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Trending In Ed with Mike Palmer

Trending In Ed with Mike Palmer

By: Palmer Media
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Summary
 At the intersection of learning, media, and the future of work, join us each week as we sense and discover where the future of education is heading. Join host Mike Palmer, the Founder of Palmer Media, as he engages with thought leaders, pioneers, and entrepreneurs exploring the cutting edge of learning in these tumultuous times.Copyright Palmer Media 2026. All Rights Reserved. Economics Leadership Management & Leadership Social Sciences
Episodes
  • An EdTech Deep Dive with Tony Wan from Reach Capital | On Writing, Nuance, and Withstanding the TechLash

    An EdTech Deep Dive with Tony Wan from Reach Capital | On Writing, Nuance, and Withstanding the TechLash
    Nov 6 2026
    Is edtech really just YouTube and i-Ready? Or has the backlash flattened a sprawling, layered industry into a couple of easy villains? Mike Palmer welcomes back Trending in Ed All-Star Tony Wan, Head of Platform at Reach Capital, an early-stage venture firm investing across learning, health, and work. Before Reach, Tony co-founded EdSurge and served as its managing editor, and before that he built a math game startup that he figures he could now one-shot with AI. The conversation opens with the edtech backlash. Tony takes the concerns about smartphones, social media, and screen time seriously and supports restricting personal device use in schools. But he argues that calls to ban edtech outright miss the difference between school operations tools, teacher productivity tools, and student-facing tools, along with how much daily compliance and reporting depends on them. Mike adds a parent's take on context: screen-free and voice-driven tech lands very differently than one more app on a phone. From there, they turn to writing in the age of AI. Mike's hot take is that most AI writing is mid: high floor, low ceiling. Tony, an editor at heart, misses the messy, illogical, very human drafts that let you get inside a writer's head, and he's tired of seeing friends' voices sanded down into AI-flattened prose. He also declares his intention to reclaim the em dash for Team Human. Tony then shares what Reach is seeing in the funding climate: a bifurcated venture market, a real AI premium for AI-native companies, little patience for AI washing, and why businesses built on human relationships, like training and placing healthcare workers and teachers, can tell a credible story about what AI won't replace. We also discuss: Reach's latest State of Fundraising report from Caoimhe Mac Reynolds and Jennifer Carolan, and the pushback founders should expect from investors Why "impact investing" means different things depending on who's in the room Rising ARR per employee, 10X engineers, and forward-deployed engineers at small AI-enabled startups Blackboard co-founder Matt Pittinsky's contrarian case that building a company is still more fun with humans in it EdSurge back in the headlines after Stephen Noonoo's post and Tony's appearance on The Grade, and what's been lost as the newsroom emptied out The value of a feisty, in-person newsroom and a credible forum for "little tech" founders, many of them former educators Tony closes with real concern for the state of edtech media and journalism, tempered by energy from the independent writers and newsletters who've reached out in recent weeks. Mike calls it a "probletunity." He's still workshopping it. Links: Reach Capital: https://www.reachcapital.com The Wire from Reach Capital: https://thewire.reachcapital.com Tony Wan's Substack, edtech after dark: https://tonywan.substack.com In Defense of Education Technology (Tony's interview with Alexander Russo): https://alexanderrusso.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-education-technology How ISTE Turned EdSurge Into Slop by Stephen Noonoo: https://alexanderrusso.substack.com/p/how-iste-turned-edsurge-into-slop If you like what you heard, please subscribe, leave us a review, and share the show with a friend. This is Trending in Education.
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    38 mins
  • Bridging Innovation and Pedagogy in K12 Education with Richard Culatta, CEO ISTE+ASCD

