EdTech Situation Room by Jason Neiffer and Wes Fryer

EdTech Situation Room
  • 5.0 (2)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

Where technology news meets educational analysis. Join Jason and Wes as they analyze the past week's technology news through an educational lens. edtechsr.substack.com

  1. FEB 13

    EdTech Situation Room Ep 369: Dogpile and Dark Arts

    Welcome to episode 369 (“Dogpile and Dark Arts”) of the EdTech Situation Room from February 11, 2026, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) discuss the shadowy world of DDoS attacks by archive.today, the manipulation of Wikipedia narratives by bad actors, and the sunsetting of the CIA World Factbook. The conversation shifts to a live demo of Claude CoWork as a local folder-organizing agent, contrasting modern AI "agents" with the "Dogpile" search era of the past. They also explore "Digital Defense Against the Dark Arts" to help students and educators navigate AI-powered scams and misinformation. Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or https://www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links. 🔗 Links We Discussed * When Connection Is Engineered: Understanding The Anatomy Of An AI-Powered Romance Scam (The White Hatter, 10 Feb 2025) * Pro-Russian Narratives Target Wikipedia, Marking A Dangerous Trend For AI Chatbot Data (United24 Media, 22 Jan 2026) * Wikipedia Might Blacklist Archive.Today After Site Maintainer DDoSed A Blog (Ars Technica, 10 Feb 2026) * Archive.today Is Directing A DDOS Attack Against My Blog (Gyrovague, 01 Feb 2026) * Claude Cowork Available on Windows * Why Wikimedia Belongs In Education (Wikimedia UK, 06 Feb 2026) * The CIA World Factbook is dead. Here’s how I came to love it (NPR, 7 Feb 2026) * Apple News * Digital Defense Against the Dark Arts (by Wes) * AI Arena (formerly LM Arena) * CoWork by Claude * Jason’s Geek of the Week: OpenWork * Wes’ Geeks of the Week: Image prompt with Claude -> Image generate with Gemini - Super Bowl 2026 Ads - Ai Makes Far Side Cartoons 🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss * AI’s Apocalyptic Jobs Prophecy Is About To Become Reality (The Telegraph, 05 Feb 2026) * Anthropic Insiders Afraid They’ve Crossed A Line (Futurism, 07 Feb 2026) * Grok Maker XAI Loses Another Co-Founder (Ars Technica, 11 Feb 2026) * OpenAI Releases New Deep Research Model * State Department To Purge Pre-Trump Social Media Posts (NPR, 07 Feb 2026) * Ghost: Blogs and newsletters on the Fediverse (Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse) * Google Recovers Deleted Nest Video In High-Profile Abduction Case (Ars Technica, 10 Feb 2026) * Upgraded Google Safety Tools Can Now Find And Remove More Of Your Personal Info (Ars Technica, 10 Feb 2026) * Google Makes It Easier To Remove Your Personal Data From Search (Ars Technica, 26 Feb 2025) Episode 369 is also available on YouTube in two formats: Portrait mode optimized for mobile phones, and Landscape mode optimized for laptop / desktop computers! This Substack version (syndicated to other podcasting platforms) was edited using Descript.com to remove “filler words!” Get full access to EdTech Situation Room Podcast at edtechsr.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 2m

