Hello from Orlando! We've just wrapped up the first full day of ISTELive 26 and ASCD Annual Conference.

The big news came off the mainstage: ISTE+ASCD is changing its name. The acronym stays, but it now stands for the International Society for Transforming Education. CEO Richard Culatta framed it as a shift from what the two legacy organizations did to why they do it — SmartBrief has the keynote, where he reached for the Roger Bannister four-minute-mile story to argue that the barriers around assessment, student ownership, and belonging are more perceived than real.

ISTE also announced it will launch a "safe and purposeful" technology-use pledge with GreatSchools.org — five recommendations and a tiered badge schools can display to show parents they're being deliberate about how they deploy digital tools. Culatta's advice to districts, via Education Week: start by admitting where the work is, including tech policies that, in his telling, were written by lawyers in language no kid could follow.

For a different cut at the same question — what's worth teaching when the tools keep changing — Melissa Johnston makes the case in The 74 that the skills that still matter are the human ones. Her example is her daughter's turn in a high school production of "Legally Blonde": collaborating with a big cast, taking direction, recovering from mistakes in real time, performing under pressure. We used to file those under "soft" skills; Johnston argues that in the AI era they're what drives economic mobility, and that they tend to be built in the places schools count least — theater, debate, student government, part-time jobs.

We'll have more from Orlando through the rest of the week.

— Thomas

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