Ed-Technical
Join two former teachers - Libby Hills from the Jacobs Foundation and AI researcher Owen Henkel - for the Ed-Technical podcast series about AI in education. Each episode, Libby and Owen will ask experts to help educators sift the useful insights from the AI hype. They’ll be asking questions like - how does this actually help students and teachers? What do we actually know about this technology, and what’s just speculation? And (importantly!) when we say AI, what are we actually talking about?
Episodes
34 episodes
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 ...
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Season 2
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Episode 22
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14:54
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 21
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22:06
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 ...
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Season 2
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Episode 20
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31:21
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 19
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15:42
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 18
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8:43
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 17
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35:00
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 16
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10:55
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...
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Season 2
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Episode 15
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38:22
AI tutoring part 2: How good can it get?
In this episode, Owen and Libby chat about AI tutoring with guests, Ben Kornell, Managing Partner at Common Sense Growth Fund, and Alex Sarlin, a veteran in the edtech industry. Both co-founded Edtech Insiders, a leading newsletter and podcast ...
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Season 2
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Episode 14
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21:26
Inside the black box: How Google is thinking about AI & education (part 1 of 3)
This episode is the first of a three part mini-series with Google. There is a lot of interest in how big tech companies are engaging in AI and education and what their future plans are - in this mini-series, hear the latest directly from Google...
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Season 2
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Episode 13
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36:19
Big data and algorithmic bias in education: what is it and why does it matter?
This episode, Owen and Libby speak to Ryan Baker, a leading expert in using big data to study learners and learning interactions with educational software. Ryan is a Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pe...
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Season 2
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Episode 12
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25:22
Think aloud or think before you speak?: OpenAI’s new model for advanced reasoning
In this short episode, Libby and Owen discuss OpenAI’s new model for advanced reasoning, o1. They talk about its new capabilities and strengths, and what they think about its significance for education after an initial play around. They talk...
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Season 2
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Episode 11
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10:59
Misconceptions about misconceptions: How AI can help teachers understand & tackle student misconceptions
In this episode, Libby and Owen are joined by Craig Barton, Head of Education at Eedi and host of the Mr Barton Maths and Tips for Teachers podcasts, along with Simon Woodhead, Director of Research at Eedi. Together, they explore the world of&n...
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Season 2
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Episode 10
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34:16
Why Language Models are suck ups and how this can be bad for learning
In this short, Libby and Owen discuss recent research from Anthropic looking at sycophancy – the tendency to agree with users – in large language models (LLMs), and key research from educational psychology about how important feedback is for le...
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Season 2
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Episode 9
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11:56
Passionate about planning (and Tim Walz): automated lesson planning tools
In this short, Libby and Owen discuss automated lesson planning tools (after Owen stops talking about his Tim Walz crush). There’s now a growing number of lesson planning tools out there for teachers who are using AI: Khanmigo, Magic Sch...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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13:36
Short: Generative AI Can Harm Learning - our quick takes
In this short, Libby and Owen discuss a recent paper that has generated interest and discussion called ‘Generative AI Can Harm Learning’. The paper presents the findings from a thought-provoking study of nearly 1,000 students in Turkey. The stu...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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10:13
Tangerines & loquats: Building AI EdTech for low resource settings
This episode, Owen and Libby speak to Carmen Strigel, Senior Director of Education Technology at RTI, a non-profit global research organisation. Carmen has been the driving force behind a number of successful EdTech products built and used in l...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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29:44
Short episode: What do teachers, parents, and students really think about AI chatbots?
In our second short episode of the season, Owen and Libby chat about the recently released results of a US poll (conducted on behalf of Walton Family Foundation and Renaissance Philanthropy) looking at the views of teachers, parents, and studen...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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9:48
From biscuits to AI: Teacher Tapp's surprising insights on teacher preferences
In this episode of Ed-Technical, Owen and Libby speak with Becky Allen, co-founder of Teacher Tapp, a survey tool that polls a representative sample of teachers about what's happening in their schools, classrooms, and lives at the end of every ...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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34:19
Voice AI for teacher feedback: navigating noisy classrooms and building teachers' trust
In the second episode of season two Owen and Libby speak to Alyssa Van Camp, Head of Research at EdTech start-up TeachFX. TeachFX is an app for teachers that uses voice AI (a combination of automated speech recognition and natural language p...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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28:37
Short episode: Google's newest research on genAI for education, and the problem with hypotenuses...
In the first short episode of season two, Owen and Libby share their warm takes on two big releases from OpenAI and Google. They reflect on the OpenAI demo video of Sal Khan’s (Khan Academy’s founder) son using their latest model (GPT-4o) as...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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11:13
Season 2 : Three decades of AI in education: assessment to classroom collaboration
This season Libby Hills from the Jacobs Foundation and AI researcher Owen Henkel continue to speak with leading researchers, practitioners and educators on the Ed-Technical podca...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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37:10
Season 1 Highlights & Lingering Questions
In this final episode of season 1 Owen and Libby pull out highlights from each episode. They reflect on some of the common themes, and their lingering questions after season 1. They ask, if a model’s not perfect, how good does it have to be ...
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37:09
Short 3: What out-there EdTech idea would you buy or sell?
This week we're doing our third short episode - a chat between Libby and Owen about the more speculative or out-there EdTech ideas they could get behind (or not). Listen to find out who’s into calculators and who’s into roboteachers……
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7:20
Behind the scenes of building AI EdTech for schools
Introduction: Join two former teachers - Libby Hills from the Jacobs Foundation and AI researcher Owen Henkel - for the Ed-Technical podcast series about AI in education. Each episode, Libby and Owen will ask experts to help educa...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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38:42