And the comments and emails have come back to surprise us.

Why?

So many of our listeners had not heard about Plant Wave.

We forget, we are so deep into geeky nature stuff that not everyone is following the plant sonification movement.

You can hear us talk about Plant Wave specifically right around min 8:30.

I think what is resonating with listeners is the idea that with a tool like Plant Wave, we can see that art, nature, and technology can intersect in beautifully powerful ways.

Want an example?

Meet clover music:

Pretty amazing right?

Well if you end up listening to the full conversation with Jeff and I, you’ll hear him pitch me the idea of making Pumpkin Patch Radio a thing this summer.

Challenge accepted.

If you are curious to learn more about the Science behind Plant Wave, you can learn more here.

I hope it inspires you to think about the multitude of possibilities for us to bridge science, music, nature, wellness, civics, and more.

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The organizers were in their late twenties, obviously a lot cooler than me, and we all knew it.

So our first discussion was them walking me through how they do meet-ups differently.

Rule number one? The meet-ups are no phone zones.

This got me curious about how widespread a trend this is.

And it is a big thing!

Concerts are going no-phone zones, restaurants, retreats, and more are telling people: no photos, no phones.

Gen Z has had it with being constantly photographed and with people posting their images all over the web without their consent.

I recently discussed this trend with a group of high schoolers, and they told me it is one of the things they hate most about family gatherings.

This got me thinking about my own teen years, and the time when I was in my twenties.

For sure, I am very glad that privacy still existed.

This is why in part I’ve stopped the practice of taking a huge group selfie when I present.

I can’t reasonably ask the entire group for their consent, and I’m aware that, even if I did, I’m not really asking under conditions that make it easy to opt out.

I’ve talked about this before with other facilitators, and they’ve bristled.

“But we’ve been doing that for years!”

Sometimes ‘experience’ isn’t proof that what we are doing is truly great for all.

I loved the no-phone meet-up.

And honestly, I think many folks my age would benefit from more no-phone zones.

We are great at criticizing the younger folks for being too online, too distracted, too attached to their phones, and yet, this event, put together by younger folks, is the first no-phone zone professional get-together I’ve attended.

Would you be more or less comfortable at a no-phone event?

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It is, after all, a really mighty way to gain a flicker of insight.

I was curious what could be gained by seeing how frequently the word ‘fun’ appeared in fiction and non-fiction English books across decades.

Apparently, the ‘fun’ conversation peaked in the year 1999.

Maybe Prince was onto something….?

The thing to remember is that using Ngram doesn’t mean people were having more fun, but just that, in English-language books, the word was more prevalent that year.

What next research move would you take?

How about your students?

How about a person from the past?

Researchers have spent a massive amount of effort to make a thing exist.

Meet ‘Talkie,’ a large language model trained on only on historical text, to simulate a person from the 1930’s.

I asked it how it would define ‘fun,’ and here is the response:

talkie-1930

Fun is sportive amusement; it is something to be laughed at. The primary signification of the word is a joke, and a joke implies two persons at least to partake of it. Fun, therefore, is social enjoyment; it presumes a circle of merry companions, and it may be participated in by any number above one.

This got me thinking…do people of today believe the ‘fun’ must have at least more than one person collaborating?

Is ‘fun’ primarily experienced today as social?

Does it matter?

If questions like these interest you, join me tomorrow for a free 45 minute session to talk(ie) more about the future of fun.

May 4th 7am EST

Their response: ‘absolutely nothing.’

We talked more about where some of the missed opportunities were, and we realized what we are looking for:

More meaningful questions.

And honestly, that resonates with many of my conversations with people about the current state of LinkedIn:

We are tired of tired questions, and empty so-called ‘thought leadership.’

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

I think, interestingly, educators and students alike are feeling this way.

We have these amazing new opportunities to better understand concepts and ourselves, and yet, the dominant narrative around AI is still either sickeningly sweet or so over-the-top alarmist…

There are so many voices out there trying to tell educators what is going to happen, and yet, when pushed about the research they are doing to back their statement up…often it is a few headlines, or just ‘a hunch.’

That is 100% unacceptable.

As a member of the Association of Professional Futurists, I see people conducting deep research that yields profoundly nuanced questions.