    Bridging Innovation and Pedagogy in K12 Education with Richard Culatta, CEO ISTE+ASCD
    Oct 28 2026
    What if banning technology in schools is just like scratching a sunburn: it feels good now, and it comes back worse later? Mike Palmer sits down with Richard Culatta, CEO of ISTE+ASCD, the newly combined organization with ISTE now called the International Society for Transforming Education. Richard started out as a high school Spanish teacher and a teacher educator, then worked on education policy in the U.S. Senate, at the U.S. Department of Education, and at the state level before joining ISTE nearly a decade ago. He's also the author of Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World. Richard explains why ISTE (about 45 years old) and ASCD (about 85) came together. Conversations about technology and innovation have to be grounded in learning science and effective pedagogy, and the reverse is true too. The new name puts the focus on the outcome, transforming education, rather than on what each organization used to do. He also shares how the ISTELive and ASCD Annual conference in Orlando was built with role-based pathways that people are encouraged to step outside of, to break down the silos that make it hard to innovate. Recorded just after New York City announced a one-year moratorium on generative AI in its public schools, the conversation takes on the "techlash" directly. Richard argues the post-COVID wave of devices got ahead of how well educators were prepared, and that a digital worksheet is still a worksheet. Blanket bans are harmful too, though. Every graduating class that misses out walks into a world where digital and AI skills are expected. And approving a fixed list of products is no substitute for policy built on principles and quality standards. For parents, Richard makes the case for teaching a healthy "tech diet" instead of counting screen-time minutes. He compares it to how we teach kids to eat. He also argues for scaffolding access over time: start early with a first phone that has no data plan and just a few apps, then add more as kids earn trust. Going from nothing to everything all at once is no way to learn anything. We also discuss: - Using technology to make kids creators and problem solvers, not just consumers of content - ISTE's AI Innovator Challenge, where student teams use AI to tackle problems in their communities - The Profile of an AI-Ready Graduate and its six human skills, including learner, connector, and storyteller - The five Edtech Quality Indicators: safe, evidence-based, inclusive, usable, and interoperable - Digital citizenship as a set of clear "dos," not a list of don'ts His closing challenge: if a kid has to choose between going to school and going to Disney World and doesn't have to think hard about it, we have work to do. Links: ISTE+ASCD: https://iste.org Profile of an AI-Ready Graduate: https://iste-ascd.org/aiready Five Edtech Quality Indicators: https://iste.org/news/coalition-of-leading-education-organizations-introduces-five-quality-indicators-for-edtech-and-ai-products AI Innovator Challenge: https://iste-ascd.org/ai-innovator Digital for Good by Richard Culatta: https://iste.org/products/a1w1U0000040vwZQAQ/Digital-for-Good:-Raising-Kids-to-Thrive-in-an-Online-World Richard Culatta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Culatta If you like what you heard, please subscribe, leave us a review, and share the show with a friend. This is Trending in Education.
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    36 mins
  • The Future of AI-Powered Assessment at Learnosity with Dan Goldstein

    The Future of AI-Powered Assessment at Learnosity with Dan Goldstein
    Oct 22 2026
    What if the most important edtech company in your classroom is one you've never heard of? Live from EdTech Week 2026 at Teachers College's Digital Futures Institute, Mike Palmer sits down with Dan Goldstein of Learnosity, the assessment engine that powers some of the biggest names in education from behind the scenes. Dan's path ran through College Board's SpringBoard curriculum, where he led implementation across Texas and New Mexico, and district-facing sales at Cengage, before he joined Learnosity in 2019, just as the "beforetimes" ended. Dan explains how Learnosity works as a suite of white-label APIs covering three areas: authoring, assessment delivery, and analytics. He then gets into how AI is changing each one, from Authorate for content generation and translation, to Item Bank Health Check, which can revise thousands of items at once (goodbye, flip phone references). He also shares Learnosity's long-running goal of killing the multiple choice question, and how FeedbackAid's AI essay scoring and student-facing feedback drove big gains in course completion at Penn Foster. Mike and Dan also cover Learnosity's new Product Builder MCP, which turns static documentation into something developers can query straight from their AI tools, and the live customer demo that put it to the test. They talk about the techlash and Learnosity's new Paper API, which lets students take exams with pen and paper, outside the screen, while teachers still get the analytics. Along the way they touch on stealth assessment, tacit knowledge, solar calculators, and why culture still eats strategy for lunch. This is one of four conversations recorded at EdTech Week 2026. Thanks to StartEd and Alyssa Miller for making it happen. Guest: Dan Goldstein, Learnosity Listen, subscribe, and explore more episodes at trendingineducation.com
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    21 mins
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