No Such Thing: Learning in the Digital Age

16/09/2026

An AI‑animated docudrama about the father of algebra might sound… niche — but this episode is also a practical breakdown of how AI is transforming media production for educators.

I talked with Spencer Striker about his AI‑animated docudrama on the father of algebra… "Al Khwarizmi, Father of Algebra" and what it reveals about the future of learning media. When educators get access to the same tools as game studios, a new potential emerges for beautifully curated learning content.

This conversation is about that shift — the craft, the stakes, and the opportunity. And for anyone curious about how to actually produce media with AI, Spencer walks through serious nuts‑and‑bolts: world‑building, workflow, constraints, and what these tools really make easier (and what they absolutely don’t).

🎧 Listen: https://shows.acast.com/nosuchthing/episodes/a-new-era-for-learning-media

If you’re enjoying the show, please leave a review and follow — it helps more people find these conversations.

, , , , , , , ,

02/09/2026

Youth sports might be the most overlooked learning environment we have.

We talk a lot about AI and learning in classrooms and at work, but one of the richest ecosystems for feedback, identity formation, and meaning‑making is happening on fields and in dugouts across the country.

For the last decade I’ve coached youth baseball and softball, and I’ve watched the “playback tech” of the pros quietly take over the minor‑minor leagues. Cell phones and GoPros strapped to backstops. Apps like GameChanger capturing every pitch. By my estimate, youth coaches and families are generating ~700,000+ hours of video every year (conservatively) on that app alone, and most of it will sit unused.

Meanwhile, research keeps telling us how important these environments are. According to the Aspen Institute’s State of Play report, 55% of U.S. kids ages 6–17 play sports regularly, and when adults are asked which experiences shaped them most, coaches rank alongside teachers and family members.

In this episode, I'm joined by Megan M. Buning, Ph.D., CMPC, former Division I and pro athlete, coach, mental performance consultant, and now a professor who trains coaches and works with umpires, faculty, and all kinds of students. We talk about what video is revealing inside coach–athlete relationships and what better practices around video data analysis can mean for learning everywhere.

🎧 Listen to the episode https://shows.acast.com/nosuchthing/episodes/how-video-is-changing-coaching-and-learning

If you find it valuable, please leave a review, subscribe, and come follow the show on Facebook. It helps new listeners find these conversations.

My thanks Dr. Megan M Buning

11/08/2026

"In well-designed play environments, safety is not achieved by eliminating risk but by designing for it."

An incredible scholar, Katie Salen Tekinbaş, offers an important POV on an issue where responsibilities, possibilities, and consequences are too often misinterpreted.

In well-designed play environments, safety is not achieved by eliminating risk but by designing for it.

30/07/2026

Pop culture is rotting young people’s brains and algorithms have turned them into passive vessels.

It’s a tidy story for adults who don’t spend much time actually listening to kids. The truth is more interesting.

In the latest episode of , I talk with Mia Hood, teacher educator, literacy professor, and author of 💥 Pop Culture Literacies 💥 --now out from Routledge -- about the ways young people use pop culture as a site of meaning‑making, not consumption. Not distraction, but identity formation, resistance, and the early, unpolished work of figuring out who you are in a world that continues narrowing the options.

If you work in education, youth development, media, or you’re just paying attention to the world young people are inheriting, this conversation is worth your time.
LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE: https://lnkd.in/gVNw6ZbB
And one quick thing: if you follow the show, please leave a five‑star review. It helps people find the original No Such Thing, even as corporate pod publishers attempt to use the name without permission.

Thanks for supporting independent media spotlighting educators, learners, and the real stories of how we grow.

30/07/2026

Pop culture is rotting young people’s brains and algorithms have turned them into passive vessels.

It’s a tidy story for adults who don’t spend much time actually listening to kids. The truth is more interesting.

In the latest episode of , I talk with Mia Hood, teacher educator, literacy professor, and author of 💥 Pop Culture Literacies 💥 --now out from Routledge -- about the ways young people use pop culture as a site of meaning‑making, not consumption. Not distraction, but identity formation, resistance, and the early, unpolished work of figuring out who you are in a world that continues narrowing the options.

If you work in education, youth development, media, or you’re just paying attention to the world young people are inheriting, this conversation is worth your time.
LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE: https://lnkd.in/gVNw6ZbB
And one quick thing: if you follow the show, please leave a five‑star review. It helps people find the original No Such Thing, even as corporate pod publishers attempt to use the name without permission.

Thanks for supporting independent media spotlighting educators, learners, and the real stories of how we grow.

03/07/2026

I've been hunting for an educator who can share their practice, pushing past the temptation to let others dictate how AI will play out in schools.

