Technology Essentials in Education Episode 15:
Emerging AI Trends in Education for 2026

Hello there, my name is Monica Burns and welcome to Technology Essentials in Education.

Today I'm chatting with Julie Willcott, a STEM and AI specialist, to talk about the most important emerging AI trends in education for 2026.

Now I've known Julie for more than a decade. She's a fellow Apple Distinguished Educator and one of the people I turn to when I want to chat about ed tech.

So we dive into AI, where it's headed this year, what educators should have on their radar. She shares some book recommendations and a couple of her predictions or what she thinks may happen right over the course of the next year or so in the world of AI.

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Welcome to the podcast, Julie. I am so excited today to talk to you about these emerging AI trends and things to look out for in 2026.

Before we get into all of that, can you share with listeners a little bit about your role in education? What is your day-to-day look like?

Sure. So I really work with educators to enhance their teaching and learning experience, particularly through the use of technology. And obviously that includes AI. I've done a lot of work with virtual reality as well.

It means I'm creating and curating content specifically targeted to a classroom or aligned to standards and working with educators to implement that content.

Yeah, and we've known each other for more than a decade now as fellow Apple Distinguished Educators and just in the ed tech world.

A lot has changed in the past decade, in the last five or two years. Today we're talking about a topic that we probably wouldn't have talked about when we first met, which is AI and education.

So before we talk about where we are now in 2026, what has surprised you the most about the way educators and students are using AI just over the past couple years?

Well, I think really what surprises me most is just how pervasive it is. It is everywhere.

And obviously, we can pin a lot of things to that introduction of chat GPT to the broader world. That's when things changed.

It's gone through a lot of iterations quickly in education from the, oh, we're scared of this and we're not going to do it to where I think it's being used by teachers and students every day now.

And it's just amazing how of all the changes, like you say, the changes of the last decade plus, this one is just everywhere.

Yeah, and I think that pervasiveness is such a great word to use to describe kind of where we're at the way that without even thinking twice, we might Google something.

I think many people are in that mode of heading to a chat bot of choice and asking for help or for support.

Just this past weekend, I was making some egg bites and I thought I had a dozen eggs. I only had eight, and I just screenshot the recipe that was on my phone already.

I do if I only have eight eggs? Although I probably could have done the quick math myself, it was just that obvious next step, that obvious place to go to.

And I think that comes back to the pervasiveness. So as you think about where we've been and kind of where we are, what emerging AI use cases do you expect teachers to see more frequently in classrooms over the next year or two?

So two things come to mind. One is I think it's interesting how much teachers are relying on AI to communicate outside of the classroom.

We heard initially about lesson plans and that kind of thing. But just like you're saying, I think teachers are going to AI to send communication to parents and to write up student progress reports. So I think that's really emerging a lot.

The other thing that I see emerging more and more, and this is maybe a little bit outside of education, but it's almost an opportunity for people working in education, is I'm seeing these lesson plans being vetted by humans.

That first one was, this is so exciting. We can do it. We'll put the tool in the hands of teachers and they can create lesson plans with AI, whether they were using a specific tool or a general purpose tool.

Now I think you're really seeing companies stepping in and saying, we're going to take those lesson plans and have an expert in that content area or in that grade band vet them. And I think you're going to see more and more of that coming up.

It's interesting because I think with everyone kind of running towards different tools and not considering what their role is, that human in the loop phrase, that we hear so much of, there is that slow move towards the other side.

Not going all the way back to the beginning to say, maybe we overcorrected here a little bit and we really do need to have some human eyes on this work that might have gotten a first pass or first iteration with the help of one of these tools.

So as you mentioned, the communication piece and the lesson design component, what emerging AI use cases, maybe something that's not really happening just yet, do you expect teachers to see more frequently in classrooms over the next couple of years?

I think they're going to see more and more conversational AI.

And I know that seems funny because that's where it kind of triggered all this, was the thought that AI could be conversational.

But I think it's catching up more and more so that you can have a conversation like you and I are.

Because conversations right now have been very text-based.

Yes, even if you're speaking, it's being converted to text. It's not direct.

And there's also been a lag. AI just hasn't been able to keep up with a normal conversational pace.

And I think that is changing quickly, obviously for everybody.

But that makes new use cases in the classroom where you really can put a student in front of a tutor.

Let's just call him a tutor, but a tutor who is going to be able to work with the student, work with them at their level.

A good tutor is obviously going to be able to handle scaffolding and push a student beyond what they know.

I think we're getting closer. I just think about when the internet first became available to our students in the classroom and I was in the classroom then.

