Inside the AI Classroom: Dan & Ray’s Big AI-in-Education Download
Release Date: 10/30/2025
The Castlereagh Moment: Education at a Turning Point with AI?
AI in Education Podcast
This week’s episode explores a defining moment for education in the age of AI. Fresh from a week of major events in Sydney, including the Microsoft AI Summit, Dan and Ray unpack the newly released Castlereagh Statement - a collaboration between 70+ education leaders calling for urgent change across schools, universities, and training systems. Their message is clear: education isn’t ready for the speed and scale of AI disruption. But that’s only part of the story. We’re also seeing a growing pushback on technology in classrooms, with schools limiting screen time and universities...
info_outline
From Classroom to Impact: How Dawn Knight Uses AI to Help Students Thrive
AI in Education Podcast
In this episode, we’re joined by , a sustainability lead and specialist support educator working with deaf students in a UK secondary school (). Dawn shares how she’s using AI in simple, practical ways to make learning more accessible - not just for students with additional needs, but for everyone in the classroom. From generating transcripts and differentiated resources to using AI as a planning “checklist,” Dawn explains how these tools are helping her save time and reinvest it where it matters most: supporting students directly. The conversation explores how technology originally...
info_outline
Australia’s AI moment: Fast adoption, slow policy, big questions
AI in Education Podcast
In this episode, Dan and Ray explore how AI is rapidly reshaping education, workplaces, and policy - often faster than institutions can respond. They unpack new guidance from NSW’s NESA on student AI use, highlighting the growing tension between rules, real-world behaviour, and the need for clearer, more consistent policies across education systems. The conversation expands globally with insights from the 2026 Stanford AI Index Report, revealing that while over 80% of students are already using AI, formal education and policy frameworks are struggling to keep pace. The distinction between...
info_outline
Jocelyn Brewer - How schools and parents rethink student wellbeing in the age of AI
AI in Education Podcast
In this episode, Dan and Ray are joined by psychologist and cyber psychology expert , founder of , to unpack one of the biggest challenges facing education today: how schools and parents can support student wellbeing in an AI-driven world. Jocelyn introduces the concept of “” - a more balanced, intentional approach to technology use that moves beyond simplistic ideas like screen time limits. Together, they explore how young people are already using AI for everything from homework to navigating friendships, often in ways adults don’t fully understand. The conversation dives into the risks...
info_outline
Inside the latest AI in education research: tutors, bias, and impact
AI in Education Podcast
This week’s episode dives into a wave of new research shaping how AI is actually being used in education. We explore what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to AI-generated feedback, including why blended, “hybrid” feedback may be the most effective approach - and why more feedback doesn’t always lead to better outcomes. The conversation then turns to one of the most important emerging issues: bias in AI systems. From subtle differences in tone to stereotyping based on student characteristics, the research highlights why educators need to be cautious about the data they provide...
info_outline
UnBlooms: Tina Austin on thinking well with AI and rethinking Bloom’s
AI in Education Podcast
joins Ray and Dan for a wide-ranging conversation about what AI adoption really looks like in US education beyond the hype, the headlines and the endless frameworks. Tina is an educator, consultant, policy adviser and the founder of GAInable. She works with schools, colleges and faculty teams on responsible AI adoption. In this episode, she shares how her work evolved from teaching bioethics and AI ethics into supporting educators across the US as they grapple with policy, privacy, assessment, tools, and changing classroom practice. The conversation explores the fragmented reality of AI in...
info_outline
AI News: the future of work we’re not ready for
AI in Education Podcast
In this AI News episode, Dan and Ray explore the fast-moving reality of AI in the workplace - and why many of us might not be as prepared as we think. They unpack a striking story of a KPMG partner fined for using AI to cheat on an AI ethics course, raising questions about assessment, responsibility, and what “cheating” even means in an AI-enabled world. The conversation then shifts to a growing trend: organisations and universities rolling out AI tools like Copilot at scale, and what this means for equity, productivity, and expectations in the workplace. Dan and Ray also dive into new...
info_outline
Stephen Heppell on Building Smarter Schools in the Age of AI
AI in Education Podcast
Professor joins Dan and Ray for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of schools, assessment, and learning in the age of AI. Stephen reflects on more than four decades of innovation in education technology — from early experiments with AI and HyperCard through to today’s generative AI systems. Drawing on work around the world, he shares stories from radical learning environments including beach schools, post-hurricane classrooms in the Cayman Islands, and experimental learning spaces designed with students themselves. A central theme of the episode is the growing gap between how...
