TFE Tech Check

This week on TechCheck for grades K–2: kids can write a tiny computer program — a list of steps — that lights up a picture on the International Space Station; a two-legged robot named Digit uses sensors, lights and sounds to stay safe around people, and can sit down and switch off if you get too close; a blind card player put tiny tap chips on his cards so his phone reads them out loud; and Apple&...

This week on TechCheck for grades 3–5: the Astro Pi challenge lets kids write pixel-art code that runs for 30 seconds on the International Space Station (word of the day: PIXEL); Barron Prize teens built $170 AI glasses that guide blind users and a cap that turns brain signals into speech (ACCESSIBLE); Digit 5 uses sensors to notice people and sits down to stay safe (SENSOR); New Jersey prosecutor...

This week on TechCheck for grades 6–8: Discord began sorting every account into Teen or Adult with a model that reads account signals instead of IDs — and admits it will make mistakes; the Russian Embassy in South Africa posted an AI-generated 'selfie' of world leaders, and we walk through the tells and the invisible watermark; blind and disabled gamers are hacking Magic cards with NFC tag...

This week on TechCheck for grades 9–12: the EU's proposed KIDS Act relies on a free, open-source age app built on zero-knowledge proofs that reveals one bit — yes or no; Discord now infers every user's age group with a classifier, and we ask which error to tune against; a voice-cloned, lip-synced Zuckerberg crypto scam and a watermarked AI embassy 'selfie' show how deepfakes are bu...

This week on TechCheck for grades 9–12: Google's Gemini in Classroom rolled out to students of all ages with the setting on by default, and we unpack opt-in versus opt-out when the users are minors; California's governor signed a 13-bill package including a ban on addictive feeds for under-16s, Adam's Law for companion chatbots, and a four-year pause on chatbot toys; Florida's atto...

This week on TechCheck for grades 6–8: Google turned on its Gemini AI tab inside Google Classroom for students of all ages, on by default, and school leaders learned about it from the news; 24 of 45 candidates in Chicago's first-ever election for all 21 school board seats signed a pledge for a three-year AI ban; a cyberattack in Springfield, Massachusetts took down email, phones, buses, lunch...

This week on TechCheck for grades 3–5: a coprolite (word of the day: fossilized poop) found in Montana held the best dinosaur-age feather ever seen, a clue to why some birds survived the asteroid; NASA and IBM released a free, open-source AI trained on two million Moon images that counts craters and points to hidden ice astronauts could turn into water and fuel; Richland, Washington middle schoole...

This week on TechCheck for grades K–2: scientists X-rayed a piece of 66-million-year-old fossil poop the size of half a golf ball and found the best-preserved feather from the age of dinosaurs; NASA's X-59 jet finished its 25th test flight, flying faster than sound while built to make a soft thump instead of a window-rattling boom; Minecraft's Wilderness Bound update added an autumn forest with re...

This week on TechCheck for grades K–2: the Hubble Space Telescope found a shape with ten straight sides — a decagon — in the clouds at Saturn's south pole, wide enough to line up thirteen Earths across it; the BepiColombo spacecraft let go of its engine module after almost eight years of flying and is finally arriving at Mercury; nearly 500 kids in Vietnam and more in India brought robots to n...

This week on TechCheck for grades 3–5: Hubble spotted a ten-sided atmospheric wave circling Saturn's south pole, a region Saturn's tilt hid from us until 2023; comet 220P/McNaught flared up twice this summer and ended up about 20,000 times brighter than normal — still catchable with a small telescope around the September 10-11 new moon; two Ontario hockey teammates built CareCompass, an ap...

This week on TechCheck for grades 6–8: New York City paused student generative AI through 8th grade — and went into 38 ed-tech tools it already owned to switch the AI features off; NASA's 2027 Student Launch handbook added a brand-new rule barring AI entirely from challenge work, because the competition exists to build engineers, not answers; California passed SB 1119, the strictest state chat...

This week on TechCheck for grades 9–12: New York City and Los Angeles Unified both restricted student AI access on September 2 — one by publishing a policy, the other by quietly configuring a web filter, a genuinely different model of governance; California's SB 1119 lands on the governor's desk with audits, AG reporting and a private right of action attached; the Sixth Circuit vacated and...

This week on TechCheck for grades 3–5: Europe's Ariane 6 launched a powerful new storm-watching satellite; NASA is set to launch the Nancy Grace Roman telescope, with a view 100 times wider than Hubble's; SpaceX's giant Starship prepares for its first orbital satellite drop; scientists built light-steered robots 50 times thinner than a hair that catch single germs; and a ninth-grader invented Gree...

