GUEST PODCAST: EdTechnical Series 5 Episode 4
Author
This season EdTech founder Libby Hills and AI researcher Owen Henkel continue to speak with leading researchers, practitioners and educators on the EdTechnical podcast series about the cutting edge of AI in education. They will break down complex AI concepts into non-technical insights to better understand what the research says and help educators sift the useful insights from the AI hype.
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.
“It’s important to pick the right tool for the right aspect of the learning experience.”
Owen Henkel
Bios
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
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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