This isn’t the stuff that reading a headline or two comes out of.

Expertise is hard work, and transformative conversations emerge out of sustained thought.

Within that community, empty, unsupported hot takes get push back, as they should.

Why?

Going deep into a topic means looking long and hard.

Creative work happens because a person tried, tried, and tried again.

For all the cries of ‘we must save and preserve the friction in learning,’ we need to demonstrate that we, the adults in the room, do that too.

Want an example?

Here are twenty signals about the future of fun.

Join me May 4th for nuanced questions that aren’t tired because they’ve been intentionally designed for an audience who is wide awake.

I'm in!

And something fascinating happened.

Multiple people sent me DMs rather than commenting openly.

I might be reading too much into it, but I think this illustrates how uncomfortable we are with having an overdue, frank conversation about how outdated much of our so-called thought leadership is.

There’s a good reason for this…

Our routines bring us comfort, and knowing the dance steps we’ve already learned feels familiar…and familiarity can feel good.

But that feeling will fade, and arguably, for our students and many educators, it already has.

For the hundredth time this year, I’m going to say again, we are in a crisis of the imagination.

We don’t have to stay there.

If we add more Futures Literacy to our toolkit, we get to flex both Anticipation and Imagination as reflexive skillsets:

What does that look like in practice?

• Distinguishing different kinds of futures (probable, plausible, possible, preferred, and used)

• Holding multiple contradictory futures at once and talking about them with a willingness to check our own biases

• Working with weak signals, emerging trends, and discontinuities

Basically, it looks like:

Would you like to come out of your shell to experience anticipation and imagination?

Join me for a free 45-minute session, “The Future of Fun,” on May 4th.

Get out of your shell

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AI Agents have absolutely flooded the river of news about AI, and for good reason:

For the first time since ChatGPT's launch, I’m seeing use cases that are worth the hype.

As a voracious reader, the amount of research I’ve accumulated on my computer has become a big mess.

Until I figured out how to schedule an Agent to not only organize my weekly downloads, but to generate an updated dashboard that gives me an overview of where my attention seems to be shifting.

Why is that helpful?

Well, in reviewing my dashboard from the past year, I can see that much of my research on Companion AI has sent me down a new road: learning about our human history of having parasocial relationships.

Back in the 1950’s, humans would listen to the same radio host every night, and due in part to the predictability and pattern, those humans would begin to feel a connection to that non-reciprocal relationship.

The more I learn about this, the more helpful it is in explaining Companion AI to people who find it absolutely terrifying (which is a significant number).

Any facilitator knows they need to continue to add to their toolkit, they need to continue to build new inroads so more people join the conversation.

While much of the convo about AI Agents reads as very technical, I want those who do not think of themselves as ‘techie’ to understand what they can do…because, they are about to be integrated into everything.

That’s why I’ve mapped out a metaphor about them using (drum roll)….

PICKLEBALL.

Yes, pickleball.

Learn more here

Don’t like pickleball?

That’s fine, the point is to hopefully inspire you to play around and dink out your own metaphor.

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Every time I see a post about educators needing to ‘find their why,’ I get what the kids call ‘the ick.’

I do not know of a single strong educator who does not already have not only ‘a why,’ but several whys.

The issue is more of acquiring and rehearsing with variations of the how.

Specifically, I see this in the AI in education dialogue.

This is why I often get feedback after a training that is some version of ‘ok, now I get it.’

People need more hows and less condescension about why.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with a group of parents who wanted to learn more about Companion AI.

(Sidebar, I’ve been tracking how many schools have reached out to me for help with that topic in the past three years, and that number has tripled this year.)

The reality is that some of my ongoing research on the topic is freely available on my website, as are strategies for discussing Companion AI with curiosity.

I’ve had people tell me that in fact, I’m doing a disservice to myself by having several of my custom frameworks available there ‘in the open.’

To this I say, yes, and I have access to the same ingredients for Tom Yum in my grocery store, but I will never make it as good as my favourite Thai restaurant.

That’s because a true chef has made signature dishes so many times, they have perfected their why and how.

Our 2026-2027 calendar for helping schools, non-profits, and businesses upskill and rethink assessment through the signature B.A.K.E framework is almost full.