  2. FEB 5

    EdTechSR Episode 368: The OpenClaw Warning

    Welcome to episode 368 (“The OpenClaw Warning”) of the EdTech Situation Room from February 4, 2026, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) dive into the burgeoning world of agentic AI, highlighting the experimental "OpenClaw" tool while issuing a stark warning about the security risks inherent in autonomous AI agents. They also examine the precarious state of local journalism and its vital role in community cohesion. The discussion features a live look at the powerful new integration of Google's NotebookLM into Gemini, showcasing how educators can leverage curated "knowledge oracles" to generate source-grounded instructional materials. Additional topics include the intersection of gaming culture and mainstream media literacy via the Angry Planet podcast and a passionate defense of the humanities and competitive debate as essential skills for the AI era. Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links. 🔗 Links We Discussed * [PODCAST] Online Culture Is the Whole Culture (Angry Planet, 30 Jan 2026) * “Conspiracies and Culture Wars” Media Literacy Inquiry Project (Wes Fryer) * Collar cams offer a bear’s eye view into the lives of grizzlies on Alaska’s desolate North Slope (AP, 2 Feb 2026)Local TV and radio at a crossroads (Peter Vogel, The BC Catholic, 28 Jan 2026) * Podcast393: Reflections on UnPlug’d 2012 with David Truss & Gail Lovely https://www.speedofcreativity.org/2012/08/13/podcast393-reflections-on-unplugd-2012-with-david-truss-gail-lovely/ * ds106 radio * Powell Tribune (Wyoming) * Daily Interlake News (Montana, via Peggy George) * kgez.com (Kalispell, MT - via Peggy George) * KMAN Radio (Manhattan, Kansas) * Day of AI (a program developed at MIT RAISE in partnership with the i2 Learning Foundation) * [VIDEO] Watch: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei From World Economic Forum | WSJ (32 min) * Hard Fork [PODCAST] Can You Teach Claude to be ‘Good’? | Meet Anthropic Philosopher Amanda Askell (23 Jan 2026) * Don’t Install OpenClaw. But Keep a Close Eye on It. (Jason @ Field Notes at the FLL; 2 February 2026) * The buzz over AI agents (NPR Here and Now; 2 February 2026) * Moltbook is the newest social media platform — but it’s just for AI bots (NPR ATC; 4 February 2026) * MoltBook.com (AI agent social network) * Take your notebooks further by adding NotebookLM as a source in the Gemini app (Google Workspace Updates; 27 January 2026) * Jason’s Geek of the Week: Meetily (Local AI Meeting Tool) * Wes’ Geeks of the Week:: 2026 Frost Forward Online Conference Registration - [PODCAST] AI in Education: Jeffrey Riley on AI Literacy, Teachers, and the Future of Learning (The Teacher’s Forum, David Harris, 3 Feb 2026) - Google Account 3rd Party App Authorizations 🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss * Anthropic and Teach For All launch global AI training initiative for educators (Anthropic Blog, 21 Jan 2026) * Claude for Education * Gem and NotebookLM Workflow (Miguel Guhlin, 1 Feb 2026) * Claude is a space to think (Anthropic blog, 4 Feb 2026) * Customize Cowork with plugins (Claude Blog; 30 January 2026) * Google’s Gemini app has surpassed 750M monthly active users (TechCrunch; 4 February 2026) * The new era of browsing: Putting Gemini to work in Chrome (The Keyword from Google) * Rice University students create ICE tracker as hundreds protest in Houston (The Center Square, 31 Jan 2026) Episode 368 is also available on YouTube in two formats: Portrait mode optimized for mobile phones, and Landscape mode optimized for laptop / desktop computers! This Substack version (syndicated to other podcasting platforms) was edited using Descript.com to remove “filler words!” Get full access to EdTech Situation Room Podcast at edtechsr.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 11m

