Every summer the education technology community gathers, and every summer the conversation reveals where the field actually is, not where the marketing says it is. This year the gap between hype and classroom reality is the story. Here are the five shifts I will be watching for.
1. AI literacy moves from session topic to standard
For two years AI literacy was the thing everyone presented about. This year I expect to see it treated as a defined competency with standards behind it, not a buzzword. The question is no longer whether students need AI literacy, but what specifically they should be able to do and how we measure it.
2. Assistants give way to agents
Last year the classroom story was the chatbot that answers a question. This year it is the agent that completes a multi-step task. That shift changes everything about assignment design and academic integrity, and I want to see whether the sessions are honest about how unprepared most assessment practices are for it.
3. Assessment redesign, finally
Detection tools have lost the arms race, and most educators know it. The serious conversation has moved to designing assignments that reward reasoning and process over output a machine can produce in seconds. I will be looking for practical models, not theory.
4. Equity as access, not just caution
The early AI conversation in schools was dominated by risk. The more important equity question is access: which students are being taught to use these tools with skill and judgment, and which are simply being told no. The literacy gap is widening along the same lines as every other opportunity gap, and I want to see who is naming that directly.
5. Teacher-led professional development
The professional development that actually changes practice is built by educators who are still close to the classroom. I will be watching for the rise of teacher-led, job-embedded models over one-time vendor trainings, because that is the model the research keeps validating and the one this moment demands.
I will share what I find. The value of a conference like this is not the products on the floor. It is the honest read on how far the field has actually come, and how much work is still ahead.
Janette Camacho, Ed.D., is the founder of iTeachAI Academy, a Google for Education Certified Trainer and Coach, FETC 2024/2025/2026 Featured Presenter, Adobe Creative Educator, Apple Teacher, and EdTech Digest 2026 Honoree. With 28+ years of K-12 classroom experience, she has facilitated AI professional development for educators across all 50 states.