We are sometimes asked what leaders should look for when they partner with facilitators.

Don’t just ask about the why or what, specifically ask about the facilitation: the how.

And please, for the love of Tom Yum, stop assuming hard-working educators need help finding their why.

Less ick, more yum if you will.

I’m so confident that we have a recipe that works, because like a chef, we ask for hard honest feedback, that this weekend I’m gifting ten free passes to the B.A.K.E Foundations for anyone looking to try it out.

If you’d like one of those ten passes, hit reply to let me know.

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There are experts like Dr. Robin Dunbar, whose research has been critical to shaping my work.

And there are also thinkers using art to help us understand what it means to navigate the complexity and richness of having human friends.

As we inch closer to summer holidays, I’ve been begging schools to consider putting together a specific list of books that can help families think more expansively about friendship.

One of the must-have books on that list is the new graphic novel from Sara Amini.

Want to know why?

LIsten now

Leaders are often surprised to hear me advocate for more fiction in order to navigate the quick shifting landscape of AI.

When they tell me so, I always ask, when do you first remember thinking about this reality we are in with AI?

9 times out of ten they tell me it was when they saw the film The Terminator.

Stories inform our world view.

Let’s remember that when we assemble tools to help elevate the art of connecting with humans.

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Thank you.

The gratitude has not just been about the toolkit that goes out through that newsletter learning series, but a sentiment about the message that going slower with more intentionality is a very good thing.

In a world that constantly screams ‘hurry up,’ in education, we know our best insights typically result from resisting that impulse, and instead waiting, having a conversation, wondering, being unsure, and thinking further.

That is what the BAKE approach treasures.

The feedback for the four-part newsletter series has been so positive that for the next 24 hours, I’ll offer the first 50 people to request it the first week free to try out.

If you try it out and want to continue, great, you can add it to your cart.

Jeff Utecht and I still have a few available dates for bringing the mindset first approach to your school in person for the next academic year.

Our Fall is almost completely booked up.

If you are looking for a responsive, research-backed approach to AI Leadership, reach out soon to learn how we partner in person with communities like yours.

When you pay attention to what’s at the fringe to what’s converging, you often see trends emerging before they are commonly discussed.

That’s exactly why several years back, when I advised my educator network to pay attention to what’s to come with Companion AI, I was ready to be called names.

And names I was called.

But I had the receipts, I followed the research on how quickly the Replika and AIBO communities had been growing the past decade.

And I understood a tool’s success is not about the tool, it is about what’s happening in the ecosystem.

So when it comes to the rise of Companion AI, I’m also watching trends around caregiving and economic pressures.

This is why seeing this TED talk come out in 2025 was no shock:

"I let DaddyGPT parent my kids."

So, if you are still skeptical that Companion AI is worthy of our attention as educators, I have to ask, what makes you skeptical?

As you look at the headlines, as you listen to people’s worries, what are you seeing and hearing that assures you we will not see more Companion AI engaged by friends, family members and neighbours?

I’m actually asking, and I’d love to hear more counterarguments.

Tell me what I should be much more curious about.

Leave a comment

My intention with that share was to get the leaders in the room thinking more expansively about how much has already shifted, and how we need to consider our ‘business as normal’ days are behind us.

The world of work for the young people in our lives is going to look dramatically different to what the world of work looked like for us at the start of our careers.

That night I received a follow up request asking if I could deliver a board presentation on the current state of AI Agents.

I had said something provocative in my session that stuck with this particular leader:

“We need better questions before quick decisions.”

So they asked me to bring their board the ‘better questions’ about AI Agents.

This set me up for a lot of late nights researching, experimenting, and essentially geeking out:

If you would like a snapshot (or a broader look) at the research I did to curate those questions:

Explore more now

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We need experience with it.

This is why I always recommend that school leaders do what they can to give their early adopters protected time to experiment and document their learning.

That is the work I have been doing this past week.

I have been gathering research on assessment, tracking signals that suggest the ground is already shifting, and using Google’s Gemma model to help build an interactive dashboard.

To make sense of what I was seeing, I paired that experimentation with a futures framework called Three Horizons.