  3. JAN 23

    EdTechSR Episode 367: Vibe Coding with Claude

    Welcome to episode 367 (“Vibe Coding With Claude”) of the EdTech Situation Room from January 21, 2026, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) discuss the transformative power of “vibe coding,” with Wes sharing his experience using Claude Code to build a sophisticated 1,400-line PHP project for personal news automation. Jason demonstrates a powerful new workflow that integrates NotebookLM sources directly into Gemini to create pedagogically-informed instructional texts. The duo also explores Anthropic’s newly released AI Constitution , Google’s rollout of Personal Intelligence for Gmail and Drive , and reflections from the FETC conference on the urgent need for structured AI professional development for educators. Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links. 🔗 Links We Discussed * Episode 9: From hidden data to insight: the power of vibecoding (by NotebookLM, Digital Digging by Hank Van Ess, 17 Jan 2026) * Paywall article: Using AI to find hidden data sources (Digital Digging by Hank Van Ess, 17 Jan 2026) * Claude Code for writers (Platformer, Casey Newton, 15 Jan 2026) * Move Over, ChatGPT (Atlantic, 14 Jan 2026) * Claude’s new constitution (Anthropic, 21 January 2026) * Gemini introduces Personal Intelligence (14 January 2026) * mermaid.ai (“Build complex visuals from text and data in seconds”) * Jason’s Geek of the Week: Kortex Chrome PLugin * Wes’ Geek of the Week: news.wesfryer.com 🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss * A new direction for students in an AI world: Prosper, prepare, protect (Brookings, 17 Jan 2026) * Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback (404 Media; 21 January 2026) * OpenAI says its data centers will pay for their own energy and limit water usage (The Verge; 21 January 2026) * Google Releases Data Tables for NotebookLM (NotebookLM on Twitter/X, 14 Jan 2026) * Alaska’s court system built an AI chatbot. It didn’t go smoothly. (NBC News, 3 Jan 2026) * Amazon’s Ring to partner with Flock, a network of AI cameras used by ICE, feds, and police (TechCrunch, 15 Oct 2025) * Hacker Dressed As Pink Power Ranger Dismantles Racist Websites Live on Stage (PC Magazine, 6 Jan 2026) * Iran’s Internet Shutdown Mistake Exposes Threats To U.S. And Israel (Forbes, 17 Jan 2026) * Grok Is Generating Sexual Content Far More Graphic Than What’s on X (Wired, 7 Jan 2026) * When an Ad Triggers a Full Account Crisis (Lucy Gray, 20 Jan 2026) * How Wikipedia Will Survive in the Age of AI (With Wikipedia’s CTO Selena Deckelmann) (404 Media, 20 Jan 2026) Episode 367 is also available on YouTube in two formats: Portrait mode optimized for mobile phones, and Landscape mode optimized for laptop / desktop computers! Get full access to EdTech Situation Room Podcast at edtechsr.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 7m

  4. JAN 9

    EdTechSR Episode 366: 10 Year Anniversary!

    Welcome to episode 366 (“10 Year Anniversary”) of the EdTech Situation Room from January 7, 2026, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) celebrate the podcast’s 10th anniversary, reflecting on their journey since their first episode in January 2016. In this episode, they dive into the latest happenings in educational technology, media literacy, and more. Topics include highlights from CES 2026, notable innovations in AI, and discussions on smart home technology. Plus, they explore exciting new integrations from Google and Apple, challenges in intellectual property with AI-generated content, and innovative classroom technology. Tune in for a decade of EdTech insights and future trends! Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or https://www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links. Chapter Markers: 00:00 Welcome to EdTech Situation Room 00:11 Celebrating 10 Years of EdTech Situation Room 01:01 Meet the Hosts: Jason and Wes 01:38 Kicking Off the New Semester 02:31 Exploring CES 2026 Highlights 03:39 AI Innovations at CES 2026 10:35 Smart Home Technology and Personal Projects 14:37 Deep Dive into CES Trends and AI 28:19 Lego’s Smart Bricks and Future of Coding 29:43 The Pebble Watch Revival 32:21 The Pebble Ring: A New Innovation 33:28 White House January 6th Website 34:50 Media Literacy and AI Fact-Checking 38:07 Google’s Gemini and Apple’s AI Strategy 40:33 AI-Generated Infographics and Copyright Issues 50:24 Geeks of the Week and Final Thoughts 52:27 Automation Tools for Productivity 🔗 Links We Discussed * CES 2026 New Products: iPolish - Nodi Flip - Bloomin8 E-Ink Canvas * Video: The Shocking AI Reveals That Stunned CES 2026 (Day 1) (AI Revolution, 7 Jan 2026, 13 min) * Video: New OpenAI GUMDROP AI Device Turns ChatGPT Physical (AI Revolution, 4 Jan 2026, 11 min) * Gemini Deep Research CES Update * LEGO introduces its first ‘smart brick’ which reacts to children’s movements in real time (Daily Mail via MSN; 5 January 2025) * Pebble seeks to remedy the wearable industry’s original sin (Engadget; 6 January 2026) * Pebble Is Making a $75 Smart Ring (Wired; 9 December 2025) * White House publishes website that rewrites history of Jan. 6 attack (Washington Post, 6 Jan 2026) * White House X post on Jan 6 website * Whitehouse Jan 6 website: www.whitehouse.gov/j6/ * Gemini SIFT Superprompt chat log * Jason’s Geek of the Week: n8n * Wes’ Geeks of the Week: Media Literacy Roundup - 5 Jan 2026 - Smart Home Tips from Wes - PixStar Digital Picture Frame - StartPage 🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss * Alaska’s court system built an AI chatbot. It didn’t go smoothly. (NBC News, 3 Jan 2026) * Create with unlimited generations using Google Gemini 3 (Nano Banana Pro) in Adobe Firefly (Adobe Blog, 20 Nov 2025) * Google’s New Image Tool Looks Too Real. Here’s Why That’s A Problem (The Blueprint Brief; 8 December 2025) * NanoBanana has an IP Problem: NotebookLM Slides/Infographics * Teamsters Unveil New Substack Newsletter to Break Through Traditional Media (The Hill, 8 Dec 2025) * AI and Social Media Literacy Essential for Safe Ecosystem (Bernama, 27 Dec 2025) * Berlin power outage highlights German vulnerability to sabotage (BBC, 7 Jan 2026) * You may soon be able to change your Gmail address (TechCrunch, 28 Dec 2025) * “Yo what?” LimeWire re-emerges in online rush to share pulled “60 Minutes” segment (ArsTechnica, 23 Dec 2025) * FCC’s import ban on the best new drones starts today (ArsTechnica, 23 Dec 2025) Episode 366 is also available on YouTube in two formats: Portrait mode optimized for mobile phones, and Landscape mode optimized for laptop / desktop computers! (Note the landscape version is shorter because ‘filler words’ were removed in post-production using Descript.com.) Get full access to EdTech Situation Room Podcast at edtechsr.substack.com/subscribe

