👋 friends!
I have to make that dreaded trip to Costco today… I know, some people weirdly enjoy it, but I am NOT one of those people. And I make it worse for myself because we go there so rarely that, when we do, I have to use one of those big flatbed carts. Steering those things around tight corners piled high with paper towels and TP… ugh. Where are the Costco robot shoppers when you need them?! 😂
In today’s note:
Parenting in the AI era: a promising new teaching tool
Connection spark: making summer memories, and sending random photos
Hands-on with AI: Building life skills with AI
The whoa zone: a teenager’s impressive invention and a bluffing detector
🤿 Let’s dive in…
Parenting in the AI Era
There’s a new Teacher’s Pet
It’s smack dab in the middle of summer and so back-to-school is probably one of the last things on our minds. But it will be here before we know it and big tech companies are very much aware. 😂
This week, Anthropic launched Claude for Teachers - a free year of premium Claude for US K-12 educators with lesson tools built on learning science, state-standards curricula, and an assurance that all student data is FERPA-protected and never used to train the AI.
I genuinely feel like this might be worth sharing with your school - it has been developed in close collaboration with leaders in education, and it’s designed specifically to support teachers - arguably the audience who needs more support than any other as we steamroll into the AI era.
And on that note, I was glad to see it comes paired with a free AI literacy course made especially for teachers. I haven't been shy about my worry that we aren't yet doing nearly enough on AI literacy and ethics (the "how-to-think-about-this-stuff-and-use-it-wisely" kind), for students and teachers alike. So a free resource here is a step in the right direction.
That said, the harder question is how we actually incentivize teachers to carve out the time to prioritize this. Free is great, but I'm not convinced it'll be enough on its own…. and so this is a little nudge for all of us to ask our school what they're doing to give teachers the time to learn, not just the tools.
CONNECTION SPARK
Making Summer Memories
I don’t know about you, but I’m already feeling like summer is flying by. Before it has actually fully flown, sit down together as a family and get some “summer bucket list” items on the calendar.
This could be a great family dinner topic, just set any parameters (total cost must be under $40, must be local, must outdoors, etc etc) and let your kids come up with a couple fun together-time ideas… preferably ones that feel different or special in some way (e.g. wake up early to watch the sunrise with donuts; have a crab bake with homemade ice cream; go camping to watch for shooting stars )
Once you have one or two ideas that you’re all excited about, the key is to mark it down on calendars and enjoy the countdown! (Because, bonus, science shows that the anticipation of the experience generates just as much happiness, if not more!).
Send that random photo
We tend to reach out to friends when we have something worth reporting: the hilarious kid story, the perfect vacation view, the work drama.
But deeper connection is often built from sharing the little everyday things.
Try this: this week, send a friend a photo of a random (and maybe slightly amusing) ordinary life moment with no expectation of a big response. “E.g. our kids still get more food on the floor than in their mouths,” “Look where the dog fell asleep” - you may just surprise yourself how fun, easy, and rewarding it is.
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HANDS-ON WITH AI
Building Life Skills with AI
There’s a lot of worry about whether over-reliance on AI will hinder our own critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. But if used intentionally and creatively, you can actually leverage AI to build these life skills together as a family. Here are a couple fun ideas
A Museum of Ordinary Objects
Help kids see things from different perspectives by creating a “museum of ordinary objects from 2026”:
pick a few very ordinary things from around the house (a beloved stuffie, an old swim ribbon, something from the junk drawer, etc.)
take a photo of each, upload to your favorite AI (reminder- you should have at least ONE AI that you are paying for the better model) and prompt it:
Imagine you are a museum curator in the year 2126. Write short museum headlines and labels explaining what each of these objects are, how families used it and what it reveals about life in the early twenty-first century. Be specific, imaginative and slightly funny. Write the label for 3rd grade level reading.
Pro Tip: If you want to take this to the next level, you can ask Claude or ChatGPT to then turn the images and labels into a digital gallery/museum app with beautiful, immersive full-screen exhibits for each item.
Quick example from my coffee cup as I was writing the newsletter
A Backyard Game
Help kids come together to problem solve and make improvements with this backyard game experiment:
Give AI a few parameters (see sample prompt below) and ask it to create a backyard game.
Then, play one round exactly as AI describes. It will almost certainly contain something confusing, impossible, boring, or unfair… and so,
Ask your kids, “what did AI fail to think about? How can we make it more fun or fair, what rules should we change?” And let your kids team up with one another (and/or with you) to make the game 10x better!
“Invent an active outdoor game for [number and ages of players] using only [three objects]. It should take less than one minute to explain, last about fifteen minutes and give every player a real chance to win. Include a name, setup, rules and how to score.”
THE WHOA ZONE
An Eye scan for Autism and ADHD
Edward Kang, a 17-year-old from New Jersey, built an AI tool called RetinaMind that scans retinal images to identify autism, ADHD, and neurotypical patterns with about 89% accuracy. It picks up on tiny differences a human eye would miss, and it won him a $175,000 award at one of the country's top high school science competitions.
While early, I love the fact that a teenager built this!
Bluffing just got a whole lot harder
The World Series of Poker is coming back to ESPN for the first time since 2021, and this run comes with a new analyst: an AI system that reads posture, blink rate, and body language to flag when players might be bluffing. For now it's being used carefully (only on players who've already been eliminated), but for fans at home, it could make televised poker more revealing - and entertaining - than it's ever been.
Image source: Gemini
And that’s a wrap! If you've found this newsletter helpful, please forward it along to any friends and fellow parents who might also benefit… we’re all in this crazy together.
And, a small ask. Glow Notes, and its readers, has grown into something I care about deeply, and I'm thinking up some ways to make it even more useful… as a starting point, I'd really love to hear from you. I'm setting up a handful of short 15-minute calls to learn what you love about Glow Notes, what's gone a little stale, and what you wish existed. If you're up for it, just reply to this email with "yes" and I'll send you a link to grab a time for a quick chat. Thank you, so so much!
And, as always, if you have any thoughts, feedback, or requests, please reply to this email with your notes - I’d love to hear from you!
Glow on,
Michaela
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