AIxEd[Connect] MAY 8 & 9

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AIxEd[CONNECT]

Join 2,000+ educators, administrators, students, and innovators this May 8th and 9th for the premier gathering of the AI in the education community. Hear from leaders and discover how AI is transforming teaching, learning, and institutional excellence.

Registration is FREE FOR ALL- thanks to our sponsors!

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[CONNECT] MAY 8 Schedule

[CONNECT] MAY 9 Schedule

[CONNECT]

TRACKS

EXPERT
SESSIONS

AI in Education Focus
Deep-Dive Sessions

UPskilling
LAB

Back-to-Back Sessions on
AI Fundamentals

DEMO

[Demo Sessions]
Throughout Both Days

EXPO

The heart of AIxEd[Connect], where innovation meets implementation.

PROGRAM PROGRAM PROGRAM PROGRAM

Kristi Girdharry & Erik Noyes

Community Before Compliance: Co-Learning in the Age of AI

We've seen institutions often defaulting to unclear rules and restrictions that can lead to confusion and even division. This session considers an alternative path: beginning with community. Drawing on the experience of launching an interdisciplinary AI initiative called "The Generator" at Babson College, we will explore how faculty leadership, student engagement, and institutional alignment can create durable, values-driven responses to AI. This session will offer attendees glimpses into initiatives we have taken on from a community-first perspective. Examples include an AI Teaching Training program, the development of new courses, research support, and community engagement initiatives. The session will include space for participant thought and dialogue about what community-building might look like in their own contexts with particular attention to the issue of resources.

Dan Serig

AI in the Doctoral Journey: How Students and Faculty Are Rethinking Research

This panel brings together doctoral students and faculty to examine how AI tools are reshaping the research process — from literature review and data analysis to writing and defense preparation. Anchored by findings from Dan Serig’s longitudinal study tracking doctoral students through the GenAI era, panelists will share firsthand accounts of integrating AI into their scholarly work, discuss the evolving expectations around originality and rigor, and explore what it means to develop researcher identity when AI is a constant collaborator. The session is designed for faculty, graduate program directors, and anyone guiding the next generation of researchers.

Pelin Bicen

SAIL in Action: Teaching First-Year Business Students AI Literacy Through a Real Client Challenge

This session presents a replicable model for integrating AI into undergraduate business education using the SAIL Framework (Social Intelligence, AI Literacy, Innovation/Inquiry, Leadership). It will walk through a first-year course project where students partnered with the Boston Globe on a multicultural marketing challenge. The course requires AI use and includes structured training on AI tools before students apply them to client research, audience analysis, and strategy development. The audience will leave with a practical framework and specific design principles for embedding AI literacy into experiential, client-based courses.

Gamze Yilmaz

AI as Co-Intelligence: A Pedagogical Framework for Assignment Redesign

As AI rapidly enters the college classroom without adequate pedagogical guidance, instructors face a critical challenge: How to incorporate intentional AI use into student learning so that it complements rather than replaces students’ critical thinking. To address this challenge, this session will introduce the AI as co-intelligence framework, a pedagogical redesign approach that positions students as domain experts who must guide AI using dialogic prompting to complete a class project. Applicable across disciplines, the framework provides a model for AI-enhanced assignments by guiding students to build AI literacy, engage critically with course content, and reflect on their thinking processes. Attendees will leave with a concrete approach for designing assignments that make AI use purposeful and academically rigorous.

Jeffrey Fiske & Peter Shea

Muzzy Lane Presents

AI Resilient Roleplay Assessments

Assessment loses its value when an LLM can do it for the student at a passing standard. When it comes to formative assessments and ensuring students actually ‘do the work’, role-play & simulation-based assessments are proven methods that are underutilized in higher education. AI has removed the cost and time barriers associated with creating high-quality roleplay and assessments, but it has also flooded the market with tools that are hard to evaluate without a framework. Leave the session with a practical framework for evaluating these tools against the logistical constraints before you fall in love with a demo.