    1 hr

  5. JAN 2

    EdTechSR Episode 365: Nano Banana Era

    Welcome to episode 365 (“Nano Banana Pro Era”) of the EdTech Situation Room from December 29, 2025, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) discuss the rapid evolution of generative AI, beginning with Jason’s recent travel to Japan where tools like NotebookLM and Gemini assisted with navigation and cultural translation. The hosts dive deep into the capabilities of Nano Banana Pro (Google’s latest Gemini model), comparing its superior image generation and iteration controls to OpenAI’s offerings. The conversation also covers the landmark licensing agreement between Disney and OpenAI to bring iconic characters to the Sora video platform, the ethical “dumpster fire” of hyper-realistic deepfakes, and eight bold AI predictions for 2026—including the rise of world models and an “offline renaissance”. Geeks of the Week include Gemini Desk and a new Substack series on AI storytelling. Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or https://www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links. 🔗 Links We Discussed * The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach landmark agreement to bring beloved characters from across Disney’s brands to Sora (OpenAI, 11 Dec 2025) * ChatGPT’s Latest AI Image Generator Is Its Best Yet, But Nano Banana Pro Is Still Better (PC Mag, 28 Dec 2025) * The Ethics of AI Imagery: Nano Banana and the New Frontier of Digital Reality (Genevieve Smith-Nunes via Substack; 30 August 2025) * AI in 2026 | 8 Predictions About What’s Coming (Sinead Novell; 18 December 2025) * Wobbling Jets of 3I/ATLAS Based on New Hubble Telescope Images from December 12 and 27, 2025 (Medium of Avi Loeb, 27 Dec 2025) * 3I/ATLAS Deep Fake Videos (Blog of Wes Fryer, 8 Dec 2025) * Jason’s Geek of the Week: Gemini Desk * Wes’ Geek of the Week: Stories About AI - December 2025 🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss * Google’s Year in Review: 8 Research Breakthroughs in 2025 (Google Blog, 23 Dec 2025) * Nano Banana Pro Review: Is Google’s AI Image Generator Too Good? (CNet, 7 Dec 2025) * Create with unlimited generations using Google Gemini 3 (Nano Banana Pro) in Adobe Firefly (Adobe Blog, 20 Nov 2025) * Nano Banana is wild in NotebookLM!!! * Google’s New Image Tool Looks Too Real. Here’s Why That’s A Problem (The Blueprint Brief; 8 December 2025) * Nano Banana Content Blocked (John Negoita via Medium; 24 September 2025) * Introducing GPT-5.2: OpenAI Launches ‘Garlic’ Series (OpenAI, 11 Dec 2025) * How AI coding agents work—and what to remember if you use them (ArsTechnica, 24 Dec 2025) * Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work (Simon Willison’s Weblog, 18 Dec 2025) * Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity (Cornell University, 12 Jul 2025) * AI and Social Media Literacy Essential for Safe Ecosystem (Bernama, 27 Dec 2025) * Rainbow Six Siege is under siege by hackers, Ubisoft forced to take all servers offline — players randomly received billions of credits, ultra-exclusive skins, and bans or unbans (Tom’s Hardware, 27 Dec 2025) * You may soon be able to change your Gmail address (TechCrunch, 28 Dec 2025) * “Yo what?” LimeWire re-emerges in online rush to share pulled “60 Minutes” segment (ArsTechnica, 23 Dec 2025) * FCC’s import ban on the best new drones starts today (ArsTechnica, 23 Dec 2025) Please follow @EdTechSR on Facebook so we can reach 100 followers and directly livestream there too! More subscription options are on EdTechSR.com. Episode 365 is also available on YouTube in two formats: Portrait mode optimized for mobile phones, and Landscape mode optimized for laptop / desktop computers! Get full access to EdTech Situation Room Podcast at edtechsr.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 6m