This week on TechCheck for grades K–2: a lunar eclipse turned almost the whole Moon a rusty red — and it's completely safe to watch with your own eyes; more than 2,000 human-shaped robots raced and played sports in Beijing, and plenty of them fell right over; NASA's Curiosity rover climbed a whole kilometer up a mountain on Mars; self-driving cars got the OK to give more rides; and more schools th...

This week on TechCheck for grades 6–8: Google and Khan Academy launch Gemini-powered tools that walk you through problems step by step; New Jersey goes bell-to-bell phone-free statewide; a new study asks whether AI can spot hurricanes sooner — a great media-literacy check; a Lviv student wins gold at a world robotics championship; a cyberattack scrambles a district right before school; and a Misso...

This week on TechCheck for grades 9–12: Meta agrees to an up-to-$18 billion settlement and strict new teen-account limits (with no admission of wrongdoing, pending court approval); OpenAI launches a teen-only ChatGPT with a study mode; Australia's under-16 social-media ban runs into the reality of enforcement; a Texas app-store age-verification law stays in force as a court weighs free speech; Sta...

This week on TechCheck for grades 9–12: Google, OpenAI, and Quizlet flood classrooms with AI as experts urge caution; three court rulings in one week test social media's legal shields (a $567M Meta ruling in New Mexico, a Section 230 decision at the 9th Circuit, and California's 'addictive feeds' law upheld); the Senate advances the Kids Online Safety Act; states race ahead on chatbot-disclosure l...

This week on TechCheck for grades 6–8: Google opens Gemini to students inside Classroom; districts roll out very different AI rulebooks as school returns; U.S. and Vietnamese teens win big at the International AI Olympiad; a high-schooler builds a genuinely useful Claude-powered tool for job seekers; a wave of states put phones away bell-to-bell; and a federal agency hands schools a free cybersecu...

This week on TechCheck for grades 3–5: a total solar eclipse crossed Greenland, Iceland, and Spain — Europe's first since 1999; Minecraft Education adds sulfur caves and geysers for earth science; new state laws keep phones away bell-to-bell; giant new satellites beam a signal straight to an ordinary phone; and the world passes 3 terawatts of solar power. Vocabulary-rich and discussion-ready. This...

This week on TechCheck for grades K–2: on August 12 the Moon slid in front of the Sun in a solar eclipse — and why we NEVER look without eclipse glasses; two companies are building robots that walk like people but still need human helpers; new school rules keep phones put away so kids can focus and play; and scientists took the sharpest photos of the Sun ever taken. Kid-friendly, classroom-safe, a...

This week on TechCheck for grades K–2: a new tool builds a game from the words you type, a new school rule keeps phones away so kids can focus and play, we learn that a chatbot is a computer and not a real person, and our big rule — a computer helper can be wrong, so we always check. Kid-friendly, classroom-safe, and ready for circle time. This week on “Tiny Tech, Big News” (Grades K–2): • Make a...

This week on TechCheck for grades 3–5: an AI tool turns a written prompt into a playable game, students build real websites by describing them ('vibe coding'), Illinois keeps phones away bell-to-bell, lawmakers want chatbots to say they're AI, and one district allows a single school-safe AI tool while blocking the rest. Vocabulary-rich and discussion-ready. This week on “Tech Explorers” (Grades 3–...

This week on TechCheck for grades 6–8: when generative AI builds a game, who counts as the creator; 'vibe coding' reaches classrooms with COPPA/FERPA guardrails; students pass a non-binding MODEL AI bill in a replica Senate; companion chatbot-disclosure bills move through the House and Senate; Illinois builds age checks into the device itself; and how a signed phone ban actually becomes real. Civi...

This week on TechCheck for grades 9–12: high-schoolers win an AI challenge and land internships, the business behind AI-in-education (imagi's $4.5M round), a non-binding student 'model' AI policy vs. real law, federal bills to make chatbots disclose they're machines, Illinois' device-based vs. New York's ID-based age verification, and one district's rule that humans keep the high-stakes calls. Deb...

This week on TechCheck for grades 9–12: the Supreme Court lets Texas regulate the app store, why states are writing AI-chatbot safety rules for minors, open source in action with Godot 4.8, the growing patchwork of school phone bans, the Canvas supply-chain breach, and project-based pathways into tech careers. Debate- and career-ready. • SCOTUS Lets Texas Regulate the App Store • Why States Are Wr...