It was like, wow, students have access to all this information. Certainly they did, but they didn't have knowledge yet. They didn't have making sense of all that information.

AI is going through a similar transformation that in its first iterations, what it gave you was accurate but dated.

I mean, we're looking at that early chat GPT. The information was tied to things really pre-2020.

And that's gone now. You can now ask it about, you know, I'm going to this concert. What can you tell me about road construction around it?

Things that you just couldn't get before. So that's going to make new use cases in the classroom because it's just going to be so immediate.

It's no longer going to be accessing information in a comprehensive, more knowledge-based way, but making sense of it today.

Yeah, and I think that's going to find that it can be used differently in classrooms once you reach that point.

That's such an interesting one because in my personal practice of interacting with technology, I use a lot of voice to text, a lot of dictation, a lot of audio when I'm inputting information.

Not as much for interaction in a digital space, but that has changed for me in just the past probably month or so.

I found that the home device and my home is a lot stronger in terms of back and forth than it had been six months ago.

The voice to text dictation that I use across different tools just to speed my workflow during the day has gotten a lot stronger.

Not just saying word for word, but also making my sentence a little bit tighter or closer to what I was trying to convey.

Even in the past year, we've seen these audio tools, whether it's from Notebook LM and the audio overview or their Illuminate tool.

The audio piece, especially for those back and forth, is definitely one that I think is worth watching.

I have experienced an AI interview now and it was really fascinating.

This is with a company that's doing what we were talking about, human vetting of AI generated content.

If someone's interested in doing contract work for this company, the first step after they vet your resume, which is being done by AI, is pulling out the key terms and deciding if you qualify.

Then they go to an AI-based interview.

The AI interview is a replication of a conversation like you and I are having.

The human needs to be present. You have to turn on a camera. They don't want to not see you.

The AI is very simple. There's no avatar or anything like that. It's both a spoken word and then the words appear on the screen at the same time.

It goes for 20 minutes.

It was good. I was impressed because of how much it could relate to facts from my information and pull them in.

We talked generally about some trends. Then the AI provided me with AI generated content for me to critique.

It was slow and didn't quite have that flow yet. It was a little repetitive in that it said on numerous occasions, thank you for clarifying that for me, quite in the way that a human would.

Just seeing how far that's gotten, I think we're going to see more and more of that. That can be applied to school settings too. If you're doing tutoring, you could do the same thing, same style, but with tutoring.

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For many people who hear AI tutoring, they're just imagining a chatbot experience, like maybe the student can press play and hear the words read aloud, but it's not its primary way of engaging with that student.

I love that experience that you've had and sharing that with us because it shows a real world context where it might be right in that AI tutoring area and maybe some of these things that we think we know what they mean are going to evolve.

Many of us have had experience with those chatbots, particularly in travel mode, when you call them and your flight was canceled and they tell you what the other options are.

I am geeky enough to know that was all programmed in the background years ago.

That was programmed in the background and somebody had said, if this flight's canceled, go to this list and look at these flights.

We're moving away from that. It's no longer programmed in the background. It's going to look at information but the answer is not in a flow chart type method like it was before.

That's what chatbots were originally written as, sort of a flow chart. If then, if this doesn't work, try that.

Now it's just so different how it can say, hmm, you mentioned plants, let's talk about photosynthesis. It's not because the flowchart says go there now, there's a logical connection.

That trend has got to seep into what's happening in education.

That's a huge shift, particularly for AI tutoring, which is an area of focus for a lot of schools and districts, whether they have a budget for supplemental tutoring or are making recommendations to families.

They're finding this tutoring component built into something they've already subscribed to or purchased for their district and deciding if that kind of AI is okay for their students.

From an instructional planning side, you mentioned lesson plan components and communication. How do you see AI tools changing day-to-day instructional planning for teachers by the end of 2026?

It's certainly going to allow teachers to be more personalized. There's a lot of ways now that we're going to be able to personalize.

Some of that personalization may be for individual students, but it also may be for the geography you teach in or maybe for a whole class, making it more relevant to something happening in the community or in February or whatever.

I really think there's going to be so much there to make that a much more custom experience.

That's going to be an adjustment to teachers on how they track that and manage it. It becomes more of a managerial function, not just knowing the content or the best way to teach phonics or explain mathematics.

It's about how you manage this group of people that are your students who want to learn a certain thing. They're going to become more managers of information, and I think that's going to be a trend and a change we see happening.

You alluded to personalized learning, the promise we've heard so much about in ed tech over the past two decades.

This may be that technology.

