EdTechSR Ep 363: AI Upgrades, Privacy Tradeoffs

EdTech Situation Room by Jason Neiffer and Wes Fryer

Welcome to episode 363 (“AI Upgrades, Privacy Tradeoffs”) of the EdTech Situation Room from November 12, 2025, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) unpack OpenAI’s pushback against a court order that would expose 20 million user chats in the New York Times lawsuit, and what that means for “private” AI conversations in schools and beyond. They explore GPT-5.1’s new “personalities,” emerging competitors like DeepSeek and Mistral, and the complex tradeoffs between powerful new models, copyright, and training data ethics. The conversation turns to Google’s latest moves with Gemini agents, AI “Workspace flows,” NotebookLM for Students, and Canva’s expanding AI features, all framed as tools that can act as thought partners rather than shortcuts for learners. Wes and Jason also dig into media literacy practices like hyperlinked student writing, keeping AI chat logs for transparency, and reclaiming news feeds with trusted voices instead of doomscrolling social media. Rounding things out, they touch on FBI efforts to unmask the operator of Archive.today, a CRISPR-powered attempt to revive an ancient gene to treat gout, and their Geeks of the Week: rolling your own AI-powered email with Thunderbird/ThunderAI and experimenting with StreamYard’s new multi-aspect-ratio streaming setup, plus a webinar on AI superprompts and “The Anxious Generation.” Our show was live-streamed and archived on YouTube Live via StreamYard.com and auto-archived to YouTube. We are now publishing from Substack too! Subscribe to us with your favorite podcast listening app, or directly on or https://www.youtube.com/@edtechSR. Follow our EdTechSR page on Facebook, mastodon.education/@edtechsr on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All show notes are available at edtechSR.com/links.

🔗 Links We Discussed

* OpenAI Fights Order To Hand Over 20 Million Private ChatGPT Conversations (Ars Technica, 12 Nov 2025)

* Can I Upload That? AI, Copyright, and Our Classrooms (TCEA, Miguel Guhlin, 3 Nov 2025)

* Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI

* OpenAI Walks a Tricky Tightrope With GPT-5.1’s Eight New Personalities (Ars Technica, 12 Nov 2025)

* https://aiinside.show/

* Google’s New AI Studio Vibe Coding Push: Create Full-Stack Apps in a Weekend (Geeky Gadgets, 7 Nov 2025)

* NotebookLM for Students

* YouTube’s AI Power-Up: How We Got Even More Helpful This Year (YouTube Blog, 12 Dec 2024)

* AI and Learning: A New Chapter for Students and Educators (Google Blog, 6 Nov 2023)

* Guided Learning in Gemini: From Answers to Understanding (Google Blog, 6 Aug 2025)

* Google Gemini’s New AI Agent Upgrade is INSANE! (Automate Tasks Across Google) (YouTube)

* A New Chinese AI Model Claims To Outperform GPT-5 and Sonnet 4.5 – and It’s Free (ZDNet, 7 Nov 2025)

* https://www.deepseek.com/ (don’t use the Deep Seek App…)

* https://chat.z.ai/

* https://www.quinengine.com/

* https://www.kimi.com/en/

* https://lmarena.ai/

* From France, $60 per year for educators: https://chat.mistral.ai/chat

* Canva Keynote 2025: The Imagination Era (1.5 hours)

* The FBI Is Trying to Unmask the Registrar Behind Archive.Today (Gizmodo, 7 Nov 2025)

* Scientists Revive an Ancient Human Gene That Could Help Cure Gout (SciTechDaily, 9 Nov 2025)

* Wes’ Geeks of the Week: Streamyard MARS (Multi-aspect-ratio Streaming) - I Want You to Understand Chicago - Reclaiming Our News Feeds - 17 Nov Webinar: AI Superprompts and “The Anxious Generation”

* Jason’s Geek of the Week: Roll Your Own AI Email with Thunderbolt and ThunderAI

🧭 Links We Did NOT Discuss

* Inside the Data Centers That Train A.I. and Drain the Electrical Grid (The New Yorker, 27 Oct 2025)

* Yes, LLMs Can Be Better at Search (Mike Caulfield Substack, 10 May 2025)

* Sam Altman Served With Subpoena While Onstage at AI Safety Forum

* Apple and WhatsApp Targeted With Spyware by Israeli Firm Paragon (The Guardian, 10 Nov 2025)

* The Last Days of Social Media (Noema, 2 Sep 2025)

* The Panic Over Smartphones Doesn’t Help Teens (The Atlantic, 21 May 2024)

* IKEA Just Announced 21 Smart Home Gadgets — Here’s the Ones I’m Buying (Tom’s Guide, 7 Nov 2025)

Episode 363 is also available on YouTube in two formats: Portrait mode optimized for mobile phones, and Landscape mode optimized for laptop / desktop computers!

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