Vicki Davis is a technology and Computer Science teacher since 2002 and has blogged at the Cool Cat Teacher blog since 2005. She podcasts at the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and works to write helpful things for people passionate about teaching, technology, and personal success. She is Mom of three, wife of one, and has one cat and two dogs. She loves the outdoors, reading, and playing with tech.
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Free AI/Edtech Vocabulary List + 3 AI Studies You Need to Read
Published 18 days agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
Hello Reader,
Week of June 23, 2025
I'm writing this from my home office where my bag is packed and I'm heading to ISTE/ ASCD 2025 this weekend. I'm most excited about the conversations I'll have with real teachers to get past the hype and see what people are REALLY doing with students that is working.
π― This Week's Big Teaching Moment: Why I Teach Students to Call AI a "Liar"
I've played "Spy the Lie in AI" with my students and my students have caught AI fabricating facts about sports (who is the best basketball player), music and more. Instead of saying AI hallucinates, I do prefer the word, "lie."
What This Means for Our Classrooms: When we call AI mistakes "hallucinations," we give students permission to trust without verifying. When we call them lies, we teach critical thinking. Our students need to know that sounding smart doesn't equal being accurate.
Try This Tomorrow: Ask your AI tool a question about your subject area where you're the expert. Show students how confidently it can be wrong.
Select a variety of AI models (I usually have them use ChatGPT o3 and o1, Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, Perplexity, and Gemini Turbo.) Prompt the AI and compare the results.
Teaching Resource: If we don't spy the lie, we'll end up embarrassed like the Chicago Tribune did. (See the NPR story on this.)
π₯ Classroom-Tested Tool Spotlight: Rise Vision Media Player
Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Impact: I'm using Rise Vision Media Player . today's sponsor, to teach AI literacy in a way that gets students engaged. When I put AI responses up on our classroom display and ask teams to "spot the lies," suddenly everyone's a fact-checker.
What This Means for Your Classroom: Your school's digital displays aren't just for announcements anymore. They're teaching tools for AI literacy, current events discussion, and student engagement.
Coming Soon: Look for more schools using digital displays for real-time AI education. This isn't a trend - it's becoming essential infrastructure for teaching digital literacy.
Why I'm Recommending This: Finally, someone created a practical framework instead of just hype. Alcock gets that AI fluency isn't about using every new tool - it's about understanding impact.
Classroom Connection: I'm using his levels to assess where my students really are, not where I think they should be.
My Critical Analysis: Small sample size (54 people), but the cognitive debt concept matters. However, I'm skeptical of AI NOT telling us AI is bad - and this 150 page paper seems to have a lot of people "reading" it with AI - that's like asking a footwear company if you need to buy new shoes to play basketball.
What This Means for Your Classroom: Don't let one study scare you away from AI tools, but do teach students when NOT to use them.
My Critical Analysis: Anthropic tested 16 leading models to identify risky behaviors before they cause harm. They gave access to emails and let the agent autonomously send emails. Models disobeyed direct commands and resorted to blackmail or leaking sensitive information to competitors when the agent was threatened with replacement.
What This Means for Your Use of AI: There are tools out NOW that will grant access to your email to not only read it and help you manage email but send emails on your behalf. Don't do it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Classroom Connection: Discuss safety testing with your classes and its importance. Use this article as a reading assignment.
βAI and Edtech Power Hour: Turbocharged Tools for Every Subject and Grade [Panel] Monday, June 10, 10-11 am HBGCC 303BC This panel is full of amazing people: Gabriel Carillo (Edtech Bites), Eric Curts (Ctrl+Alt+Achieve), Jaime Donally (ARVRinEDU), Alice Keeler, Dr. Rachelle Dene Poth, Mike Tholfsen, Victoria Thompson
Monday afternoon at the Rise Vision booth (time tba)
Vocabulary List from This Week
To make content more helpful for all of you required to teach AI, I'm creating vocabulary lists and sources I've personally verified.
Make a copy of the activity and use it to go with this episode.
Smishing β A type of phishing attack that targets individuals via SMS or text messages. (Source: FBI Cybersecurity Definition)
Vishing β Voice phishing using phone calls or voice messages to deceive victims. (Source: FBI Cybersecurity Definition )
Multimodal Conversational AI β Artificial intelligence systems that can process and understand multiple types of input (text, audio, video, images) simultaneously. (Source: 11 Labs)
Deep Fake β AI-generated media where a person's likeness is replaced with someone else's, creating realistic but fabricated content. (Source: MIT Management)
Rage-Bait Cinema β Video content specifically created to spark anger and encourage viral sharing through emotional manipulation. (Source: Referenced in transcript from Lifehacker article)
LOTS (Living Off Trusted Services) β Cyberattacks that exploit legitimate, trusted platforms like Canva or DocuSign to distribute malware. (Source: Sublime Security Blog)
Passkeys β A passwordless authentication method that uses cryptographic keys instead of traditional passwords. (Source: FIDO Alliance)
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) β A security process requiring two different authentication factors to verify user identity. (Source: NIST Cybersecurity Framework)
β11Labs Audio Chatbots: Soon you'll talk to websites like people. Think about what this means for accessibility in your classroom.
βGoogle Notebook LM Mobile App: Students can talk to their notebook about class content on the way to school and be quizzed.
Camera + AI Integration: Both Gemini and ChatGPT now let you point your phone at problems and get help. (Goodbye, textbook answer keys! Consider what this means!)
Security Alert That Affects Schools
βLOTS Attacks: Cybercriminals are using trusted platforms like Canva and DocuSign to distribute malware.
What This Means for Your Classroom: That "educational" Canva template might not be what it seems. Teach students to verify sources, even from platforms they trust.
Last Week's radio show included 30 Tools/ News items as the opener and then I talked to Jennifer Edwards about Hormone-Smart Weight Loss for Teachers over 40. Listen to the show.
πΊ This Week on Cool Cat Teacher Talk
I'm interviewing Jaime Donally, Dr. Rachelle Dene Poth, and Mike Tholfsen about practical AI integration. Plus, I'll share the three prompts I teach every student on day one. WDJY 99.1 FM 4 pm Wednesday and on my YouTube channel the day after.
More schools requiring AI literacy in graduation requirements with over half of Gen Z scoring poorly on "evaluating and identifying critical shortfalls with AI technology."
See You Later Educator
I hope you are taking time to spend with family and to get some rest. You deserve it!
Teacher, Instructional Technology Coach, Wise and Effective Technology Use
Vicki Davis is a technology and Computer Science teacher since 2002 and has blogged at the Cool Cat Teacher blog since 2005. She podcasts at the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and works to write helpful things for people passionate about teaching, technology, and personal success. She is Mom of three, wife of one, and has one cat and two dogs. She loves the outdoors, reading, and playing with tech.
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