Good morning. Are you heading to any educational conferences this Spring? If so, reach out! We may be crossing paths. Next week, I’ll be at DLAC in Atlanta, followed by ITC in Charleston, SC in early March before taking a break until May/June. Hope to see you out there!

Last week, I attended the SAIS Curriculum Symposium where I met a number of thoughtful, interested educators from across the Southern Independent School landscape. Then, I delivered a keynote address to faculty and staff at Massachusetts Bay Community College, followed by two workshops on AI Literacy. MassBay CC is not only a leader in curriculum and educational experience, but they are truly a family community. The warmth I felt from faculty and staff was incredible, and I wanted to take this time to say thank you to them for having me!

Today’s newsletter will share a new graphic I think could be useful for the MS and HS context, a roundup of the news in AI and Copyright, some fun tool suggestions and a roundup of blogs I’ve been reading. Hope you enjoy!

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NEW GRAPHIC ALERT: Use-Overuse-Abuse

A Method for Talking About AI with Middle and High School Students

Middle School and High School are among the most formative times in a student’s life. Grey matter in the brain grows at the fastest rate between the ages of 10-15, which means that what students learn during these formative years tend to become a major part of their character and personality.

So, we need to find a way to talk to them about AI use in a way that they can understand. We need to help them understand AI use so that they don’t fall into negative habits and instead look at AI as a tool for expanding creativity and awareness.

That’s why I created the Use-Overuse-Abuse visual aid for classrooms. It frames AI use in three buckets — a continuum rather than a binary — and in a set of reflective language they can understand. Take a look below.

Think of this as an anchor to hang in the classroom — one that students can consistently reference when deciding when or how much to use AI in their lives. The questions are self-reflective in nature, and by encouraging students to build an awareness of their own usage habits early on (or before they start using the tools), we help them develop the AI literacy they will need for the future.

📌 As a subscriber to this newsletter, you’re getting an exclusive first look at this visual aid before it’s released to everyone else. You can download a free advance copy of the PDF file here! And if you hang it in your classroom, send us a picture!

News roundup: Copyright Cases

There was a ton of news in the AI space last week, but today I’d like to focus on two important copyright cases and their ongoing judgments.

First, in a groundbreaking legal decision, a federal judge in Delaware ruled in favor of Thomson Reuters in its copyright infringement lawsuit against AI startup Ross Intelligence. This suit preceded the release of ChatGPT 3.5, but it still represents a step forward in defining and establishing precedent for AI infringement of copyright when it pulls information for training.

The court found that Ross unlawfully used content from Thomson Reuters' Westlaw legal research platform to develop a competing AI-based legal tool, rejecting Ross's fair use defense.

Legal experts suggest that this ruling could have far-reaching implications for AI companies, particularly those developing generative AI models that rely on large datasets of copyrighted works for training purposes. 

Second, in a related development, the U.S. Copyright Office released Part 2 of its report on artificial intelligence in January 2025, focusing on the copyrightability of outputs created using generative AI. Essentially, the U.S. Copyright Office is trying to provide guidance on when, where, why, and how that Human-AI generated content can or cannot be copyrighted.

While AI-assisted works can receive copyright protection if they contain sufficient human creativity, purely machine-generated content without human intervention is not eligible for copyright.

The report is a doozy, but it raises important questions around how much human involvement would need to be established in a Human-AI creative project to be considered human enough. Crazy, right? And something to think about for our students and the future.

If you are looking to learn more but don’t have time for the whole report, I have created a Shared Notebook in NotebookLM that includes a study guide, briefing document, FAQ, and timeline. And, you can listen to an AI-generated podcast that runs through the basics of the report in ten minutes!

Click here to access my Notebook. Click “Load” or “Play” in the top right corner to access the podcast. Reach out if you have any questions about using NotebookLM to [email protected]!

The AI Tools Section: Experiment and Find What Works!

We wouldn’t be an AI newsletter if we didn’t share a few helpful and exciting tools each week. Here are some that can help you with content creation, student support, and more.

• Lesson Planning & Content Creation:

Diffit: An AI tool that can help you rewrite your lessons in different styles or difficulty levels, perfect for differentiation! Diffit is a legitimate timesaver for K-12 faculty who have a variety of different learners and levels in every classroom, but can’t find the time to differentiate materials for individual students.

Curipod: Helps you create interactive lessons, custom activities, and make engaging slides for your presentations using concept explainers. It also provides writing practice tools along with feedback on student work. Think of Curipod as a powerful engagement-boosting tool.

• Student Support & Engagement:

Notion: Best for older students (High School and Higher Ed), Notion is a powerful organization platform for tasks, projects, and writing. I have spoken to several Writing Professors who are moving their students into Notion as a means of organizaing, collaborating, and sharing content in the context of a large project.

Yoodli: An AI Roleplaying app that aims to help you improve your public speaking by giving you instant feedback. Last year, I had my students work with a similar app before giving presentations in class. They appreciated the opportunity to practice, see themselves “present,” and then receive some data on their speaking skills ahead of their Big Talk.

(Microsoft Powerpoint has a similar feature, but I don’t think it is as good.)

The Challenge: Pick one of these tools and try it out this week! Let us know what you create and how it impacts your teaching. And if you know of other tools that we should feature, reach out!

What I’m Reading: A Blog Rundown 

In this section, I’ll provide a rundown of four-five blogs from this week that I found interesting. I’ll also highlight my own, if I think it may be of interest to you. Happy reading!

All The Words We Cannot Use: Why It Feels Impossible To Talk About AI

In a nod to "All the Light We Cannot See,” this week’s blog tried to highlight the difficulty we have in talking about AI. Our language simply keeps coming up short.

Language that we use to describe Human-Human Interactions, like “collaboration,” are simply not accurate when we describe a Human-AI interaction. And it is exceedingly difficult to develop a nuanced understanding of AI when we don’t have the language to discuss it accurately.

To develop a clear understanding, we need new vocabulary. Read more about this in my latest article and contribute to the cause with a new word of your own. Hey, if Shakespeare did it, why can’t we?

If you are interested to read more about other AI advancements, here are some that will provide interesting insights:

1. Why I’ve Changed My Mind About AI Detection by Anna Mills

2. A Rundown of Perplexity’s Deep Research Tool by Stefan Bauschard

3. AI Audiobooks and Learning by Lance Eaton

What content would you like to see more of in this newsletter?

Shoot us a note with some suggestions and we’ll continue to improve this product for your needs.

As we navigate the shifts that AI is presenting to education, staying informed and engaged is more important than ever. Let’s keep the dialogue going.

Mike