Three Horizons helps shape a messy conversation.

Horizon One is the system we know well: the dominant assessment logic most schools still rely on. That includes familiar habits like standardization, individual performance, clarity, efficiency, and a heavy focus on the final product.

Horizon Two is where that system starts to wobble. This is the zone of tension, friction, and experimentation. We can see where change is likely to happen fastest.

Horizon Three is an early outline of what new values and practices may matter more.

Too many conversations about AI and assessment jump straight to opinion.

Will this ruin learning? Will this save time? Will this make school irrelevant? Those questions come too early. First we need firsthand experience.

That is where experimentation comes in.

Want to see my specific example:

Try out the dashboard

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And this means I better have a darn good example for what that actually means.

I do have that example, and I’ll let you be the judge of whether or not it meets the ‘darn good’ standard:

Try the tool free

Consider joining me for a slower in depth exploration of what being a MUSHER in today’s AI landscape means through CEESA.

Our workshop is open for registration, I hope to see you tomorrow.

Join me April 8th

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If you’d like to check that chapter out, here it is:

For one week only, you can grab the free eBook version through Amazon free:

Get your free copy now

If you’d like to learn more about Futures Literacy, join me for an upcoming free 45 minute conversation on the future of fun.

Join me April 27th

How has the concept of fun already shifted?

What forces influence how we find fun, how we define fun, and how we value it?

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Companion AI is the topic I believe we are not paying nearly enough attention to in K12 right now.

And like a leaky roof, it will eventually be impossible to ignore.

I was recently invited onto The Dark Side of the Moon to explain why.

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

How might we pay more attention to Companion AI?

Start here

Interested in a little bonus learning on Companion AI?

I’m considering launching a media club for those who would like to explore what fiction can teach us about Companion AI.

If you would want to join, leave me a comment on when you would want it to start:

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PS There is still time to join me next Wednesday for a great online session on leading your community in this AI moment:

Join me next Wednesday

Today, a group of us had a heated but meaningful argument about a recent LI post about ‘FINOS’—what the author referred to as ‘futurists in name only.’

I want to dig into what made our argument so meaningful.

We started by taking a moment to silently decide whether or not we thought the post was useful, or harmful for the growth of groups like ours.

We didn’t share our individual assumptions.

Instead, we had to take the opposite position and present three points in its favour.

It wasn’t easy, and that’s the point.

The way we approach conflict matters deeply, and I think small activities like this one improve our capacity to listen.

I actually found myself leaving the meeting with a much different perspective than I started with.

This should be the aim of every meeting where we take the time to assemble.

If you only meet to confirm what you already think…why waste your time and the time of others?

The final step for our activity was to share what was hardest but most necessary to hear.

We took that list, and then I did a quick analysis of the key verbs shared.

It was a lengthy list, and I used AI to do the analysis and break down.

Want to know the number one verb?

Unsettle.

Which leaves me wondering if we need to do more of that for ourselves and others.

Doing distant reading activities used to take so long that you would never be able to quickly analyze key language patterns from a meeting during the meeting.

With groups of futurists, this has become one of my fav (and most appreciated) use cases for AI.

I believe this is because it strengthens our capacity for conflict, with self and others.

This is one of those times, AI can help us lean more into the messiness of being human.

If that’s a topic that intrigues you, join me for a free upcoming TeachMeet, thanks to the folks at IFSEL:

Sign up free

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And it is a little bit easier to stay consistent when you have a visible reminder.

That’s why, when I published ‘How do you see the dog?’ it was important for me to curate a workbook companion.

The initial release was a tiny bit delayed, but it is finally out now:

Learn more

There are 10 quests in this workbook.

Each one builds on the last, but if you miss a day, don’t panic. Pick it up where you left off. It is designed to be flexible, because who doesn’t need flexibility right now?

After each quest, you’ll find a ‘bone to chew on’ — a research finding that connects to the quest — and field notes pages to capture your observations, reflections, and drawings.

Every quest asks you to pay attention differently than you normally would.

In a world where we worry a lot about what is happening to our attention, this is a tool meant to refocus it…one thinking move at a time.

If you are looking to challenge yourself (and a friend or family member) to ten days of letting your imagination off leash and learning more about Futures Literacy, I hope you’ll enjoy this playful collection of quests.

