The Verge’s podcast Version History spent 73 minutes this week on the overhead projector, and if you were in a classroom between about 1965 and 2005 you can probably hear the fan right now.

Host David Pierce traces the idea to Christiaan Huygens and the magic lantern in the 1600s, then follows its development through World War II, when the Army needed to train recruits by the roomful, fast. At 3M, Roger Appledorn later helped develop smaller, cheaper projectors using a Fresnel lens. The company bundled transparencies with projectors and textbooks, giving teachers lessons ready to put on the screen. By 1985, Pierce says, estimates put a projector in 95 percent of classrooms.

His guest is Antero Garcia, a Stanford education professor who taught high school English in South Central Los Angeles and found the projectors stacked in the book room when he arrived in 2006. His explanation for their staying power: little training, no software updates, no annual agreement, and they turned the teacher around to face the class. Pierce’s own lesson from the season is that anything that makes a teacher’s day a little easier is very hard to get out of a classroom. Garcia wonders how much of the money made on projectors, and later on laptops, went toward training and supporting teachers and students.

Today’s list offers a few places to take that question. Attorney Maya Weinstein tells District Administration that “state governance moves pretty slowly and AI is moving quickly,” which is why districts are writing their own rules while North Carolina works toward a model policy due Dec. 31. Mandatory staff training is among the recommendations.

At Merced College, President Chris Vitelli started by letting prospective users try the equipment. Before buying an immersive learning platform, he sent about 40 faculty, administrators, and staff to see it at Arizona State or the developer’s Los Angeles-area studios. He included skeptics. Two years into the program, he reports higher completion and success rates in immersive biology than in traditional sections.

Students want a role in these decisions. The Des Moines Register reports on Iowa students asking for a say in how AI is used. In Long Beach, a group has taken its objections to the school board through short theatrical performances. One student played a barely literate senior graduating with a chatbot’s help. Another campaign member said she earned an A in AP history while relying on AI, then failed the AP exam. The group is asking for an AI moratorium and a return to pen and paper where possible.

In Rhode Island, schools are watching what happens when a technology leaves. The Providence Journal’s Colin Hogan checked in on the state’s phone ban one month in. Anaisa, an eighth grader at Nathanael Greene Middle School: “We don’t love it, but it works.” West Warwick, which adopted lockable pouches three years ago, says middle school discipline referrals are down 50 percent over two years. Cranston’s assistant superintendent says it’s too soon for good data. Two seventh graders report that friends at other schools have slipped burner phones and cardboard cutouts into pouches.

The tools have reached the statehouse, too. Idaho Education News ran politicians’ writing through two AI detectors and reports that they flagged pieces published under the names of senior elected officials. Some offices acknowledged using AI for editing while disputing the detectors’ conclusions; the state superintendent’s spokeswoman denied using it at all.

Garcia thinks his 7-year-old twins would not recognize an overhead projector if he set one in front of them.

— Thomas

On November 12, Whiteboard Advisors is hosting a post-election summit at Gallup in Washington, D.C., with the state and federal leaders who will shape education policy in 2027. The day opens with Casey Sacks, U.S. Assistant Secretary and CFO at the Department of Education. Speakers also include California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent, Alabama Rep. Jeana Ross, and advisors to Govs. Wes Moore and Jared Polis. Sessions cover the election results, the backlash against AI and edtech, the new federal tax credit scholarship program, and higher ed accountability.

Attendance is by invitation and capped at 175. Request an invitation here.

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