One thing I often say when working with groups is we're watching the scaling that's taking place. How can I scale this thing that I have always done or know is important but now maybe do at a higher rate, whatever that might mean.

We think about teachers and the new skills or understandings they need to keep pace with these AI trends we'll see over the course of the year.

I go back and forth on how much they definitely need AI literacy. What is it and what is it not?

I tend to go, let me tell you how it started and look at how it works. I'm not sure if that's necessary but at some level it is.

Just like when ChatGPT first came on the scene and we had to know it was not looking at the whole internet or current information. That was a critical piece.

You didn't really need to know how the information was scraped and cleaned up, but there's this literacy that is a skill they're going to have to have.

Part of that literacy is knowing where there are biases and how to address those.

We're still moving, as with all educational technology, to the creation phase, and that may be more problematic.

Teachers really need to learn and know how to teach about finding errors and hallucinations.

I've done a lot of my work with text-based content areas, STEM related for me, where I have a depth of understanding.

I've realized how I ask questions in a certain way because I have that depth of understanding.

Now I've started using AI for a random thing where I have a bunch of old postcards from food and agriculture.

I thought I ought to do a write-up or blog talking about these postcards.

I've started taking pictures of them, giving them to AI and saying, tell me about this postcard.

They're postcards so they obviously have some information on the back, but the AI is totally making up things.

It's saying there's a quote in the image when there is none or giving me a name of a person who didn't take the picture.

It has accuracies, which is the scary part because I can believe it.

It was taken in the 50s in France, but that wasn't the person.

That's going to be hard for teachers, students, and all of us to figure out, particularly when we move into areas where we don't have a core understanding.

Then how do we know what's right and what's made up?

That's when we talk about what skills everyone should have, particularly those introducing tools to students or sharing strategies with them.

That's a crucial component, understanding how these tools are changing and what their limitations are.

Anything moving quickly, like AI in general and AI in education, can be hard to feel like we know what's new one day versus the next.

Where do you go to stay up to date about AI in general and AI in education more specifically?

I'm a big reader and I go to several books. I'm interested a lot in the why, not so much the tools.

There's a wonderful book called Unmasking AI that talks a lot about bias. It's a memoir with a very personal experience.

I'm reading one now called The Coming Wave, talking about the intersection of biology, medical science, and AI. It's a little scary but good to read.

There are some other good books that are more how-to focused for teachers to pull tools into their classrooms.

Wired Magazine is great if you're a techie geek and want to know about the direction of technology. They have whole issues on AI.

I like to look at how AI has been used in other fields because it shows where things are coming from.

I'm particularly intrigued by how AI is being used in the creative industries because that parallels schools in terms of the creative process in writing and the implications.

There are educational conferences as well where I get some information. They have networking opportunities so it's not just me reading or thinking about it but talking about it, which pushes me to think differently.

That's perfect. We'll link out to those for anyone listening. Unmasking AI you recommended to me a couple of years ago and I referenced it a lot in conversations on bias and what it looks like behind the scenes with some of these tools.

That's a great read and digestible, which sometimes tech books can feel heavy.

Julie, this has been such a great conversation unpacking some of the trends and what you're seeing and anticipating in this space.

For people who want to connect with you and learn more about your work, we'll link everything out, but if you could shout it out for someone on the move today listening, that would be great.

The best place to find me is LinkedIn. My name is Julie Willcott, with two L's and two T's, a little different spelling, so you can find me quickly.

I have a detailed CV on there so you can see some of the things I've done in the past. I look forward to connecting with people.

I'll be at South by Southwest and if anyone sees this and wants to continue the conversation, I'd love to connect there as well.

Perfect. I'll make sure to link out to all of those things. Julie, thank you so much for your time and for unpacking this big topic with us today.

Sure. It's great to talk.

It was so much fun chatting with Julie today. Let's finish up with a few key points for today's episode.

AI has become deeply embedded in everyday teaching and learning far faster than past ed tech.

A growing trend is AI-generated lesson plans being vetted by human experts, signaling a more balanced human-in-the-loop approach.

Conversational AI is improving quickly, opening the door for more realistic AI tutoring experiences that go beyond text-based interactions.

To stay current, educators can combine reading, conversations, conferences, and looking across industries, not just relying on a single source.

Remember, you can find the show notes and links to learn more about Julie Willcott's work wherever you're listening to this episode.

Such a fun conversation, such an important topic, and she's a great person to stay connected with.

A big thank you to Jotform, the presenter of today's episode.

To learn more about Jotform and how educational institutions can get a 30% discount on Jotform Enterprise, head to jotform.com/enterprise/education.