🍂 Free AI Literacy Lessons, the Top 10 Countdown, and a Note About Seasons
Published about 21 hours ago • 13 min read
Hello Reader,
In North America it is fall y’all. Homecoming celebrations, costumes, fun, and soon family events will be happening! Yahoo!
So, I was out of pocket but have still been busily posting shows full of exciting interviews. Recently, on the blog, we counted down the ten most-downloaded episodes of the first 1,000 10 Minute Teacher shows. Episode 1,000 is out now, and my son, John, interviewed me and asked me some surprising questions. There’s a lot here, so I kept every description short: what you’ll get, and the link. My personal note is at the end this time. It’s about seasons.
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Free AI literacy lessons you can teach next week — in any subject
If you’ve been told to “cover AI” this year and you don’t teach computer science, start here. Experience AI is a free program from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, co-developed with Google DeepMind, with ready-to-teach lessons for students ages 8–16 — slides, lesson plans, worksheets, already sequenced. Nothing to build from scratch. The newer thematic resources drop into science, math, social studies, English and art, so you teach your subject and build AI literacy at the same time.
What sold me: their lessons are written by humans who thought about pedagogy first, and they deliberately don’t describe these systems as if they think or feel — because that creates real misconceptions in children. There’s an unplugged lesson for 8–12 year olds where kids analyze advertisements that give AI tools human-like personalities and rewrite them honestly. That’s the work.
Downloaded more than a million times across 195+ countries. Winner of the 2025 UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of ICT in Education.
Episode 990. Laura Gray of the Raspberry Pi Foundation walks through the free lessons that work in any subject, the unplugged lesson for younger students, and the one question that tells you whether AI is a tool or a crutch.
Kathy Nimmer taught high school English for 29 years, totally blind. This year the American Foundation for the Blind gave her the Helen Keller Achievement Award.
You’ll get: “affirmative observations,” her practice of sitting in a colleague’s room and writing down only the good, only the specific. Try it with one new teacher this month.
The story you’ll retell: the second-grade teacher who watched her a little longer than five doctors did.
Three educators who changed their minds about something central to how they teach. To become a better teacher, we need to grow and change. I love these examples.
Ross Morrison McGill: why highlighting and rereading aren’t studying, and his Think, Pair, Share, Show Me routine.
Starr Sackstein: why putting a grade on practice work stops feedback from working.
Sean Morrisey: a 60-second routine for teaching a word so it sticks.
The one that should bother all of us: a 2012 study where the teachers who knew the most about the brain believed the most myths.
John interviewed me about the story behind the 10 Minute Teacher. There are a few things I haven’t shared about how the show has not only helped teachers but really helped our family. Also, why I went down from 5 days a week to 1 and then back to five recently.
Listen at coolcatteacher.com/e1000 or search “10 Minute Teacher” in your favorite podcast app.
You’ll get: Bridge as a screen-free card game that builds math, teamwork, and grit, plus JumpStart Bridge, a free curriculum with scripts, videos, supplies, and a stipend for teachers who have never played.
You’ll get: how to use AI to plan and differentiate without losing the heart of teaching, because relationship is still one of the top factors in student success.
You’ll get: how to let students wrestle with hard work without letting them drown, when to help, when to hold back, and two strategies to try tomorrow.
You’ll get: how to make AI interview you first, keep it working from your information with a scratch pad, and trade “prompt and pray” for consistent answers.
With therapist and former high school teacher Charle Peck.
You’ll get: the one question to ask a struggling student instead of “What’s wrong with you?” plus a 30-second reset you can do with the whole class.
You’ll get: how he closes the “believement gap” for students and staff. He was suspended 30+ times and expelled three times. Now he leads a school that went from one star to four.
⚠️ If you built a custom GPT, act now. OpenAI stops letting anyone create new custom GPTs on Oct 26, 2026, and existing ones retire on Dec 11, 2026. They’re being replaced by “plugins.” If your students use a GPT you made, migrate it and share the new version before December. Read OpenAI’s migration FAQ.
Recommendation: To migrate, go to My GPTs and click Migrate to Plugin. Your instructions and knowledge files come over, but custom actions, old conversations, and sharing settings do not. I use Claude more than ChatGPT now, and Claude works in a similar way: it bundles skills and connectors into plugins too. The whole industry is moving from a chatbot to an assistant with instructions, files, and tools it can actually use, so you’re not starting over every time.