With teens at home, I think all of the time about AI in schools. About how I see parents, institutions react. I worry about the fear, the retreat, the instinct to seal the doors and hope reality waits politely outside. And then I spent an hour on talking with Michael Taubman, whose work you might’ve heard mentioned on **The Daily, by NYT**. Imagine my surprise when I heard one of my scheduled guests turn up in my headphones on a morning walk. Scooped!?

This conversation is the rest of the story for the Edu Geek, the Parent, the Researcher looking for more time with the educators at the center of that great story.

Michael and his colleagues at Uncommon Schools are building an elective for flourishing in the AI era, focused on human literacy rooted in purpose, agency, and the developmental truth that teenagers resist anything that isn’t theirs. They’re claiming this moment before the markets do, and they’re doing it with the kind of clarity and courage I wish every educator had institutional permission to exercise.

If you care about teaching, learning, youth development, or the future we’re building, I hope you’ll listen over your busy fourth 🌅 🎉 . My thanks as well to Uncommon Schools for supporting Mike's voice as he shares his practice.

Listen here 💥 : The Elective for Flourishing in the AI Era
https://lnkd.in/gUmYDz9i

26/06/2026

"Teenagers today are... Amazing." - Developmental Psychologist, Candace Odgers with a science-based message too often overshadowed.

For years, the warning has been: smartphones are destroying a generation. But developmental psychologist Candice Odgers says that decades of data on teens tells a different story — violence, alcohol use and pregnancy are at historic lows, and research shows social media may not actually be the cul...

28/05/2026

Only 2% of adult English learners in the U.S. have access to instruction.

That’s not a small gap — it’s a missing system. 🦣

Episode 151 of , I talk with Katie Brown, PhD, who has spent her career asking what it would take to build real infrastructure for adult learning. From teaching English on an apple orchard to leading EnGen , Katie has been focused on one question: How do we design learning that actually works for adults?

We get into:

• Why adult literacy is a piece of U.S. infrastructure we never built
• How technology can scale access without losing dignity
• What Freire still teaches us about agency and learning
• Why immigrants aren’t “future workers” — they’re the present
• What it means to take lifelong learning seriously, beyond lip service

If you’re in workforce development, adult education, ed‑tech, or policy, this one’s worth your time.

🎧 Episode 151: “The System We Never Built”

https://shows.acast.com/nosuchthing/episodes/the-system-we-never-built

If you enjoy it, please leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ five‑star review wherever you found the show — it makes a real difference.

30/04/2026

This post marks 150 episodes of No Such Thing Pod 🎊 — one of the most fulfilling and important accidents of my professional practice, to which I will be forever grateful.

When I started this show, I had no idea it would become a place where I’d get to sit with so many people who change the way I think about learning, technology, and young people. Hitting 150 feels like a moment to pause, look around, and say thank you to everyone who’s listened, shared, challenged, or reached out along the way.

And it feels right that episode 150 is this one.


I sat down with Tracy Fullerton and Matthew D. Farber, Ed.D. to talk about their new book, "The Well‑Read Game." It’s a conversation that nudged me - hard - to rethink something I thought I already understood: what’s actually happening when young people play video games.

Without giving too much away, I’ll just say this: If you’ve ever worried about gaming as "too much screentime," or wondered what your kids are really experiencing inside the games they love, this episode offers a helpful lens, different from a lot of what's out there. It's a more generous one. I think a more accurate one. And maybe for you, a more hopeful one.

It’s about video games as texts.
It’s about play as performance.
It’s about the stories kids are already living inside — and how we can learn to talk with them about those stories in ways that matter.

🎧 Listen to Episode 150 of : “The Well‑Read Game”
https://shows.acast.com/nosuchthing/episodes/the-well-read-player

If you’ve been part of this journey — whether for one episode or all 150 — thank you. Truly. Here’s to whatever comes next.

And if you enjoy the show, please come find us on Facebook and leave a five‑star review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the work.

26/03/2026

We’ve all heard it — maybe even said it ourselves:

“I’m 20% German…" or "50% Honduran…" maybe, "a quarter Irish on my mom’s side.”

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned to flatten our identities into fractions, as if culture were a blood test or a pie chart. Meanwhile, the young people in our homes are living something much more layered >> and they’re doing it across time zones, languages, and screens.

In this episode I talk with Sangita Shrestova, author of "The Cross-Cultural Parenting Playbook," about what it means to raise (and be raised as) a cross‑cultural kid in a world that keeps trying to simplify who we are.

We get into:
• Why “kids these days” might actually be more globally attuned than any generation before
• How identity is less about percentages and more about lived experience
• The surprising ways media helps kids build belonging across continents
• What parents can do when their kids ask the big “where do I come from?” questions

🎧 Listen here: https://shows.acast.com/nosuchthing/episodes/the-crosscultural-parenting-playbook
👍 Find me on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/malesser.bsky.social
⭐ And if you enjoy the show, leave a five‑star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen — it really helps more people find the work -