Can Erbil

Socratic AI: Adaptive Oral Assessments, AI-Driven Conversations, and Pedagogy in the Classroom

This session presents a field-tested approach to AI-driven, adaptive oral assessments deployed in a 300-student introductory economics course at Boston College, in partnership with Professor.io. Students engage in short, structured Socratic conversations with an AI trained on course materials, yielding ~94% completion rates, significantly higher exam scores, and concept-level analytics that enable targeted, personalized outreach before exams. The core message is about augmentation rather than automation: thoughtfully deployed AI can scale the kind of individualized dialogue once limited to small seminars, and this talk shares assignment frameworks, adaptive prompt examples, real student transcripts, and reflections on aligning AI with human-centered teaching.

Luke Hobson

Build, Design, Transform: A Hands-On Guide to Gen AI in Online Education

AI is reshaping higher education—but knowing where to start is half the battle. In this hands-on session, we'll cut through the noise and explore how generative AI can practically transform teaching, instructional design, and the student experience. Together, we'll dig into real-world learning strategies using tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Notebook LM, etc. Whether you're just getting started or ready to push your practice further, you'll leave with practical takeaways, fresh ideas, and a clear picture of what's next—so you and your institution can stay ahead of the curve.

Peter Shea, Tiffany Kim, Lance Eaton, Julia Stanly Flores Steve Covello, Ruth Slotnick, Allan Glass

AI and the Future of Higher Education: A Panel Discussion

A panel of higher education professionals from varied roles will discuss how AI is reshaping teaching, learning, student support, administration, and workforce preparation across today’s colleges and universities.

Dan Be Kim & Carrie James

A Participatory Design Workshop Hosted By The Center For Digital Thriving At Harvard University

"THE AI TO Z WORKSHOP is a participatory design experience developed by the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard Graduate School of Education. In it, a diverse group of people come together to name the often-invisible ways AI is reshaping culture, relationships, and everyday human experience. Using simple materials (index cards, Sharpies, and conversation protocols), participants surface and coin terms for phenomena we're living through but don't yet have words for. In previous workshops, we’ve come up with provisional terms like Chatplomacy, Expectation Explosion, Human Signaling, Why Botherism. The act of naming these things is an intervention in itself, making cultural shifts visible and giving us shared language to talk about them. But the process does something more than diagnose the present. By creating new language together, we begin to see what's changing with more clarity. And with that clarity comes the agency to choose how we relate to it, the hope that comes from knowing we're not alone, and the beginning of a shared vision for a future we actually want to move toward."

Asher Scott

Critical AI Literacy in Practice: A Case Study from NYC Public Schools

Most AI literacy frameworks stop at "understand the technology." This session argues that's not nearly enough, and presents a case study from New Visions for Public Schools to show what a fuller approach looks like. The framework introduces two missing dimensions: market literacy (who built this tool and how does their business model shape it?) and self-literacy (do you know your values well enough to notice when AI is shifting them?). Participants go through the same structured reflection exercise delivered to staff across New Visions and our school partners.

Mike Mendelson

From Curiosity to Capability: What It Means to Go All In on AI

This session is for people who are trying to figure out how seriously to take AI in their work. We’ll look at what it actually means to go “all in” by walking through two real domains: software development and education. Not hypotheticals—what top practitioners in these fields can actually do now because they’ve fully embraced AI. Then we’ll shift gears. Instead of just talking about it, we’ll run a short, structured, hands-on exercise that helps you feel how AI works and how to use it more effectively. By the end, you should have a much clearer sense of: - What “full adoption” looks like in practice - What you might be missing right now - Whether going deeper with AI is worth it for you

Ozgur Yogurtcu

Build Software with Claude Code — No Developer Needed

What if you could turn an idea into a working app in 45 minutes — without writing a single line of code? In this hands-on session, you will do exactly that. Starting from a blank folder and a plain-English description of what you want to build, we will use Claude Code to create a fully functional data analysis tool from scratch. You will upload real data, ask questions in plain English, and watch the answers come back as clean, visual reports — all built live in the room. This session is not about understanding AI. It is about using it to build something real. You will leave knowing how to start your own project, how to guide AI to build your idea, and why the gap between having an idea and having working software just got a lot smaller. No technical background required. Just bring a laptop and come, create working software.

Priten Shah

An Ethical Ed Tech Decision-Making Framework For Educators

How educators, administrators, and policymakers can make principled, responsible decisions about AI adoption. Draws on contemporary philosophy (including principlism), political science, and practical case studies to explore trade-offs around equity, privacy, autonomy, trust, and governance. Participants analyze real-world scenarios, apply decision-making frameworks, and leave with actionable strategies for shaping ethical AI policies and practices.