NYC banned student AI through 8th grade. The nation’s largest school system prohibited generative AI for students from preschool through middle school, with limited high school use and new screen-time caps for younger grades. Teachers can still use approved AI for planning. Read the Chalkbeat story.
From Someone Who Noticed (Sept 16)
On Someone Who Noticed, John and I went through the AI stories lots of people are sharing that are helping us understand life with AI in the world better. Every story has a person at the center who actually took the time to read and notice! (It seems kids aren't the only ones not stopping to look at details. The reading and noticing starts with us, friends!) Here are the links.
A teacher fact-checked the research. Dr. Patrick E. O’Neill of Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, Indiana, audited 14 meta-analyses claiming AI boosts learning. None had a coherent outcome measure, and six included a paper with fabricated references. It’s a preprint. Read “Presumed Effective”. MIT’s Justin Reich then publicly retracted his own advice about trusting meta-analyses, for the GenAI era. Takeaway: when a vendor cites “the research,” ask which study.
AI slop on the teacher marketplace. Chalkbeat found AI-generated products from real sellers on Teachers Pay Teachers. Read the Chalkbeat investigation. Takeaway: preview before you pay, and read it before you print.
Students wanted the real thing. Seniors at Central High School near Baton Rouge objected to AI-generated superlative portraits in their yearbook. One art student is drawing them herself. Read the story. Takeaway: kids have a taste for the real. Trust it.
Accused, cleared, and then he won. Jamir Nazir was accused of using AI on his Commonwealth Short Story Prize entry. The Foundation refused to use AI detectors and asked for his drafts and notes instead. He was cleared and won the overall prize. Read more. Takeaway: a detector score is not evidence. Drafts are.
Detectors missed 94%. In a University of Reading study, AI-written exam answers went unflagged 94% of the time and scored half a grade boundary higher than real students on average. In the final-year module, AI scored at the low end. Read the study. Takeaway: AI did worst on the most advanced course, so the harder the thinking, the harder it is to fake.
LinkedIn added a “Seems like AI slop” button. Flagged posts can lose reach, and the author isn’t told who flagged them. Read the Forbes piece.
How I fact-check with AI. I checked Google’s AI Overview using Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Every tool caught something, and every tool got something wrong. AI Fact Checking Using the Ensemble Method. Takeaway: plausible is not the same as verified. Go to the original document.
Katy ISD drew its lines by grade. The Houston-area district bans generative AI chat tools in K–6, phases in teacher-supervised use starting in grade 7, and asks grades 8–12 to cite AI when appropriate. Read Houston Public Media. Takeaway: the rule that keeps showing up is disclosure. Say what you used.
Utah left the choice to districts. The state board set up Google’s Gemini for Education statewide, but each district and charter school decides whether to use it. A board spokesperson called it “an option, not a requirement.” Read the KUER story. Takeaway: know who decides in your district.
A court held Google responsible for its AI Overview. A Munich court ruled in May that an AI Overview counts as Google’s own content, after it described two publishers as running fraud schemes. It’s an early interim ruling, not a final one. Read Wired. Takeaway: AI summaries can be wrong about real people. Check before you share.
“AI regret” has a number. In a survey by the consultancy The Adaptavist Group, 40% of Gen Z and millennial workers said they would remove generative AI from the world if they could. Read HR Executive. Takeaway: Everyone is struggling to make sense of the world now, but the way forward is through as we face what AI is, how it works, and how we, as humans, are ultimately responsible to THINK and do better. And wow, it can be hard! But it is important to continue to read and learn and share.
A Personal Note: What Season Are You In?
I’m writing this with my eyes closed and not allowed to backspace. That is supposed to help me write my newsletters, according to Ali Abdaal. It is a technique he learned about just getting things on the page. And that is what we need to do sometimes - get things on the page.
Sometimes I get so tired I don’t want to write. And sometimes - like now - I have so much to share that I can’t get it all out.