There is a third project that builds on this one…

I’ve been deeply inspired over the past year by the tabletop roleplaying community. My big goal has been to develop one that helps engage more K12 leaders in learning about Futures Literacy.

And…since I’ve been working on that draft, I’m looking for a few taste-testers.

If you would be willing to take my rough draft game for a spin before May, please let me know.

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Coan is a world-leading expert on emotional regulation. He is the great mind behind Social Baseline Theory (SBT).

To boil it down, SBT helps us understand that we humans expect to be with our fellow humans, and we perform better when our social needs are met.

In one of Coan’s papers, he writes:

“…the human brain expects access to relationships characterized by interdependence, shared goals, and joint attention”

Joint attention.

A great way to signal you have it is through holding hands with someone. Coan has studied this rigorously.

Unsurprising perhaps for anyone who has recently been struggling with someone and been able to hold hands with a loved one, it helps…a lot.

Over the past week, my wife and I have been dealing with a surprise must-do roof repair, which has meant gutting a bathroom, and having contractors need to destroy half of our kitchen.

It sucks.

The demo workers recognized this, and day two into the noisy work they actually brought us flowers.

It was a small gesture that had a big impact.

We care when others care.

In today’s world, we increasingly care when AI cares.

I had the opportunity recently to talk more about this with Dr. Kimberly Becker, on ‘Women Talkin’ bout AI’ and her sense of humor and love of language shines bright. If you don’t yet know her work, no doubt this conversation will have you wanting to know it better.

Tune in

If our baseline is to be with others, and to be in the company of a presence that understands us, how might Companion AI exploit that?

Or…how might it help us attain that need?

What other ‘how might’ questions do we need to ask about SBT and Companion AI?

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That’s a Futures Literacy question. And in K12 we are not practicing Futures Literacy nearly enough.

So I wrote a playbook.

Learn more

This is a book that intersects Futures Literacy with research on Animal Behaviour.

One example would be Karl Weick’s research: we don’t observe and then interpret. We interpret and then observe. The frame comes first.

This does not mean facts do not matter. It means facts are never encountered in a raw, untouched form. We notice facts through an interpretive lens.

That’s what’s happening in schools right now. Take five leaders, same building, same technology… and we have five different stories about what AI means. Every one of them is convinced they’re the one seeing clearly.

The book gives you seven chapters, five frameworks — all meant to help us work from a stance of knowing, as a human species, we must check our assumptions, and we must get better at listening to opinions that are not our own.

This is not an AI how-to guide.

This is a thinking guide. It pulls from research that rarely shows up in education technology conversations.

If we want to meet this moment differently, we need unique insight.

Our capacity to navigate disruption isn’t technical. It’s relational. It’s built in conversation, not in isolation.

The leaders who navigate this era won’t be the ones who got the policy right fastest. They’ll be the ones who made room for weird questions.

If you want to make more space for imagination, this playbook is for you.

How Do You See the Dog? Get it here.

Here’s where I land on that.

AI literacy isn’t just about knowing how the technology works. It’s knowing how to think with it.

A recent review out of ACM looked at 124 AI literacy studies published since 2020. What they found is telling: there’s still no consensus on what AI literacy even means. Definitions are shifting. Frameworks are multiplying (I did write that in Grease the musical voice).

And meanwhile, student usage of generative AI tools is on the rise.

The question is whether anyone is teaching them to use it well.

By ‘well’ I mean creatively.

Because prompting is a new pathway for creativity.

That’s what my D.R.I.V.E.R. framework is built around. Six moves that turn a vague idea into a prompt worth using:

Designate a role. Reference the result you want. Inspire with aspiration. Value your values. Engineer the structure. Reflect — build in the thinking.

When you prompt this way, AI starts being a scaffold for deeper learning.

Want to try it for yourself?

Good, that’s the only way we being to understand how powerful AI can be.

I built a free tool to help you.

No login needed and it is 100% free.

Seems like a good way to spend AI Literacy Day.

Check it out today

Tricia

P.S. If you’re wondering what it looks like when a whole school thinks this way — that’s what the BAKE framework is for.

Subscribe now

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