Chris Unger, Deidre Whall, Dan Stowell, Rayna Freedman, Dan MacLeod

The “Jagged Frontier” of AI in K12 Education

AI adoption in k12 education is all over the map – some are doing their best to adopt and integrate it into their classrooms, schools, and districts. And many district leaders are finding it challenging to navigate the various stakeholder concerns and challenges of AI adoption today. Three classroom educators and one local tech director will speak to how the promise and challenges of AI adoption in K12 are showing promise but also spotlight the specific challenges accelerating the possibilities in their schools and school systems.

Ruth Steyn

The Full Stack Learning Designer: Hands-On Workshop

Ever wanted to build an interactive learning experience but got stuck on the technical execution? This hands-on workshop puts you in the role of a full stack learning experience designer. Choose your own topic, get structured guidance and guardrails from Harvard’s LabXchange team, and walk out with a working prototype in 60 minutes. No coding required—just pedagogical thinking and willingness to experiment. Whether you're a practitioner wanting to test ideas faster or a leader curious what modern learning design looks like in practice, you'll see how quickly good ideas can become real experiences.

Ola Ozernov-Palchik, Kathleen Corriveau, Ying Xu

Will AI Tutors Improve Learning or Make It Worse? What Schools and Innovators Should Consider

AI-powered tutoring tools are rapidly entering K to 12 classrooms, yet both schools and innovators are making high-stakes decisions with limited guidance on what actually drives impact. In this 60-minute session, three researchers studying how AI shapes learning in children will present key factors that influence the effectiveness of these technologies, followed by a panel discussion and Q and A. Dr. Ola Ozernov-Palchik will share emerging findings from studies of AI-supported tutoring in early literacy, including ongoing work comparing AI-based and human tutoring and examining how students’ and educators’ perceptions of AI may shape its effectiveness. Dr. Kathleen Courvieu will present research on how children evaluate and decide whether to trust AI systems, and how these perceptions influence their engagement and learning. Dr. Ying Xu will present findings from studies comparing children’s interactions with AI and human partners, highlighting differences in communication, engagement, and emotional expression, and what these differences may mean for learning.

Asher Scott

From Idea to App: A Hands-On Build Session for Educators Who Want to Make Things

Most AI sessions show you a finished product. This one walks you through building one. Using TimeSaveAI as a case study, the session traces the arc from real educator pain point to working AI tool. Then participants do it themselves, picking a problem from their own context, drafting a system prompt, and testing it live. No coding required, just a laptop and a problem worth solving.

Rachel Schechter, Sara Ines Halabi, Justin Cerenzia, Brent Conway

Navigating the Evidence Clearinghouses:

How Educators, Leaders, and Students Are Evaluating AI Tools Before They Buy
Are Evaluating AI Tools Before They Buy

Meg Riordan

Teaching in the Age of AI: Human-Centered Learning x High Quality Tech for the Future of Work

The conversation about AI in education often centers on tools and efficiency. This workshop shifts the focus to a deeper question: How can AI expand human potential and build durable skills that position young people for in-demand careers? Drawing on innovations at The Possible Zone, we will explore how AI can support competency-based learning and stronger teacher-tech-student collaboration. Participants will leave with concrete strategies for using AI to deepen learning.

Laurel Black, Christian Carmody, Vinnie Wengert

From Dependency to Empowerment: Navigating the Paradox of GenAI and Executive Function in K-12

This session explores the paradox of Generative AI in K-12 education: while these tools offer unprecedented efficiency, over-reliance on them for cognitive offloading risks eroding the executive function skills that drive self-directed learning, such as goal-setting, prioritizing, working memory, flexible thinking, and self-monitoring. The presenters propose a dual feedback loop framework in which the interaction between a student's executive function baseline and GenAI use can spiral either into dependency or toward empowerment and self-understanding. Attendees will leave with a clear grasp of the framework and a practical executive function strategy to ensure AI strengthens rather than weakens developing minds in the classroom.

