Astra & the increasing capability of AI models

It's been over a week since OpenAI released their Astra AI model (ChatGPT-6). It has been causing shockwaves around the work with its capabilities. Has anyone used it yet? What did you build or do with it? It would be great to share ideas on how this could help us as educators. Here's something I did with it: https://lnkd.in/p/e2xzciBs

11 replies

The biggest change for me isn’t simply that the model is “smarter”. It is the growing ability to move from answering questions to actually carrying out complex, multi-step work, be it researching, working across documents, coding, analysing information and producing finished outputs. That raises some fascinating questions for me as a teacher. If AI can increasingly do the task, what should we...

- Michael Harvey, 12 September 2026

Yes, I was playing around with it yesterday and am MIND BLOWN! With very little prompting it could build entire software tools. I imagine a world where everyone will have there own, highly specific software to help with teaching, classroom management, parent communication and more. As an example, just last week I was working on a tool for educators and needed to upload assets (images, video,...

- Your Therapy Source, 11 September 2026

I actually find myself backing off the regular use of AI lately, and I was actually so removed that I didn't even know Chat had released a new model. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I feel the push of public opinion and the shift around technology in schools creeping in in an unexpected way as a school leader who has been an early adopter all along. I'm finding it difficult to strike a...

- Tim Dawkins, 11 September 2026

My focus has shifted heavily to supporting teachers in understanding their responsibilities as building has become so much easier now. It is fascinating to watch the influx of ¨vendors¨ trying to make a quick buck. I am increasingly worried about teachers who may not have the knowledge regarding data privacy and location-specific regulations, possibly unknowingly getting themselves into a...

- Laurietta Goosen, 12 September 2026

Thank you for sharing! This is helpful as I'm getting started exploring.

- Samantha Armstrong, 15 September 2026

Aloha- First post.I've been doing vibe coding and working with the latest for a while. Astra is definitely up a level and in particular, sending it off to do CAD (computer-aided design) whether through headless Blender (the opensource modeling done through commandline) or it just figures out how to model things. One of the unlocks for either OpenAI/Claude is that it spins up its own computing...

- Justin Lai, 16 September 2026

Dan,The nteractive school leader scenario-based game looks fantastic. I have not tried it yet, but I think I will in the next week or so.Thanks,

- Javier De-Las-Heras, 11 September 2026

So true to ask these questions as the evolution is faster than we can answer them! I agree that focusing on student agency and curiosity can help empower them to think critically about where these tools make a difference in being able to analyze rather than solely on efficiency.

- Samantha Armstrong, 14 September 2026

I agree completely Laurietta! It is so important to balance innovation with safety. I have not worked with Astra yet and am intrigued to see its' capabililites.

- Samantha Armstrong, 14 September 2026

Yes, we must move away from the idea that AI means efficiency; doing things poorly faster is pointless.