Archive • SAIL: Sensemaking AI Learning • Buttondown

SAIL: Only now matters, New Tools, Wellness

June 27, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on higher education and AI. Herbert A. Simon said that information consumes attention....

SAIL: Agents (still), Are we getting realistic?

June 20, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I look at trends that impact higher education. AI and Learning Software is Changing (Again). I...

SAIL: The Backlash, On Device AI, A gentle singularity

June 12, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on higher education and AI. The conversation around AI is accelerating regarding its...

SAIL: Meeker AI Trends, Fluency, Model Use, Data Centers

June 6, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on AI’s impact on higher education. I’m a broken record on this, but universities need...

SAIL: Jobs. Beingness.

May 30, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I explore AI’s impact on higher education. The future of work will be substantively and...

SAIL: It's a Leadership Thing, All the Announcements, Environmental impact

May 22, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on AI’s impact on higher education. AI and Education: What should Boards, Presidents,...

SAIL: AI & Human Development, Pope, AI Tutors

May 9, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on AI and higher education. AI & Learning The effect of ChatGPT on students’ learning...

SAIL: Learning Design?, AI Timeline, Future Automated Company

May 5, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on AI’s impact on higher education. AI and Education I’ve mentioned before that the cost...

SAIL: Transmutation, Assessment, Robots

May 2, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on how AI impacts higher education. For people even adjacently interested in AI, we’ve...

April 25, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on AI’s impact on higher education. AI’s longer term impact on higher education is...

SAIL: Students, Life Coach, Agents

April 20, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on AI’s impact on higher education. AI can do many discrete knowledge tasks well -...

April 11, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on AI and higher education. I was at the ASU-GSV conference this past week. This is...

SAIL: Agents, Mental Health

April 3, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I look at trends and impacts of AI on higher education. The AI hypescape is vibrant, with the...

SAIL: AI Products, America still winning, Call for Papers, Agents

March 27, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I look at how AI impacts higher education. Building capacity and skill in developing AI...

SAIL: GenAI and Feedback, Loneliness,Jobs, AI and LMS

March 22, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I review AI trends that impact higher education. AI & Education What is happening in the...

SAIL: How to use LLMs, Robots, Voice, MCP, Vibe Coding

March 15, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I look at the trends in AI that have implications for higher education. This week, I’m...

SAIL: AI & Science, Higher Education Landscape

February 19, 2025

February 19, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on AI’s impact on higher education. I’m preparing for a talk next week to a board...

SAIL: Halted Innovation

February 14, 2025

Feb 13, 2025 Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on how AI impacts higher education. The last time I saw as much daily innovation, new...

SAIL: Jobs and things we should learn

February 11, 2025

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on how AI impacts higher education. We’ve been hearing for years that AI will destroy jobs. Frey and...

SAIL: Understanding LLMs, Learning as Struggle

February 6, 2025

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I explore AI trends that impact higher education. AI and Learning Deep Dive into LLMs Like ChatGPT. If you...

SAIL: Critical thinking, More DeepSeek

January 31, 2025

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus on how AI advances impact higher education. What does innovation with AI look like in universities?...

SAIL: Systems, but still about those agents

January 26, 2025

Welcome to sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). I focus mainly on AI advancement that might impact higher education. While there is growing interest in how...

SAIL: Agents, Agents, Agents

January 7, 2025

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). Likely no trend in AI will be more substantive this year than agents. After significant advancement in the...

SAIL: Gearing up for 2025

January 3, 2025

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). The last year has been hectic on the AI advancement front, accelerating in December as Google (DeepMind) and...

SAIL: OpenAI needs adult supervision, Nvidia nails it, Tutors, LearnLM, Jobs

Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) AI is facing increased reckoning from regulatory interests, with EU leading. In the land of significant freedom, OpenAI...

SAIL: Data consortium, All of Life, Context Windows, GPT-4o, AI and Deception

Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) Hi all, There’s an important conversation happening in AI that was reflected in a short exchange I had on a panel last...

SAIL: Kendrick is winning, AI agents, Elections, AI & Nukes

Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL).May 6, 2024 Agents are all the rage. Russell & Norvig describe agents as something that can perceive and act in an...

SAIL: Self-promotion, Meta AI, Social Science, Vectors, Databases

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) - a “when I feel like it” newsletter on AI and learning. I’m learning to be better. Last week I spent time at...

SAIL: Agents, LLMs, Transformers, Attention, Data

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). My goal with the newsletter is to share, for mainly the higher education sector, trends that matter in AI....

SAIL: AI & Education Groundhog's day

November 16, 2023

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL), a regular look at how AI is impacting education and learning. Over the last year, after dozens of...

SAIL: Broadening Learning, ELAI, Safetey, Regulation

November 4, 2023

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL), a regular look at how AI is impacting learning. Our education system has a uni-dimensional focus: learning...

SAIL: ELAI recordings, AI Safety, Near term AI/learning

October 27, 2023

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). A regular look at how AI is impacting learning. We held our fourth online Empowering Learners for the Age of...

SAIL: Online AI & Learning Conference (free). Also, Intentionally Play with AI Everyday

October 19, 2023

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL), a regular review of things related to AI and learning. Our 4th annual "Empowering Learners for the Age of...

SAIL: SNHU, AI Ed Conference, State of AI

August 29, 2023

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). This is a regular newsletter that tracks AI trends through the lens of education. I have a quasi-...

SAIL: AI Policy, Top Startups, ChatGPT Use Drops

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) - a (usually) weekly look at AI in education and learning. The last few months have seen a bit of a slowdown...

SAIL: State of Research: AI & Education

The state of AI and education research is proceeding briskly and only expected to accelerate if it matches the hype trend lines of big tech and AI. The USA...

SAIL: Universal Knowledge Engine

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) a regular look at how AI impacts education. We don't have many search engines. Most people use Google. Some...

SAIL: What's left for humans?

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) a regular look at how AI is impacting education. I'm in Anaheim for the ELI conference. I have a talk...

SAIL: Networks are the rule of day, but with costs

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) a regular look at how AI advances impact education. In a conversation today, I was reminded of a paper that...

SAIL: We're not doing ok.

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) - a regular look at what's happening in AI and what that means to education. Postman, Ellul, McLuhan - these...

SAIL: The vision can be realized

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) a weekly+ look at AI and its impact on education. What's the best new idea in education that you've...

SAIL: We should all be AI-first

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL), a regular look at AI's impact on education and learning. Over the last several decades, we've seen...

SAIL: AI hype and the reality of systems change

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning - a look at AI and its ongoing impact on education. I have a good friend and colleague who is a linguist. This can...

SAIL: AI is the only thing

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL)- a look at the trends and technologies impacting education. In numerous meetings with university leadership,...

SAIL: Change vs Becoming, AI Lecture Series

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) - a focus on how AI impacts teaching, learning, and education. Many years ago, I started doing talks on the...

SAIL: Two paths; AI as addon. AI as transformative

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL) a (twice?) weekly look at what's happening with AI and how that might impact learning and education. The last...

SAIL: Getting to educational impact

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL): a weekly look at AI trends and technologies. I'm at ASU-GSV Summit in San Diego this week. Hardly surprising...

SAIL: Everything changes

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning - a weekly look at general AI trends and educational impact. Anyone in the education sector has experienced "next-...

SAIL: AI Index, Future of Education, Survey of LLMs, Italy doesn't like CGPT

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning - a weekly look at AI trends and trajectories and their impact on learning and education. Since the founding of AI...

SAIL: All AI, In Everything, Learning Co-Pilot

Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL). Education as a system has been slow to respond to the rather significant opportunities of generative AI...