In this ChatEDU Check-In: Typewriters as an Anti-AI Tool, Liz explores how a Cornell University instructor is using 19th-century technology to ensure authentic student authorship. By removing screens and internet connectivity, the classroom shifts from digital convenience to a manual process where every character must be intentionally struck. This analog approach prevents the use of generative AI and online translation tools that often bypass the struggle of learning.

Key Takeaways:

Using manual typewriters creates a cognitive shift by forcing a slower pace of writing, requiring students to think deeply before committing ink to paper.

The absence of a delete key or digital cursor ends the habit of delegating problem-solving to search engines or AI models, returning the work to the student.

Replacing laptops with mechanical hardware changes the social dynamic, encouraging students to collaborate with peers and embrace the messy reality of the learning process.

Liz’s Two Cents: This episode highlights a fascinating, albeit extreme, strategic pivot toward "embodied" learning as a response to AI. While high-tech problems often seek high-tech solutions, the use of typewriters serves as a reminder that friction in the writing process is often where the actual learning happens. For district leaders, the takeaway isn't necessarily to buy vintage hardware, but to recognize that intentionally slowing down the creative process can be a powerful way to reclaim student agency and authentic assessment in a digital world.

Article:

https://www.ksat.com/tech/2026/03/31/a-college-instructor-turns-to-typewriters-to-curb-ai-written-work-and-teach-life-lessons/

Sponsored by:

Eduaide: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.

In this ChatEDU Check-In: The AI Cheating Panic is Loud, Student Use is Quiet, Liz explores the reality of how students interact with AI compared to common cheating narratives. Research involving interviews with over 50 students reveals that most AI use is functional and supplemental rather than fraudulent. The episode highlights a significant gap between institutional fears and actual student habits.

Key Takeaways

Student AI use is often boring and organizational, focusing on unpacking assignment instructions and clarifying lecture points.

Students treat Chat GPT as a 24, 7 on-demand tutor that provides a patient, non-judgmental resource for office hours at any time.

A psychological disconnect exists where students view their own use as responsible while assuming their peers are using it to cheat.

Liz's Two Cents: This episode highlights a strategic need for district leaders to shift the conversation from policing fraud to supporting supplemental learning. If the loud narrative of cheating dominates, schools risk missing the opportunity to integrate AI as a legitimate tool for organization and study support. Leaders should address the perception gap among students to foster a culture where responsible use is the visible norm rather than a hidden practice.

Article

https://edunewsletter.openai.com/p/the-ai-cheating-panic-is-loud-the

Sponsored by:

Eduaide: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.

In this ChatEDU Check-In: The New Social Lab Modeling Humanity with Millions of Bots, Matt explores how researchers are moving beyond individual chatbots to study the collective behavior of millions of autonomous agents in digital societies. These studies utilize environments like Minecraft to observe how AI agents interact, organize, and evolve without human guidance.

Key Takeaways:

AI research is shifting toward a new field of digital sociology where thousands of autonomous agents function as a persistent collective society rather than just one to one conversational tools.

Without human intervention, AI agents in simulations spontaneously developed complex social structures, including specialized labor, economic systems, and even political debates over tax reforms.

Researchers successfully modeled the spread of ideologies by introducing a parody religion to a small group of agents, demonstrating how AI societies can act as digital twins to track the movement of misinformation.

Matt’s Two Cents: These simulations raise a critical strategic question for educators: are these agents providing novel insights into human behavior, or are they simply mimicking human patterns as "stochastic parrots"? As we consider using AI personas for focus groups or sociological modeling, we must discern whether these digital twins offer authentic data or merely reflect the biases and behaviors already present in their training sets.

Articles:

The first ‘AI societies’ are taking shape: how human-like are they?

https://tinyurl.com/y2uesysk

These AI Minecraft characters did weirdly human stuff all on their own

https://tinyurl.com/z46e2rbk

Sponsored by:

Eduaide: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.

In this ChatEDU Check-In: The AI refugee crisis, Matt explores the growing trend of white collar professionals transitioning into teaching to escape AI driven job instability. As automation erodes roles in finance and marketing, veteran workers are seeking the human centric stability of the classroom.

Key Takeaways:

Experienced professionals in their 40s and 50s are fleeing corporate sectors where AI has significantly reduced income and job security.

Generative AI is automating high level tasks like data summarization and document creation, allowing companies to replace entire teams with a single staff member using tools like ChatGPT.

The interpersonal nature of teaching remains a unique defense against displacement, offering a career path focused on human development that AI cannot easily replicate.

Matt’s Two Cents: The influx of "AI refugees" into education brings valuable real world experience to the classroom, but it also creates new competition for younger teachers entering the field. District leaders must consider how this shift affects the long term economic prospects of students as they prepare for a labor market where even high level corporate functions are being automated.

Article:

Meet the AI refugees: white-collar workers retrain as teachers

https://tinyurl.com/2cs2hzfs

Sponsored by:

Eduaide: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.

In this ChatEDU Check-In: The Best Response to AI is a Library Card, Liz explores the critical intersection of basic literacy and artificial intelligence. The episode argues that the current rush to teach AI skills assumes a level of critical thinking and reading comprehension that many users have not yet mastered.

Key Takeaways:

AI literacy frameworks often mistakenly assume users can already read critically, assess evidence, and distinguish between persuasive arguments and factual truths.

Reading long form literature is essential for building cognitive muscles for sustained attention, which AI-generated text often fails to replicate.

The Slow AI Public Library project uses a diagnostic quiz to recommend specific books designed to rebuild the empathy, judgment, and patience that constant prompting can erode.

Article:

The Best Response to Ai is a Library Card

https://tinyurl.com/5h7x6e6k

Liz’s Two Cents: We are currently rushing to teach people how to use AI before ensuring they possess the fundamental literacy skills required to vet its output. For schools, the high level strategic implication is clear: the most effective "AI proofing" for students isn't more technology, but a doubling down on deep, difficult reading that forces encounters with perspectives that do not simply adapt to user preferences.

Sponsored by: Eduaide.ai

Eduaide: Where good ideas become great lessons. Eduaide is an AI-powered, research-based K-12 tool that creates high-quality resources, games, and graphic organizers built for better student outcomes. Take advantage of our special offer: 50 percent off an Eduaide subscription with code: ChatEDU at⁠ https://www.eduaide.ai/⁠.