What was your favorite AI announcement from Google I/O 2026? [WIN an official I/O swag bag]
Google I/O 2026 marked a clear shift from AI that helps you write to agents that act on your behalf: Antigravity, Gemini Spark, Daily Brief, Information agents in Search. What's the first thing you want to try? Best comment or reply wins an official Google I/O 2026 swag bag, includes: exclusive Gemini capI/O water vesselI/O bagI/O keyringI/O official map/program3 months free Gemini Ultra (worth $300). This is the official merch given to invited guests.To catch up on the announcements and the implications for education, you can read my article here.We'll announce the winner in next week's newsletter.
51 replies
The Don Bosco study is the one I keep coming back to: 70% of admin time back, most of it given to one to one mentoring.That is the Mr Miyagi update. AI does the wax on, wax off (the marking, the parent notes, the lesson admin) so the teacher can finally do the actual teaching, the eye contact. The question that catches a student off guard. The moment they realise someone is paying...
Easy! Having SynthID and C2PA pushed out to the Gemini app. The ability to right-click an image and find out whether it's AI-generated and which tool made it is a powerful everyday check for source reliability. The fewer clicks students, and adults, have to do to find out if they should trust an image or not the better.There is also an interesting lesson ready to go from the fact that people...
Information agents in Search. Not the flashiest announcement, but the one that changes the job.Here’s the problem it solves for me. Teachers spend a disproportionate amount of their planning time doing low-level information retrieval: pulling subject knowledge, sense-checking a fact before a Year 6 lesson, hunting for a worked example that matches the misconception they spotted that morning....
Hi there,Without a doubt, Gemini Spark is the first thing I’m putting to work!Google I/O 2026 nailed it—we are officially done with the era of AI just being a 'glorified typewriter.' We are in the era of Autonomous Action, and Gemini Spark is the ultimate catalyst.As someone balancing heavy communication, project management, and design pipelines, my ultimate 'Wow' use case for Spark is...
The most transformative development would be the transition from "Gemini as a Chatbot" to "Gemini as an Agent" (specifically Gemini Spark).Here is why this stands out as the most critical evolution:From Passive to Active: Previously, AI was a tool you had to prompt, wait for, and then manually implement the result. With Gemini Spark, the AI doesn't just answer; it executes. The demo of...
Daily Brief has me genuinely excited — and a little emotional, honestly. As a teacher, my mornings before the first bell are chaotic in the best way. The idea of an agent that quietly reads my calendar, my inbox, and my tasks and then hands me a prioritized digest of what actually matters? That's not just a productivity tool — that's someone finally understanding how teachers start their day....
You have pinpointed a critical issue. Teachers are not deeply trained in prompt writing. I’ve been working on prompt writing skills since GPT started. MagicSchool.AI provides a feature on each tool that offers prompt writing advice. That has been particularly helpful in the learning design activities in my education studies class. Students sho will become student teachers appreciate assistance...
Brisk now also has a Prompt Revision feature that integrates directly into Gemini, ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude. It's nice being able to use this tool directly in the LLM instead of having to work in separate tabs and dealing with constant copy/paste .
Thank you Dan for sharing the great insights from Google I/O 2026 means. Your interaction with Chris was very insightful and has opened new avenues for educators all around the world. being a Leader of an Educational Institution I am extremely excited to try out Gemini Spark as it will take the learning process to the next level. However I also concerned about the following lines from Dan's...
To add to this, I believe the Daily Brief will redefine 'lesson planning time.' If an agent can pre-assemble the daily schedule and relevant resources before my first class, it opens up a whole new paradigm for personalized learning and real-time student support.