The College Essay Is Not Dead, AI Just Changed the Rules | Ep. 89

In this episode of ChatEDU (The College Essay Is Not Dead, AI Just Changed the Rules), Matt and Liz open with cold weather updates, Liz’s book selling out on Amazon, and the viral “six-seven” trend. They run through stories on new AI tools, grant challenges, workplace shifts, and prompt design myths, then go deeper with the founder of College Essay Advisors. A Bright Byte from Harvard highlights AI’s promise in rare disease diagnosis.

Story 1: Google Mixboard Goes Full Nano Banana

Google’s experimental Mixboard turns brainstorms into slide decks with Nano Banana Pro. Liz tested it by creating fake but convincing ChatEDU merch, raising questions about marketing, classrooms, and deepfake ethics.

Story 2: $400K in the Create+AI Challenge

Stanford’s Accelerator for Learning is offering $400,000 for AI projects that augment human potential in education. Matt and Liz outline the tracks and deadlines.

Story 3: Claude Becomes the Interviewer

Anthropic used its chatbot to interview 1,250 professionals, finding excitement about productivity gains alongside growing anxiety about automation and job security.

Story 4: The Lonely AI Workplace

A follow-up study suggests AI may be replacing people as well as tasks, with chatbots reducing mentorship and collaboration.

Story 5: The Role Prompting Myth Gets Busted

A Wharton study finds that expert personas do not reliably improve AI accuracy, while clarity and context matter more.

Story 6: Arrival Technology and Adaptive Leadership

Justin Reich and Jesse Dukes describe generative AI as an arrival technology that is user driven and disruptive in classrooms.

Beneath the Surface

Liz talks with College Essay Advisors founder Stacey Brook about what matters in college essays in the age of AI. Drawing on two decades of experience, Stacey explains why personal essays still matter and how AI can support brainstorming and confidence without replacing a student’s voice.

Bright Byte: AI Helps Diagnose Rare Disease

Harvard researchers have introduced POPEVE, an AI model that helped diagnose 30 percent of previously unsolved rare disease cases in a large patient study. By combining evolutionary data and protein modeling, it reduces ancestry bias and offers new hope in genetic medicine.

Sponsor

This episode is supported by the National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing.www.nextgenmfg.org

Announcements

Liz is back from the fall tour. RADDAY30 still works at ASCD for a discount on her book.

Follow Liz and Matt on LinkedIn and check out ChatEDU clips on TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

The Winter Micro-Credential cohort launches this January. Join educators from around the world for a six-week dive into AI literacy, pedagogy, assessment, and ethics.

EdAdvance is now offering a Middle and High School Student AI Literacy course — email chatedu@edadvance.org to bring it to your district.

Interested in Skills21’s free social media literacy course? Check it out here - https://www.skills21.org/social-balance

Links

In-N-Out Removes “67” After Viral Ordering Trend

https://tinyurl.com/2hv3pbvz

Google Mixboard Nano Banana Turns Rough Ideas Into Presentations

https://tinyurl.com/2du8h47r

Create+AI Challenge

https://tinyurl.com/49yw3cct

What 1,250 Professionals Say About Working With AI

https://tinyurl.com/4faxetcv

AI is making the workplace lonelier

https://tinyurl.com/3x4d32nt

Prompting Science Report 4: Expert Personas Don’t Improve Accuracy

https://tinyurl.com/2uf44ypr

EdTech After ChatGPT

https://tinyurl.com/mvm9fy6m

Purdue Requires AI for All Undergrads

https://tinyurl.com/yk3zf9yr

New AI Model Speeds Rare Disease Diagnosis

https://tinyurl.com/axhnyy2j

Adaptive Leadership on AI and Academic Integrity

https://tinyurl.com/etjth9xm

Gem Custom Instructions + use the “listen’ feature and whisper flow

https://tinyurl.com/42jcfwrd