (feedback, assessments, writing). The first section is l

Sam Altman dropped a news bomb on X yesterday, from the BBC : OpenAI plans to allow a wider range of content, including erotica, on its popular chatbot ChatGPT as part of its push to "treat adult users like adults", says its boss Sam Altman. In a post on X on Tuesday, Mr Altman said upcoming versions of the popular chatbot would enable it to behave in a more human-like way - "but only if you want it, not because we are usage maxxing". Made by Sora. As Edward L Hamilton commen

Although it pains me to recognize any good coming from Stanford (or Google for that matter), this is good and something I called for...