You see, I had a big pivot in my own life. This is the one-year anniversary of my Dad passing. In early September, Kip and I went to Norway on a cruise, and it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime cruise. (For those of you who don’t know or missed the email from several months ago, I am not in the classroom. While I’m still supporting my previous school, I needed to focus on the podcast, blog, radio and TV show, and my family, and I am doing that now.)
But yes, I’m really appreciating the moments I got away. I didn’t buy cruise wifi. I didn’t look at my phone. I took a break. A complete and utter break.
Yes, when we got back, I was jetlagged and a tad under the weather. But I was also clear minded as I came through that.
Clear-minded that I’m overjoyed to be alive. Sad that I miss my parents, but I know that they raised me to live my life, not wait until I die.
And there’s so much to talk about right now. So many new things to learn and share.
My heart is to help all of us work with kids and make it through this season successfully. I want to bring you classroom and school and research stories that help you grow and learn. I want to encourage teachers the way some of my favorite people have encouraged me through the years.
There are seasons. Seasons for all kinds of things. To be a mom. To be the mom taking all the kids everywhere. To be the teacher. And to be the teacher of teachers. The one who loves on teachers and encourages them and tells them how wonderful they are.
My life is different now.
But it was time. And I hope to share lots of encouraging things from now until the next season starts. I’ve got a lot of shows recorded and am thrilled to be sharing them. I’m also thrilled that when my daughter called me and needed me for a doctor’s visit, I could go. I’m thrilled that when my kids call, I can be there. I’m thrilled that when a local group asks me to come teach about AI, that I can do that.
I can breathe.
I was so stressed and had so much going, and when I tracked my hours, I came to 80-100 hours a week. I had two jobs. Eventually it would have been too much for me, and it was getting there.
You see, my dad began renting out the farm at my age, and he and Mom toured the world. He got made fun of by some people, but when Mom was diagnosed with dementia in her 60s, we knew that he had done the right thing.
He read the seasons and he went for it.
And so now, I’m going for it too. I’m traveling. I’m spending time with my family. I am writing books, and hey, I’m even reading books again. All of the things.
I’m cooking dinner and I even have a hammock.
Yes, I’m still full-time, but I’m working for myself and with my son John, and we are having an awesome time.
So, if this newsletter is a bit windy and wandering in the end, I’m just asking you - what season are you in? Part of life is dressing for the season. It is knowing the season. The people who get sick wear sweatshirts in summer and shorts in winter, and there are those who struggle to let go of seasons, but not me. I’m all in. Loving this and loving all I’m learning and sharing about the profession I love, teaching. I enjoy teaching and am still doing it.I’ve been tasked with teaching about AI for those who want to learn how agents work and how to use AI for data analysis. But I’m also enjoying this fall season. I even decorated my house a little for fall. All the living life things I just couldn’t do as a teacher.
And yes, I still love teaching. I have a class of juniors I’m teaching today about AI (of course), and I’m getting it ready. I’ve also got a Bible study I’m teaching. I’ve got a school I’m helping in November. And, yes, I do write a little newsletter that a bunch of people read.
So, let me ask you this. Do you understand what season you’re in? Are you in tune for the next? How are you considering the shifts?
Honestly, I didn’t know the season was changing until all of a sudden it did. Last Thursday - bam, it felt like fall. And last January - boom, it was time to love the kids and finish well and move forward.
So, enjoy the seasons. All the ballgames and the stories, and the studying, and the busyness. But also enjoy and know that no season lasts forever. And you need to take care of yourself. Slow down and take a moment.
Cool Cat Teacher Talk now airs on 26 FM radio stations and 16 television markets across three countries. New this fall: I signed with Troy Public Radio and Alabama Public Radio in Alabama, MPB Think Radio in Mississippi, and KANW 89.1 FM in Albuquerque, a station owned by Albuquerque Public Schools. Watch or listen anytime on the Cool Cat Teacher Talk page, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.
Me and Kip in Norway in September. It was a blessed time to reconnect and see my husband and to read and think. I can add value in so many ways but one of my goals is that my family who knows me best loves and respects me the most and Kip and I haven't seen each other a ton in the past few years! thanks for reading this far! I appreciate all of you who take the time to read this newsletter! I'm here to help, friends! As always, email me back if you have questions, articles, or things you're doing in your classroom or people you want to nominate to be on my shows!
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