Kishore Aradhya

From Card Catalogs to AI Agents: Your Librarian Was the Original AI Architect

The AI industry is spending billions solving a problem librarians figured out generations ago: organizing knowledge so people can find what they need and trust what they find. Classification hierarchies, controlled vocabularies, disambiguation — these keep showing up under new names like "context engineering," "semantic modeling," and "knowledge graphs." This session connects those familiar principles to the technical architecture underneath modern AI: how large language models process context, how retrieval systems decide what's relevant, and why structured knowledge representation is the difference between AI you can trust and AI that just sounds right. You may never look at your school's librarian the same way again.

Rayna Freedman

Entering The Pitt: Equipping Elementary Classrooms with AI That Works

Step into The Pitt—where high-stakes decisions, quick thinking, and heart define every moment. In today’s elementary classrooms, educators face similar pressures: meeting diverse student needs, managing limited time, and staying current with fast-evolving technology. This session explores how AI can become a trusted partner in the chaos, not a complication.
Join Dr. Rayna Freedman as she shares practical, tested strategies for integrating AI tools that truly work in elementary settings. From lesson planning and differentiation to student engagement and formative assessment, you’ll discover how AI can lighten your workload while amplifying student voice and learning. You’ll leave with classroom-ready tools, examples of student work, and ideas for supporting your staff or grade-level team. Whether you’re an AI beginner or already experimenting, this session will equip you to enter The Pitt with confidence—and maybe even joy.

Cole Collins & Alex Laraia

Build It to Believe It: AI-Powered Rapid Prototyping for Educators

What if turning a teaching idea into a student-ready interactive tool took minutes, not? This hands-on workshop introduces educators to AI-powered rapid prototyping a process that lets anyone, regardless of technical background, transform a teaching concept into a clickable, working prototype using freely available tools. No coding experience required.

Nate Kellogg

Design, Build, Deploy: AI Tools for Real Problems in Education

What if you could walk into a session with a real challenge — and walk out with an AI-powered tool built to address it? In this 90-minute hands-on workshop, participants identify a problem of practice in their school, program, or institution, then design and build a working AI application using Playlab — a platform built by and for educators. No coding required. You'll leave with a functional tool grounded in your context, access to a global community of 25,000+ educators building and sharing AI applications, and a clear understanding of what responsible, effective AI use looks like in education.

Kippy Smith, Akesha Horton, Yousuf Marvi, Anne Fensie

Real Educators Learning AI in Real-Time

Educators today are doing something unprecedented — learning a rapidly evolving, transformational set of skills in real time, on the job, without a hard-and-fast roadmap to follow. In this practitioner-led panel, K-12 educators, education leaders, and higher education faculty share how they are actively building AI fluency for a range of purposes. Panelists will reflect on their own learning process — what approaches have worked, and what hasn't — and draw on those individual experiences to surface insights about what it might take for schools and systems to build collective AI fluency at scale.

David Petty

Computational Action in the Age of AI

The AI challenge to education is unavoidable; it demands new means of assessment to validate student learning; it requires empowering teachers to compromise, diverge, and iterate; while recognizing that digital mimicry cannot substitute for the vital teacher-student relationship. This discussion will approach the "wicked problem" of AI not as an existential crisis, but as a profound opportunity for the evolution of education.

[Speakers] - Expert Sessions

Kristi Girdharry

Babson College

Erik Noyes

Babson College

Pelin Bicen

Suffolk University

Luke Hobson

MIT

Ying Xu

Harvard GSE

Kathleen Courvieu

Boston University

Jeffrey Fiske

Muzzy Lane

Peter Shea

Muzzy Lane

Can Erbil

Boston College

Tiffany Kim

Northeastern University

Lance Eaton

Northeastern University

Julio Stanly Flores

Bunker Hill Community College

Steve Covello

University of New Hampshire

Ruth Slotnick

Bridgewater State University

Allan Glass

Endicott College

Vinnie Wengert

ResearchILD

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Laurel Black

ResearchILD

Christian Carmody

ResearchILD

Dan MacLeod

Northeastern University

Ruth Steyn

LabXchange

Sara Ines Halabi

LXD Research

Justin Cerenzia

Episcopal Academy

Brent Conway

Pentucket School District

Meg Riordan

The Possible Zone

Dan Stowell

Cooperative Middle School

Dee Whall

Cooperative Middle School

Rachel Schechter

LXD Research

Gamze Yilmaz

UMass Boston

Asher Scott

New Visions for Public Schools

Dan Serig

Northeastern University

Chris Unger

Northeastern University

Rayna Freedman

Jordan/Jackson Elementary

Ola Ozernov-Palchik

Boston University / MIT

Rachel Slama

Cornell University

Format:

30-60 minute focused sessions
Extended Q&A and discussion
Opportunity to connect with presenters afterward
Sessions organized by educational level (K-12, higher ed, or both)

AIxEd [CONNECT]

Full [Connect] Expert Sessions full agenda and schedules will be published in April 2026.

