Some quick thoughts on two deeper reads related to AI. If you want to know what's going on... The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019-2025 by Dwarkesh Patel. Patel is one of the best podcasters on AI and the current tech era. His interview style blends the best of popular podcaster like Joe Rogan - engaging and following along with the conversation - and Tyler Cowen - deeply knowledgeable, focused, and ensuring each minute of time is worth a listen. His book captures a

From Google : Google for Education is launching a landmark initiative with ISTE+ASCD to provide free, comprehensive Gemini training to all 6 million K-12 and higher education faculty in the U.S. These lessons will be divided into modules and promise to include :real-world examples." Teachers that complete these modules will receive a micro-credential (presumably similar to Google's certification program. Most interestingly is Google's connection with ISTE+ASCD: Materials wi

One of my reading goals for 2026 is to re-read Ann Garrido's trilogy on redeeming the aspects of leadership that feel "icky" in ministry and nonprofit. The books are all worth reading and reflecting on; prior to application to the daily practice of a school leader. 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 leadershi

MagicSchoolAI shared on their social media , a great idea that gets to the benefit of having nonjudgemental AI at hand: You may not have slides, but even laying out a "here's what I need to cover...should this be an email?" followed up by assistance in drafting an engaging email or drawing up a working agenda can be a great way to check your self with faculty planning. Too bad AI can't make people read emails.

Excited to share my first guest post for the  FACTS  blog! As generative AI exits the terrible twos and fully moves into toddlerdom, I wanted to share some advice from my own successes and failures, along with insights from the many educators I’ve worked with in and outside of FACTS. Like a cool pool, I don’t recommend a cannonball in the deep end, but a gradual acclimation and accommodation as you move down the stairs. Let’s put on our AI suits, grab a prompting towel, and g

Every Connection Matters by Michael Creekmore and Nita Creekmore. Clocking it at 136 pages, this brief ASCDpublished book offers advice...

One of my reading goals for 2026 is to re-read Ann Garrido's trilogy on redeeming the aspects of leadership that feel "icky" in ministry and nonprofit. The books are all worth reading and reflecting on; prior to application to the daily practice of a school leader. 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 leadershi

After spending some time with Bethesda Christian School of Fort Worth, I have to highlight a great idea that Mr. Michael Klefeker suggested in our session in January. Mr. Klefeker pointed to the difficulty many schools have with theater backgrounds and design. Well with AI image creation and projectors/screens; this can be solved! He plans to use image generation to create a series of images for the various scenes in a production of Willy Wonka, then setting up the images as

One of my reading goals for 2026 is to re-read Ann Garrido's trilogy on redeeming the aspects of leadership that feel "icky" in ministry and nonprofit. The books are all worth reading and reflecting on; prior to application to the daily practice of a school leader. 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 leadershi

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