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Tests Show AI *Can* Design Like an Expert Instructional Designer, So What Next?
Philippa Hardman, Dr Phil's Newsletter, 2026/10/15

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A few weeks ago Philippa Hardman tested Articulate's Frontline and concluded AI models have "learned what design artefacts look like, but not the design reasoning and decision making." But is this true? This time, Hardman applies the test on Frontier models. The setup: she defines what 'good' instructional design looks like and describes a potential training scenario that includes a series of tasks the AI should perform. The result: "the two best AI models designed like expert or experienced instructional designers... Both were able to work out what was really causing a problem, advised against training when it wasn't the answer, chose the right approach and planned how to measure whether it worked." That doesn't mean it was perfect. "Factual acuracy varies a lot from one model to the next (and) none of the models I tested reliably stood by their own advice." 

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Designing for Agency and Critical AI Literacy
DoctorY, #LTHEchat, 2026/10/15

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This article provides a fairly comprehensive overview of the Peer and AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) model for teaching with AI. The first paragraph advertises an upcoming event, then the rest of the article describes the model. "Once students have written a first draft of a major assignment, they complete peer review workshops in class... Students then get AI feedback on their draft and chat with the AI about it. This can work on various platforms, but currently we use MyEssayFeedback, a not-for-profit platform." The AI feedback can be tailored in different ways. For example, The Reader-Response Prompt "describes strengths and areas for consideration in terms of how a human reader might respond," while The Criteria-Based Prompt "centres three to four direct suggestions for improvement." 

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A Conversation with Reed Hastings on AI, Education, and the Future of Learning
Alex Sarlin, 2026/10/15

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A wide-ranging conversation with Netflix Co-Founder Reed Hastings "on AI tutors, the future of teaching, and why he thinks school should feel more like a conversation." A sample: "Within two or three years, just as we three are having a conversation, there'll be an AI avatar on this podcast with a humanoid form on the screen, and it's just a normal conversation, but with an extremely intelligent AI. The tutoring won't come from specific intelligences. It'll come from the general intelligence of AI being that much better."

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Researchers left a hidden message for rogue AI agents. Then the agents wrote back.
Amanda Caswell, The New Stack, 2026/10/15

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This article features a trick used by researchers to get rogue agents to contact them for help, thus exposing their activities. "The agents wrote back, revealing their tasks, sandbox and limits." The interesting part, to my mind, is the description of techniques used by the agents. It struck me as I read this that in the pre-AI days humans would be doing much the same things. The difference today is that now anyone can do this, and they're doing it for much more mundane tasks.

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Do Asynchronous Courses Need Synchronous Sessions to Succeed?
Natalya Hierholzer, Online Learning Consortium, 2026/10/15

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So the answer here, which is never clearly stated, is "no". That's not to say synchronous sessions are without value. "Live sessions, real-time conversations, orientations, guest speakers, and collaborative meetings can support connection, clarification, and engagement." But for many people, especially if they are a surprise addition to a course, or not tied directly to the course goals, or arbitrarily made mandatory, they can act as a barrier. My own approach has always been to include synchronous activities, because of the value, but to be sure to fully record them, so nobody misses out. 

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Identity Passport Specification v0.1
Peter Alexander, Identity Passport, 2026/10/15

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This is an abstract identity and authority model and one-target resolution semantics for an Identity Passport. It's detailed opaque and it doesn't have a working implementation behind it. It's an outcome of the now (apparently) defunct Aardworlf project, which was intended to be a federated version of Facebook (you can still find some forks online). "The draft separates five questions: who authenticated, which Account association is current, which exact identity is targeted, whether this operation is authorized now, and what the consumer may learn." I'm not sure this will go anywhere, but it's going in the right direction. The fediverse needs to start with identity first, platforms (if ever) later.

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We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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