Space is limited - get your tickets now!

[Speakers] - UPskilling LAB

Dan Be Kim

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Carrie James

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Rayna Freedman

Jordan /Jackson

Elementary

Kishore Aradhya

Frontdoor, Inc

Northeastern University

Asher Scott

New Visions for Public Schools

Akesha Horton

Indiana University Bloomington

Yousuf Marvi

Sierra Vista Middle School

Anne Fensie

University of Maine at Presque Isle

Cole Collins

Crafting Tomorrow

Alex Laraia

Crafting Tomorrow

Kippy Smith

sideby.ai

Mike Mendelson

sideby.ai

David Petty

App Inventor Foundation

Ozgur Yogurtcu

HelioCampus

Priten Shah

PedagogyVentures

Nate Kellogg

Playlab.ai

Format:

45 minute interactive sessions
Hands-on practice with real tools
Beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels clearly marked
Participants receive session resources and follow-up materials when possible

Full [Connect] UPskill LAB schedule will be published in April 2026. Space is limited.

[Connect] DEMO

[Demo Sessions]
Throughout Both Days

AIxEd [CONNECT]

Live demonstrations and presentations from companies, non-profit organizations, and academic institutions showcasing their innovative approaches to AI in education.
Session Types:

Product launches and feature demonstrations
Case studies from successful implementations
Research findings and academic insights
Platform comparisons and decision frameworks
Future trends and emerging technologies

[Connect] EXPO

The heart of AIxEd[Connect], where innovation meets implementation. Explore exhibitor tables featuring:

AI-powered learning platforms and tools for classroom instruction
Administrative solutions for student services, enrollment, and operations
Assessment and analytics platforms for data-driven decision making
Content creation tools that leverage AI for curriculum development
Accessibility solutions making education more inclusive
Professional development platforms for educator upskilling
Student engagement tools and interactive learning technologies

AIxEd [CONNECT]

What to expect

Hands-on product demonstrations
One-on-one conversations with solution providers
Side-by-side comparisons of different approaches
Personalized recommendations based on your specific needs
Live Q&A with product experts
Special offers and exclusive AIxEd event pricing

Pro Tip: The exhibition hall is open continuously, so you can explore between sessions at your own pace.

[

AIxEd[CONNECT]

]

[CONNECT] MAY 8 Schedule

[CONNECT] MAY 9 Schedule

[CONNECT]

TRACKS

EXPERT SESSIONS

AI in Education Focus Deep-Dive Sessions

UPskilling LAB

Back-to-Back Sessions on AI Fundamentals

DEMO

[Demo Sessions] Throughout Both Days

EXPO

The heart of AIxEd[Connect], where innovation meets implementation.

PROGRAM PROGRAM PROGRAM PROGRAM

Kristi Girdharry & Erik Noyes

Dan Serig

Pelin Bicen

Gamze Yilmaz

Jeffrey Fiske & Peter Shea

Can Erbil

Luke Hobson

Peter Shea, Tiffany Kim, Lance Eaton, Julia Stanly Flores Steve Covello, Ruth Slotnick, Allan Glass

[Speakers] - Expert Sessions

Format:

AIxEd [CONNECT]

[Speakers] - UPskilling LAB

Format:

[Connect] DEMO

[Demo Sessions] Throughout Both Days

AIxEd [CONNECT]

[Connect] EXPO

The heart of AIxEd[Connect], where innovation meets implementation. Explore exhibitor tables featuring:

AIxEd [CONNECT]

What to expect

EXPERT
SESSIONS

AI in Education Focus
Deep-Dive Sessions

UPskilling
LAB

Back-to-Back Sessions on
AI Fundamentals

[Demo Sessions]
Throughout Both Days

[Demo Sessions]
Throughout Both Days