  6. 12/06/2025

    EdTechSR Episode 364: The Rise of Gemini AI

    Welcome to episode 364 (“The Rise of Gemini AI”) of the EdTech Situation Room from December 3, 2025, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) discuss the “rise of Gemini” following the release of Google’s Gemini 3.0 and reports of OpenAI declaring a “Code Red.” The hosts debate Australia’s move to enforce a social media age limit of 16 and the potential banning of VPNs. Conversation also turns to academic integrity, featuring a breakdown of The Simpsons’ take on AI cheating, the risks of adversarial detection, and the changing nature of software engineering with “vibe coding.” Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links. 🔗 Links We Discussed * Google Gemini 3: A New Era of Intelligence (Google Blog, 18 Nov 2025) * OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Declares “Code Red” As Gemini Gains 200 Million Users In 3 Months (Ars Technica, 02 Dec 2025) * Marc Benioff’s response to Gemini 3 * Black Students Are More Likely to Be Falsely Accused of Using AI to Cheat (Education Week, 18 Sep 2024) * AI may be scoring your college essay. Welcome to the new era of admissions (AP, 2 Dec 2025) * Our Response to AI Cannot be Adversarial (Marc Watkins Substack, 1 Dec 2025) * I Set A Trap To Catch My Students Cheating With AI. The Results Were Shocking. (Huffpost, 29 Nov 2025) * “The Simpsons” season 37 episode tackles AI cheating and Chalmers’ slime craze (The Express Tribune, 7 Oct 2025) * VIDEO: Bart Gets Caught Using CheatGPT On His Homework | The Simpsons * Simpson’s Fandom Wiki: Keep Chalm and Gary On * Anthropic Studied Its Own Engineers to Assess How AI is Changing Work (Times of India / Anthropic, 3 Dec 2025) * Republicans drop Trump-ordered block on state AI laws from defense bill (ArsTechnica, 3 Dec 2025) * Australia to enforce social media age limit of 16 with fines up to $33 million (AP News, 3 Dec 2025) * Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing (EFF; 13 November 2025) * How institutions worldwide used Google for Education tools in 2025 (Google Blog, 3 Dec 2025) * AI Literacy from Google * Commodore 64 Available Again * Jason’s Geeks of the Week: GooseAI - https://antigravity.google/ * Wes’ Geeks of the Week: Gemini AI GEM replacements for my CustomGPTs: Social Media Post Formatter - Design - Create - Share Lesson Builder and Podcast: “Michael Burry Speaks” - Holiday Tech Gadget Wish Lists 🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss * Anthropic Accidentally Gives the World a Peek Into Its Model’s Soul (Gizmodo, 01 Dec 2025) * Why Academics (and Educators) Are Leaving Twitter for Bluesky (Impact of Social Sciences, May 2025) * ICE Wants to Go After Dissenters as well as Immigrants (Brennan Center for Justice, 21 Nov 2025) * “Digital Citizenship in the Surveillance State” from 2016 * Solar’s Growth in US Almost Enough to Offset Rising Energy Use (Ars Technica, 26 Nov 2025) Episode 364 is also available on YouTube in two formats: Portrait mode optimized for mobile phones, and Landscape mode optimized for laptop / desktop computers! Get full access to EdTech Situation Room Podcast at edtechsr.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 7m

