Available May 5, 2026
Find New View EDU on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many other podcast apps.
So much of educators’ focus has turned toward the digital space. How to leverage technology and innovation to improve educational outcomes, but also how to keep students safe and thriving in a fast-paced digital world, are overwhelming and sometimes seemingly contradictory concerns. It’s hard to keep up with the latest information and cutting-edge research to help make informed decisions. On the season finale of New View EDU, host Morva McDonald speaks with Yvette Renteria of Common Sense Media about how her team is helping educators and parents stay on top of everything they need to know.
Yvette shares that Common Sense Media is more than just the media reviews that parents often know and use—it is an organization dedicated to digital thriving in all forms. She outlines its work to protect and prepare kids for the future, including advocacy work, advising families and educators, independent research, and curriculum development. Yvette also highlights their current key research areas, including AI companions, access to pornography, and online gambling, and how these concerns affect kids.
She points out that one of the big challenges for educators is that the speed of innovation has caused a disconnect between the student experience and adults’ firsthand knowledge and interaction with the same digital tools that kids use everyday. There has been a shift from adults taking the lead and engaging with teaching kids about technology to kids knowing more than the adults. Educators now must learn how to stay up to date and be proactive in partnering with kids about their online safety and thriving.
Yvette says she frequently encounters situations where the speed of policymaking in schools can’t keep pace with day-to-day concerns. For example, she mentions schools working on privacy and safety policies and talking about plagiarism and appropriate use, while kids have moved on already to communicating with chatbots before the adults have realized what’s happening. She highlights new research that shows 72% of kids are using AI chatbots, some for relational purposes, some for information gathering and seeking help that adults can’t provide. Concerningly, Yvette says, 33% of kids who use chatbots mention that their interactions with the chatbots are equal to or more satisfying than their real-world interactions.
She shares that in listening to kids talk about their online interactions, they are apt to offer frustration around feeling that adults are trying to take over and create policies and rules that don’t meet their needs. Kids also say they need adults to understand that there is no such thing as a “digital life” anymore—how they show up online is a seamless part of their worlds and cannot be separated from their offline realities. But, Yvette says, there is reason to be hopeful. Kids understand innately that there should be safeguards, and they understand concepts like doomscrolling, deepfakes, and other potentially dangerous spirals. They are trying to regulate themselves and find new tools and habits to keep themselves safe. And schools can lead the way in helping to proactively partner with kids on digital literacy efforts.
Yvette shares some of the challenges and opportunities she has observed as schools across the country try to adapt their digital literacy curricula and policies to the current landscape. Ultimately, she says, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach, but there are some best practices and mindsets that can help guide educators through this rapid evolution.
Key Questions
Some of the key questions Morva and Yvette explore in this episode include:
- What are the areas of investigation for Common Sense Media’s current research? What should educators know about the findings?
- What are the most important and urgent shifts in the digital landscape over the past few years? How can adults keep up with what kids are doing and seeing in the online space?
- What are kids thinking, feeling, and saying about their experiences with AI? How can we learn from, and alongside, them?
- What is the significance of the language shift from digital citizenship to digital literacy, and what are some successful models schools can look to as they design their own plans?
Episode Highlights
- “Something that I grapple with as somebody who's been an educator, like none of the adults, at least now—it will soon shift—have experienced this educational world that our kids do. Like the idea of getting to school, getting on the computer, getting online, doing some work and then, you know, pen to paper as well. And just kind of the mix of that day. And so, I mean, shout-out to educators who are navigating this new space of how to teach.” (8:25)
- “One is like, this is our world. So we often say their digital life, or their digital world. And we often hear students and kids in this conversation be like, no, this is our life. Like we don't see a separation between digital life and real life. The second thing we often hear is, things are being done to us…when quite frankly, they might know more than what those policymakers or those decision makers are doing to them. So there's like a little bit of a frustration or like, leave me alone.” (14:22)
- “I sit in these focus groups and I listen to students, like I said, I'm so optimistic. They know, I think about this, I'm like, as a seventh-grader myself, even my former seventh-graders, the way they articulate this world is beautiful, to be honest with you. I just, I really do believe that our students, our kids will be OK. They're going to, because they are...forming their thoughts and their opinions, and they are utilizing strategies, and they are trying things. And I do, they're even highlighting the risks and the concerns with their own mental wellness. They're downloading the apps that keep them offline. They're doing the things. And so that makes me hopeful.” (31:31)
Resource List
- Check out Common Sense Media’s latest research.
- Learn more about the new AI toolkit for parents and educators at EdWeek.
- Watch this Common Sense Conversation about digital literacy and well-being curriculum.
- Read the research from the Rithm Project, referenced by Yvette in this conversation.
Full Transcript
- Read the full transcript here.
Related Episodes
- Episode 81: How AI Changes Everything and Nothing
- Episode 71: Exploring Generative AI in K-12 Schools
- Episode 70: The Role of Schools in Cultivating Healthy Relationships
- Episode 47: Designing Schools for Future-Ready Minds
- Episode 31: AI and the Future of Education
About Our Guest
Yvette Renteria is the chief program officer for Common Sense Media. She leads the education, research, family, and community engagement teams that help kids thrive in a digital world. Yvette brings 20 years of experience working in schools and nonprofit organizations. Within her years in education, she served as deputy chief of innovation at the district level, as a school principal, and as an elementary school teacher. Yvette has also worked in nonprofits as a program director for a workforce development organization and chief strategy officer for an early childhood development organization. The focus of her career has always been about access, opportunity, and growth for people.