A new episode of EduCast3000 drops July 14, and this one asks a question edtech hasn't had to answer before: what happens to interoperability when the user isn't human?
Ryan Lufkin and Melissa Loble sit down with Mike Mast, Principal Group Program Manager for Microsoft Education and a 1EdTech board member, and Zach Pendleton, Chief Architect at Instructure, to work through what AI agents actually change about the tools educators and students already use. The starting point is a real shift: when the client is an agent rather than a person, agents can learn new vocabularies and reason across different systems on their own. The hard part moves from rigid data schemas to giving agents genuine semantic understanding of a course. Mast points to Canvas by Instructure and its Smart Search beta as one of the few early examples of that idea in practice. Pendleton makes the case that none of this replaces the open standards edtech already runs on.
Then the conversation gets to the part that keeps Pendleton up at night: as actions move further from the person who set the goal, how do we keep people in authority? The two dig into delegated authorization and consent, audit trails, the gap between what AI can do and what we want it to do, and who carries the cost when an automated tool gets it wrong.
About EduCast3000
Ah, education… a world filled with mysterious marvels. From K12 to Higher Ed, educational change and innovation are everywhere — and with that comes a few lessons, too. Each episode, EduCast3000 hosts break down the fourth wall and reflect on what's happening in education: the good, the bad, and, in some cases, the just plain chaotic. If you're passionate about the educational system and want timely, honest commentary on the industry, this is your show.
🎧 Listen and subscribe on Spotify — or wherever you get your podcasts.
Join the conversation
We've always worked with unpredictable systems in education, we just call them students and teachers. What's the difference, for you, between trusting a person to improvise and trusting software to do it? Drop your answer in the comments and hit "I'm interested" so we know who's tuning in on July 14!