  7. 11/13/2025

    EdTechSR Ep 363: AI Upgrades, Privacy Tradeoffs

    Welcome to episode 363 (“AI Upgrades, Privacy Tradeoffs”) of the EdTech Situation Room from November 12, 2025, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) unpack OpenAI’s pushback against a court order that would expose 20 million user chats in the New York Times lawsuit, and what that means for “private” AI conversations in schools and beyond. They explore GPT-5.1’s new “personalities,” emerging competitors like DeepSeek and Mistral, and the complex tradeoffs between powerful new models, copyright, and training data ethics. The conversation turns to Google’s latest moves with Gemini agents, AI “Workspace flows,” NotebookLM for Students, and Canva’s expanding AI features, all framed as tools that can act as thought partners rather than shortcuts for learners. Wes and Jason also dig into media literacy practices like hyperlinked student writing, keeping AI chat logs for transparency, and reclaiming news feeds with trusted voices instead of doomscrolling social media. Rounding things out, they touch on FBI efforts to unmask the operator of Archive.today, a CRISPR-powered attempt to revive an ancient gene to treat gout, and their Geeks of the Week: rolling your own AI-powered email with Thunderbird/ThunderAI and experimenting with StreamYard’s new multi-aspect-ratio streaming setup, plus a webinar on AI superprompts and “The Anxious Generation.” Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or https://www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links. 🔗 Links We Discussed * OpenAI Fights Order To Hand Over 20 Million Private ChatGPT Conversations (Ars Technica, 12 Nov 2025) * Can I Upload That? AI, Copyright, and Our Classrooms (TCEA, Miguel Guhlin, 3 Nov 2025) * Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI * OpenAI Walks a Tricky Tightrope With GPT-5.1’s Eight New Personalities (Ars Technica, 12 Nov 2025) * https://aiinside.show/ * Google’s New AI Studio Vibe Coding Push: Create Full-Stack Apps in a Weekend (Geeky Gadgets, 7 Nov 2025) * NotebookLM for Students * YouTube’s AI Power-Up: How We Got Even More Helpful This Year (YouTube Blog, 12 Dec 2024) * AI and Learning: A New Chapter for Students and Educators (Google Blog, 6 Nov 2023) * Guided Learning in Gemini: From Answers to Understanding (Google Blog, 6 Aug 2025) * Google Gemini’s New AI Agent Upgrade is INSANE! (Automate Tasks Across Google) (YouTube) * A New Chinese AI Model Claims To Outperform GPT-5 and Sonnet 4.5 – and It’s Free (ZDNet, 7 Nov 2025) * https://www.deepseek.com/ (don’t use the Deep Seek App…) * https://chat.z.ai/ * https://www.quinengine.com/ * https://www.kimi.com/en/ * https://lmarena.ai/ * From France, $60 per year for educators: https://chat.mistral.ai/chat * Canva Keynote 2025: The Imagination Era (1.5 hours) * The FBI Is Trying to Unmask the Registrar Behind Archive.Today (Gizmodo, 7 Nov 2025) * Scientists Revive an Ancient Human Gene That Could Help Cure Gout (SciTechDaily, 9 Nov 2025) * Wes’ Geeks of the Week: Streamyard MARS (Multi-aspect-ratio Streaming) - I Want You to Understand Chicago - Reclaiming Our News Feeds - 17 Nov Webinar: AI Superprompts and “The Anxious Generation” * Jason’s Geek of the Week: Roll Your Own AI Email with Thunderbolt and ThunderAI 🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss * Inside the Data Centers That Train A.I. and Drain the Electrical Grid (The New Yorker, 27 Oct 2025) * Yes, LLMs Can Be Better at Search (Mike Caulfield Substack, 10 May 2025) * Sam Altman Served With Subpoena While Onstage at AI Safety Forum * Apple and WhatsApp Targeted With Spyware by Israeli Firm Paragon (The Guardian, 10 Nov 2025) * The Last Days of Social Media (Noema, 2 Sep 2025) * The Panic Over Smartphones Doesn’t Help Teens (The Atlantic, 21 May 2024) * IKEA Just Announced 21 Smart Home Gadgets — Here’s the Ones I’m Buying (Tom’s Guide, 7 Nov 2025) Episode 363 is also available on YouTube in two formats: Portrait mode optimized for mobile phones, and Landscape mode optimized for laptop / desktop computers! Get full access to EdTech Situation Room Podcast at edtechsr.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 7m