info_outline
From Classrooms to Careers: The New AI Skills Race
AI in Education Podcast
In this news-packed episode, hosts Ray and Dan explore Purdue University’s bold new requirement for all graduates to demonstrate AI competency; and the strategic partnerships between Harvey.ai (the specialised system for the legal profession) and universities in Sydney, Oxford and Chicago. The conversation turns to the "first in the world" move by the University of Manchester to provide Microsoft 365 Copilot to 65,000 students and staff - paying homage to the legacy of Alan Turing. A highlight of the episode is the deep dive into "vibe coding"— the phenomenon of non-programmers using AI to...
info_outline
AI in Universities: Why Connection, Not Content, is Now King
AI in Education Podcast
AI in Universities: Why Connection, Not Content, is Now King This was an exciting episode, because we recorded it on campus at the world's newest university - Adelaide University. It officially started on-campus delivery this week, as it finally opened the doors after merging the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia. Amid the buzz of students arriving for week 1, and I found some time to sit down and talk about how AI is impacting universities. Eddie is the university's AI Learning and Teaching Coordinator and you may not be surprised to learn that we discussed...
info_outlineInside the AI Classroom: Dan & Ray’s Big AI-in-Education Download
In this fast-paced news roundup, Dan and Ray dive head-first into the latest research and developments shaping AI in education. From MIT’s Perspectives for the Perplexed guide for schools, to McKinsey’s take on “agentic AI,” to Google’s LearnLM experiments with AI-powered textbooks, the duo unpack what every educator needs to know right now.
They explore what’s happening inside classrooms, universities, and edtech labs — including new findings on AI literacy, evolving assessment design, and why “policing AI use” misses the point. Plus, they debate the rise of AI-integrated browsers like ChatGPT Atlas, what it means for assessment integrity, and how tools like Microsoft Copilot are reshaping both teaching and admin work.
It’s the ultimate AI-in-education briefing — thoughtful, fast, and full of insights (and laughs) from two of the field’s most passionate voices.
Here's all the links to news and research mentioned in the podcast (and, most importantly) the Two Ronnies Fork Handles sketch!
Fork Handles
https://youtu.be/sO6EE1xTXmw?si=5Iix8Jo_xiZCRVCn
News
MIT "Guide to AI in Schools: Perspectives for the Perplexed"
https://tsl.mit.edu/ai-guidebook/
https://tsl.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/GuideToAIInSchools.pdf
One year of agentic AI: Six lessons from the people doing the work
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/one-year-of-agentic-ai-six-lessons-from-the-people-doing-the-work
OpenAI Atlas (and Perplexity Comet)
https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas/
An Opinionated Guide to Using AI Right Now
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/an-opinionated-guide-to-using-ai
Google "Learn Your Way" pilot
https://learnyourway.withgoogle.com/
- Towards an AI-Augmented Textbook
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.13348 - Experimentally Testing AI-Powered Content Transformations on Student Learning
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.18664
PEW Research into AI attitudes around the world
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/10/15/how-people-around-the-world-view-ai/
Copilot in Windows
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2025/10/16/making-every-windows-11-pc-an-ai-pc/
Copilot consumer updates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4jXM8yTdnQ&feature=youtu.be
M365 Copilot Education updates
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/blog/2025/10/designing-microsoft-365-copilot-to-empower-educators-students-and-staff/?msockid=0a3b30f5f88b6061226e245bf9b96140
BBC: The lecturers learning to spot AI misconduct
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2kn3gn8vl9o
UNE are rolling out their Madgwick AI system to all students
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aaronbdriver_aiineducation-highered-enterpriseai-activity-7378920493543845888-aZ3I
Research
The Bubble and Burner Model of AI-Infusion: A Framework for Teaching and Learning
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5501341
Firm or Fickle? Evaluating Large Language Models Consistency in Sequential Interactions
https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-acl.347/
GASLIGHTBENCH: Quantifying LLM Susceptibility to Social Prompting, https://openreview.net/forum?id=0BYRYwGCbK
What does ‘good teaching’ mean in the AI age?
https://journals.sfu.ca/jalt/index.php/jalt/article/view/3649
How university students work on assessment tasks with generative artificial intelligence: matters of judgement
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02602938.2025.2570328
AI Knows Best? The Paradox Of Expertise, Ai-Reliance, And Performance In Educational Tutoring Decision-Making Tasks
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.16772v1