EdTechnical
Hosted by EdTechnical co-founders Libby Hills (CEO) and Owen Henkel (Research Director), the EdTechnical podcast explores AI in education through a research-grounded lens.
Each episode, Libby and Owen ask experts to help educators sift the useful insights from the AI hype. They ask questions like: how does this actually help students and teachers? What do we actually know about this technology, and what is just speculation? And (importantly!) when we say AI, what are we actually talking about?
Beyond the podcast, EdTechnical also invests in promising AI edtech companies and conducts applied research to inform real-world product and investment decisions.
Episodes
51 episodes
AI That Acts: What “Agents” Mean for Classrooms
In this EdTechnical short, Libby and Owen unpack ‘AI agents’ and what they mean for education. Agents are large language models connected to tools and workflows that are allowed to take actions like searching, summarising, and completi...
Voice AI Is Listening. But Is It Actually Hearing? (Recorded Live at SXSW EDU 2026)
At this year's SXSW EDU, Owen joined a panel on what it takes to make voice AI for assessment work in classrooms.In this live recording of the session, the panelists untangle how voice AI works, and what testing this technology with kind...
A Teddy Bear That Talks Back?
In this EdTechnical short, Libby and Owen test a conversational plush toy to understand more about AI-powered toys designed for young children. Recent research from Cambridge shows that preschool-aged children can form rapid emotional ...
AI broke take-home assignments. Can it fix them too?
In this episode of EdTechnical, Libby and Owen speak with Panos Ipeirotis, Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, about his experiment using AI to run oral exams in university courses. As generative AI makes it easier for students ...
Why AI Can't Automate Just the "Boring" Parts of Teaching
In this EdTechnical Short, Libby and Owen explore how AI might reshape teaching through the lens of the “weakest link” theory from economics. They discuss the possibility of full job replacement, partial task automation, and productivi...
Are Roboteachers Coming? (Probably Not)
In this episode of EdTechnical, Libby and Owen speak with Kristyn Sommer, a developmental psychologist and child robot interaction researcher.Together, they explore how young children learn through imitation, why physical presen...
Adding It Up: Dan Meyer on Math, Tech & AI Scepticism
In this episode of EdTechnical, Libby and Owen sit down with Dan Meyer: math educator, EdTech innovator, and self-proclaimed “token AI sceptic”. Dan’s rare mix of classroom experience and product design insight gives him a unique persp...
How Revolutionary is Alpha School?
In this episode of EdTechnical, Libby and Owen look at Alpha School, a model that started as a micro-school in Austin, Texas, and is now expanding. At its core, Alpha condenses academic learning into a morning block where students work...
Back to the Future: Two Years on with Daisy Christodoulou
In this episode Libby and Owen are joined by Daisy Christodoulou MBE, EdTechnical’s very first guest from two years ago. Daisy is Director of Education at No More Marking and a leading voice in assessment. Daisy, Owen and Libby reflect...
Guardrails and Growth: California’s AI Safety Push
Millions of students now study with AI chatbots. There are growing concerns about what happens when vulnerable teens form emotional bonds with AI. Tragic teen deaths have sparked intense debate about how to protect young people from AI systems ...
Is social media really destroying teen mental health?
In this episode of EdTechnical, Libby and Owen speak with Candice Odgers, a psychologist and researcher studying how online experiences influence children's mental health. They revis...
Why AI Detectors Don't Work for Education
In this episode of Ed-Technical, Libby and Owen explore why traditional AI detection tools are struggling in academic settings. As students adopt increasingly sophisticated methods to evade AI detection - like paraphrasing tools, hybrid writing...
Rewiring the Brain: Reading, AI and the Science of Literacy
In this first episode of EdTechnical Season 3, Libby and Owen speak with Dr. Jason Yeatman from Stanford University about how the brain learns to read, the power of better assessment, and a broader look at how AI is beginning to reshap...
Assessment in Education: To AI or Not to AI?
In this episode of EdTechnical, Libby and Owen speak with assessment expert Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor at UCL Institute of Education, about how formative assessment and AI are reshaping classroom practice. Dylan brings decades of experien...
Is ChatGPT Rotting Your Brain?
In this short, Libby and Owen digest a recent MIT study attracting a lot of attention, ‘Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt When Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing’. The study looked at how using tools like ChatGPT for...
Finding Their Voice: Voice AI for Literacy Support
Voice AI is having a moment in education. As schools grapple with declining literacy scores and stretched teaching resources, voice-enabled tools have the potential to help. But what's already working in real classrooms, and what challenges rem...
Coach or Crutch?: Using AI to hone self regulation (not outsource it)
In this episode, Libby and Owen talk to Sanna Järvelä and Inge Molenaar, two of the world’s leading scholars on self‑regulated learning (SRL). Together they cover SRL 101: what self-regulated learning is and why it is a valuable ski...
A1 sauce for all: Reflections from SXSW and ASUGSV
This week Owen and Libby reflect on two recent EdTech conferences in the US: SXSW Edu in March and ASUGSV in April. They discuss how much things have shifted for US education over this short time period, and three themes that stood out to them ...
Mimicry versus meaning: why context is important for AI tools
Another live Ed-Technical episode! In this short, Owen does a deep dive on AI and discourse analysis (the study of how meaning is constructed through language) with three experts. The conversation explores the intersection between AI, particula...
Live from SXSW EDU: Evidence Eats AI for Breakfast
Everyone is talking about AI’s power to provide answers, but what about your lingering questions? What does the latest research actually tell us? Join Libby and Owen for this live session from SXSW EDU as they delve into the latest research to ...
181 Papers Later: What We Know (and Don't) About GenAI in Schools
In this episode, Owen and Libby chat with Chris Agnew about Stanford's new generative AI hub for education. Chris leads this initiative within Stanford's SCALE program, which aims to be a trusted source for education system leaders on what work...
Is two years of learning possible in six weeks with AI?
In this short, Owen and Libby discuss a recent World Bank blog post about a study in Nigeria that evaluated the impact of Microsoft Copilot (powered by ChatGPT) on student learning outcomes. In a six-week after school programme, students were s...
Babies & AI: what can AI tell us about how babies learn language?
In this episode, Libby and Owen interview Mike Frank, Professor at Stanford University and leading expert in child development. This episode has a different angle to the others, as it is more about AI as a scientific instrument rather than as a...
Teachers & ChatGPT: 25.3 extra minutes a week
In this short, Libby and Owen discuss a hot-off-the-press study that is one of the first to test how ChatGPT impacts the time science teachers spend on lesson preparatio...
How & why did Google build an education specific LLM? (part 2/3)
This episode is the second in our three-part mini-series with Google, where we find out how one of the world’s largest tech companies developed a family of large language models specifically for education, called LearnLM. This instalment focuse...