  8. 10/30/2025

    EdTechSR Ep 362: Browsers Gone Agentic

    Welcome to episode 362 (“Browsers Gone Agentic”) of the EdTech Situation Room from Wednesday, October 29, 2025, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) unpack the fast-moving world of agentic AI browsers—Atlas, Comet, and an open-source “BrowserOS”—including why they’re built atop Chromium, where they currently feel clunky in real workflows, and how prompt-injection and data-exfiltration risks translate to concrete school safeguards (sandboxing/air-gapping, limiting LMS credentials, and policy updates). We review TechCrunch’s warning on “glaring” browser-agent risks, Perplexity’s Comet prompt-injection mitigations, and real-world demos that show why an agent could plausibly log into an LMS and complete assignments—raising new academic-integrity and supervision questions for districts. Beyond the browser, we explore creator-tool shifts—Adobe + Google AI model integrations, YouTube Shorts/Studio nudges, and Meta’s AI editing tools in Instagram Stories—and how educators can balance creative possibilities with a rising tide of AI “slop.” We also dig into media-literacy lessons from “Grokipedia” vs. Wikipedia: edit histories, transparency, bias, and why source-checking remains a must-teach habit. Rounding out the hour, the duo spotlights a readable primer on quantum computing’s looming “Q-Day” encryption risk—and why starting the transition to quantum-safe practices belongs on IT roadmaps now. Wes also shares how our new Substack-first post-production workflow (YouTube → Substack with full link lists) is keeping the back catalog current and easier to find. Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or https://www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links. 🔗 Links We Discussed * Adobe and Google team up to offer more AI models and YouTube integration (TechRadar; 29 October 2025) * Elon Musk launches Grokipedia — an encyclopedia where AI gets the last word (Cointelegraph; 28 October 2025) * The glaring security risks with AI browser agents (TechCrunch; 25 October 2025) * Reference to Oct 22 Windows Weekly from TWiT * Mitigating Prompt Injection in Comet (Perplexity Blog; 22 October 2025) * What is Education Pro for Perplexity? * BrowserOS * Instagram users can now use Meta AI editing tools directly in IG Stories. (TechCrunch, 23 Oct 2025) * CustomGPT for EdTechSR podcast post-production * Chat transcript example: https://chatgpt.com/share/6902be89-2950-800e-aabf-cea6567ca611 * Custom GPT: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-68fd20ce2f1c8191ac7f3fb207ca6487-edtechsr-podcast-post-production-oct-2025 * Quantum Computing Is Coming for Your Digital Secrets (The Walrus, 2 Oct 2025) * Elon Musk Launches Grokipedia, an AI‑Powered Wikipedia Rival (The Washington Post, 27 Oct 2025) - paywall free * grokipedia.com * Turing Test (WikiPedia) * HBO Silicon Valley * Wes’ Geek of the WEek: My Pinboard * Jason’s Geeks of the Week: Software Treats: Gemini Desk and Ollama + Thunderbird + ThunderAI 🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss * Anthropic Reaches Settlement With Authors Guild Over AI Copyright Dispute (Authors Guild, 21 October 2025) * What Past Education Technology Failures Can Teach Us About the Future of AI in Schools (The Conversation, 18 October 2025) * Senators announce bill that would ban AI chatbot companions for minors (NBC News; 28 October 2025) * Open AI Non/For Profit * Built to benefit everyone (OpenAI News; 28 October 2025) * The next chapter of the Microsoft–OpenAI partnership (OpenAI News; 28 October 2025) * Projects Sharing Available to All * The Majority View of AI (Anil Dash; 17 October 2025) * Why Open Source May Not Survive the Rise of Generative AI (ZDNET, 28 Oct 2025) * Homework Faces an Existential Crisis — Has AI Made It Pointless? (L.A.Times, 25 Oct 2025) * The Homework Apocalypse (Ethan Mollick; 1 July 2023) Episode 362 is also available on YouTube. Get full access to EdTech Situation Room Podcast at edtechsr.substack.com/subscribe

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Where technology news meets educational analysis. Join Jason and Wes as they analyze the past week's technology news through an educational lens. edtechsr.substack.com

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