Episode Details

In this episode of EdTechnical, Owen reports back from the Festival of Learning in South Korea, the annual gathering that brings together academics in AI, education, learning sciences, and human-computer interaction. Owen takes the pulse of the field through four conversations at the Festival. He speaks with a Cornell professor, a funder at the Gates Foundation, an early-stage startup founder, and a researcher at Google DeepMind.

The community has stopped asking simply whether generative AI is good or bad for learning, and started asking where to use it, where not to, and how to build around it.

Guests

Rene Kizilcec is a Professor at the Department of Computing and Information Science at Cornell University and a general chair of the 2026 Festival of Learning. His work looks at how to use technology effectively and responsibly to support student learning.

Bryan Richardson works on the K12 education program at the Gates Foundation, where he focuses on helping AI models get better at education. He is part of a newly launched, pooled AI infrastructure fund backing open source tools and benchmarks for education.

Maya Bialik is founder of QuestionWell, an AI tool that helps teachers create and refine instructional materials. She is also a PhD student at Boston University, and author of Irreplaceable: How AI Changes Everything (and Nothing) in Teaching and Learning. 

Kevin McKee is a research scientist on the AI for Education team at Google DeepMind, where he leads assessments and evaluations of Gemini and other large language models in real world educational settings.

Links

The Festival of Learning 2026

Owen’s research on LLMs’ ability to interpret and grade handwritten student work 

Further reading from the conversations:

Catching The Correct Answer Trap by Moiz Imran and Sahan Bulathwela

From Untamed Black Box to Interpretable Pedagogical Orchestration by Nizam Kadir

Research by QuestionWell

Eedi and Google DeepMind math tutoring research in the UK

Gemini Guided Learning study with Fab AI in Sierra Leone

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Credits: Sarah Myles for production support; Josie Hills for graphic design; Pia Schmoeckel for content production.