Week in Edtech 10/7/26: Cambridge’s AI Teaching Report, Brighteye’s New Fund III Strategy & Raspberry Pi’s AI Literacy for All

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Ben Kornell (0:24)

There's a lot of different approaches to AI, AI literacy, education integration with AI. Right now, in the US, we're dealing with certain districts doing bans or moratoriums, and I also think there's some challenge of differentiating between hands-on AI literacy projects versus what is actually AI integrated into kind of learning surfaces, too.

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Hello, Edtech Insider listeners. I'm here today with Evelina Galaczi, Director of Research, English, at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, where she leads research in English learning, teaching, and assessment. With over 35 years in education, her work focuses on AI's challenges and opportunities for learners and educators. She is the lead author of the new report, Shaping AI Policy and Practice in English Language Teaching, which sets out key principles for effective AI integration in schools. Thank you for making this report. We're going to dive in on that. And we also have Ana Petersen, a language educator in Florida with extensive experience teaching teenagers and adults in higher education. She teaches at Seminole State College and leads an online school in Brazil. An English studies specialist, she explores AI and emerging technologies to enhance learning. Evelina, Ana, welcome to the pod.

Evelina Galaczi (2:32)

Thank you, Ben. It's lovely to be here.

Ben Kornell (2:35)

Before we dive in, maybe Evelina, can you just talk a little bit about your journey and how you ended up kind of diving into research and then focusing on language and English learning? And then now with AI, just tell us how you got here.

Evelina Galaczi (2:49)

I was an international student doing my degrees in the States and I ended up after that in Cambridge, England, working research in teaching and assessment. And I've always been fascinated by new technologies because they don't automatically mean that they're going to make learning better and teacher's jobs better. So AI and Genia especially are powerful, incredibly sophisticated, exciting technologies, but with massive risks. And that in itself really piqued my interest into getting more involved in that area, both conceptually, but also practically working with people like Ana, who do this day in, day out in their classrooms.

Ben Kornell (3:26)

Yeah. Awesome. Ana, I'm a former middle school English teacher. So the both of you are speaking my language pun intended. Ana, tell us a little bit about your journey and also so interesting that you also lead an online school in Brazil. Tell us a little bit about your work and how it's led you to this intersection of AI and English learning.

Ana Petersen (3:46)

Yeah. So thank you, Ben, for having me and for having us. It's really a great pleasure.

I've been teaching English as a second language for the past 32 years. It all started with my own school in Brazil, then pandemic hit, the school went online, and we had this opportunity to move, which had nothing to do with me. Actually, it was my husband who had a job offer for us to move to the US., but then it all worked out, and I just took my school to the online format during the pandemic, and things just simply fell into place. Here, I've worked with the University of Central Florida.

That's where the connection with Evelina came. But Cambridge has been a partner of my school in Brazil since forever, so we've always been connected from the University of Central Florida. I came to Seminole State College, and at Seminole State College, which is the same actually of UCF, we teach international students. So students from absolutely all parts of the world. This week, we have just hosted a student from Algeria. So it is as big as you can possibly imagine, and as vast as you can possibly imagine, because we have all sorts of realities. And the technology integration is part of our classroom all the time. Like it or not, accept it or not, it is here. So this is the moment we are living in.