I’ll be at the ISTELive Conference in Orlando, Florida … and I get to hang out in the Brisk Teaching booth the whooooooooooole day on Tuesday (June 30)!

I’ll get to demo my favorite features of Brisk — especially Brisk Boost, the interactive student AI activities …

… and, after my ISTE presentation on my new book, AI Literacy in Any Class, Brisk will do a FREE book signing and giveaway at their booth (~3:30pm)!

We have other fun experiences up our sleeves that we’ll be announcing very soon! See the Brisk Teaching agenda for the ISTELive Conference here.

If you’re going to ISTELive in Orlando, I’d LOVE to see you in the Brisk booth #2308 on Tuesday!

PS: Want to check out Brisk — and get 3 months of their premium features for free? Just use my link in the button below to get started!

📚 New AI resources this week

1️⃣ Teachers Are Using AI. Most Still Aren’t Getting Guidance. (via Axios) — New Gallup data finds that while AI use is becoming commonplace among educators, roughly 80% report receiving little or no formal guidance from their schools or districts.

2️⃣ Will AI Help or Overwhelm Students? Teachers Weigh In (via Education Week) — Teachers report real benefits from AI for lesson planning and productivity but express growing concerns about student cognition, critical thinking, and overreliance.

3️⃣ The Evidence Base on AI in K–12: A 2026 Review (via Stanford SCALE Initiative) — Stanford researchers review what we actually know about AI’s impact on learning, equity, student wellness, and human relationships—an important reality check for decision makers.

Last week’s poll: Which NotebookLM feature is most powerful in your work as a leader?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Audio overviews (10)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Video overviews (6)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Slides (4)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Infographics (14)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other ... (6)

Audio overviews: People don't always have time to read things, but they have a couple of minutes to listen while they're driving home or to work, or while they're checking their email... The audio overviews are definitely a favorite feature in our district. — C. Graham

Other: As an interim principal, I did not know all the rules of the new school. I uploaded the student handbook, but the app on my phone and when I had an issue I searched out the answer with the student right there and showed them the rule in the handbook.

Infographics: Gives a brief, visual overview of the topic that I can digest at a quick glance.

Other: NotebookLM is just awesome! In Iowa, the governor signed into law that starting this coming school year, a graduation requirement is to pass a civics test. So, we used the information the state provided and a couple other resources to build a notebook. Then we built resources for students to prepare: study guide, quiz questions, and flash cards. We'll then share a "Viewer" Notebook with students so they can use it to prepare for the exam. — C. Sussex

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🗳 Poll: Biggest AI leader decisions right now

Instructions:

🤔 3 AI decisions for EVERY K-12 leader right now

EVERYONE seems to have questions to answer and decisions to make around AI.

The hard part? We’ve never been here before. We’ve never had a technology that’s so adaptive, intuitive, and capable as AI … so it creates new challenges for us in education.

(That’s a big reason why I created this newsletter in the first place … so we would all have a place to think together and work through this!)

I partnered with Brisk Teaching to create an AI K-12 Playbook for school and district leaders (like you).

It’s an 8-page interactive PDF guide with …

It provides guidance on three key issues …

Plus, I’m partnering with Brisk to offer a limited number of FREE private 20-minute consultations with school/district leaders like you to talk through the process. (If you’d like to apply for one, just check the box and provide your info when you get the playbook.)

Below are excerpts from the playbook so you can get a feel for what’s inside …

Most leaders start with the question, “What should our guidelines say?”

It’s a fair question, but it’s the wrong place to begin. Clear guidelines matter, and your school/district needs them. But the document alone can’t carry the weight of what AI is doing to teaching, learning, and trust.

Here’s a better question …

What do we believe about AI’s role in learning, and what human work should it never replace?

Answer that, and the guidelines start to write themselves.

INSIDE THE PLAYBOOK:

Every tool on the market now claims to be powered by AI, and most of them will give you a demo built to impress.

Getting a demo is fine, but it can’t be the driving force in decisions around an app. Do your homework. Test out some options (but not everything).

As you’re testing them, though, think about the benefits those tools bring and how teachers and students might actually use them in class. Align those benefits to your goals (and your teachers’ goals).

Set the bar first, and a flood of options becomes a short list fast.

INSIDE THE PLAYBOOK:

Once the tools are in place, the instinct is to go big: roll it out everywhere, train everyone, and measure success by how much AI gets used.

That’s the instinct to resist.

The districts where AI matters most aren’t the ones using it the most. They’re the ones where it made teaching visibly better in a few places everyone else could see.

Impact spreads from proof. The goal isn’t more usage. It’s creating success that’s sustainable … the kind of successes that teachers will want to emulate.

INSIDE THE PLAYBOOK:

Wait … you’ve made it all the way to this part of the newsletter and you still haven’t grabbed the playbook?! (You know it’s free, right???)