In this podcast episode, Phil tells Mat about his adventures at the TESOL 2026 Convention in Salt Lake City, March 24-27. Phil talked with exhibitors and attended as many AI-focused presentations, panels, and posters as he could to get a sense of how AI, especially GenAI, is being presented by and to professional English language teachers.
Here I will just mention one presentation, about which Phil spoke highly:
Jane Freeman (University of Toronto), using a puppet-puppeteer analogy, discussed the difference between cognitive offloading (for learners, AI as a shortcut to task completion—human is the puppet) and distributed cognition (AI as a collaborative partner—human is the puppeteer). She also noted (correctly) that “None of us are AI literate.” https://submissions.mirasmart.com/TESOL2026/Itinerary/EventsAAG.aspx
Enjoy the half-hour conversation of Phil and Mat. Many more resources and practical takeaways get mentioned in this podcast episode. Play it above or use your favorite podcast app.
