If we step back from the hype around AI, we can see that it can be a powerful tool for transforming learning experiences, but only if we lead with principles, not technology. That’s where ISTE+ASCD’s Transformational Learning Principles come in. In this session, you’ll engage in conversations where pedagogy leads and AI enhances. Experience how this approach can elevate student agency, cultivate belonging, encourage learner curiosity and exploration, and foster authentic problem-solving. You’ll leave with practical strategies for leveraging AI as a co-designer of meaningful educational experiences.

District leaders from GenerationAI Communities of Practice share how they are designing AI policy and guidance at scale. Panelists will discuss key decisions, dilemmas, and tradeoffs as they balance risk and opportunity, establish clear guardrails, and create policies that support responsible educator practice and intentional student use of AI.

Most AI training fails because it leads with tools and hopes mindset follows. This session tells the story of one teacher who went from calling AI a cheating tool to saying it saved his marriage, and reveals the single move that makes adoption last. You'll leave with the shift that drops resistance in the first fifteen minutes, the results it's produced across more than 1,000 educators, and a method you can run in your own district.

Hear directly from the student teams who rose to the top of this year's AI Innovator Challenge. These high school innovators from around the world tackled real community problems by designing AI-powered solutions grounded in ethical, responsible use — each aligned to a UN Sustainable Development Goal. In this session, the three winning teams will share their projects, the challenges they navigated, and the impact they hope to create. Get inspired by the next generation of problem-solvers who are proving that students don't just inherit the future — they can build it.

Join ISTE+ASCD and Playlab for a hands-on exploration of AI in education. In the first hour, engage in a dynamic panel with AI experts, Playlab, and ISTE+ASCD leaders as we unpack AI literacy, educator readiness, and the Transformational Learning Principles guiding responsible use. In the second hour, choose your own learning pathway—beginner or advanced—and build your own AI-powered app using Playlab’s tinker tools. Leave with a deeper understanding of how AI works and practical ways to empower students as creators and critical thinkers in an AI-driven world.

As a financial literacy teacher at a Title I school in Trenton, NJ, I'll share three stories from my classroom and school that challenge how we think about what we're asking students to do. A tenth grader who built a sophisticated AI evasion workflow because gaming the assignment was more interesting than doing it. A girl running a real hair business with Stripe payment processing, 400 Instagram followers, and paying customers, none of which school ever asked her to bring into the building. And a group of students who produced a 21-minute documentary about Black Revolutionary War soldiers, now exhibited at a museum, because someone finally gave them a worthy assignment. The heart of the message: students aren't small thinkers; they've been given small assignments.