A school AI tutor is a policy decision before it is a product decision. A practical week more than a model week. One school has written up how it actually built an AI policy. A research lab has shown a video character that can pick something up while it talks to you. And a voice model that listens while it speaks is suddenly a plausible speaking-exam tutor. The capability is getting more embodied. The school question is still how you govern an AI tutor.
What we mean by an AI tutor is set out on the AI tutor for schools page.
How a school actually writes an AI policy
Kara Baxter from Strathcona Girls Grammar has written up how her school developed its whole-school AI policy, now in its second iteration, and the thinking that shaped it.
This is the sort of thing I wish we had more of: not a framework from a consultancy, but an account from inside a school of what they tried, what they changed, and why. Policy that has been around the block once is worth more than policy that has only been launched.
A persistent world, half a second away
Last week Alibaba's Wan team released a paper on Wan Streamer v0.3, and it is the first glimpse of a nearby future. It is a real-time audiovisual model that holds a persistent world while events unfold inside it. You talk to a video character and it talks back with synchronised speech, gaze, gesture and free-form actions described in plain language. It can reach down, pick something up and show it to you mid-sentence. Total latency sits around half a second. The demo is worth watching.
Imagine a tutorial that can physically demonstrate a chemistry technique, or walk a student through a task step by step, live, at whatever pace the student needs. Super exciting opportunities. At the same time, we already struggle with how engaging screens are for young people. A photoreal world with characters that listen, respond and remember you is engagement on a different level entirely.
An AI tutor for IELTS speaking
Anyone preparing for IELTS should try this with ChatGPT's new live voice mode. In your native language: act as my IELTS speaking examiner. Ask questions in English, interrupt immediately when I make a mistake, explain briefly in my native language with the correct English phrasing, then let me carry on. At the end, give an estimated band score and one tip to improve. Keep raising the difficulty as I get better.
What you get is a speaking examiner that corrects you mid-sentence, explains the fix in your own language, and adapts to your level in real time. Most candidates around the world cannot access an IELTS tutor; in Sydney they can cost around $30 an hour. If you are teaching English or preparing students for IELTS, it is worth ten minutes of your time to try it yourself.
Galaxy, and free access in England
Grateful to IT Brief UK and TechDay for covering our Galaxy launch and free access for teachers in England. I also had a good conversation with Byron about CurricuLLM's progress and some ponderings on the future of school, which Adapt wrote up.
The product news matters to me because of the design choice underneath it. A blank chat box asks students to know what they do not know. Galaxy is our attempt to show them the curriculum instead of hiding it behind a prompt.