I spent thousands of hours coding from the 1980s through maybe 2010. My original interest in technology was in exploring potential benefits and this first required I write learning games for the Apple II and eventually required that I operate a server and make use of PHP and MySQL to create the online study environments that were the focus of my final decade or so of research activity.
Like many who came of age before the personal computer, I had my original experience with punch cards and Fortran. I learned BASIC from copying the code for projects printed in magazines and the many books on programming sold in Barnes and Noble. More advanced skills came with collaborative projects with graduate students who wrote subroutines in Assembly or showed me other things while working on research projects.
When I retired I found few opportunities to continue because the projects that now dominated my time were more easily accomplished relying on tools such as WordPress that allow construction by moving objects around rather than entering commands. Vibe coding sounds interesting, but I still have nothing in mind that has motivated me to commit my time.
I backed into an AI-generated coding task without meaning to, and I offer the example here for others who may find the activity useful. My goal was to identify specialized education blogs focused on applying cognitive research. I wanted to update the list of blogs I follow through my RSS reader. I had assumed that AI would offer an advantage over more traditional search and this proved to be the case. No coding required at this point.
One more thing. I have gone through the following process several times with different AI tools. All successfully got me to a conclusion that was productive with some variations along the way. In some cases, the final product was offered to me as a file I could download and in others a section of content I would copy and paste to create a file.
I will take you through one version of my process.
My prompt: What are the best blogs that apply educational research to educational practice. I most value those that explain the research studies in some detail.
AI Output
Here are the best blogs that rigorously bridge educational research and classroom practice, with a focus on those that actually explain the underlying studies:
The Learning Scientists (learningscientists.org)
Run by cognitive scientists, this is probably the gold standard for what you’re looking for. The blog has been running since 2016 with a mission to help students and teachers understand the science of learning. Posts walk through individual studies in detail — for example, a recent post explains the “forward testing effect,” working through meta-analytic findings to examine how and why retrieval practice helps students learn new material, not just consolidate old material. They cite peer-reviewed papers throughout and have a companion podcast with “bite-size research” episodes that walk through specific papers. Free downloadable resources for teachers too.
Daniel Willingham’s Science & Education Blog (danielwillingham.com)
Willingham is a cognitive psychologist at UVA and probably the most respected figure in translating cognitive science for educators. His blog dissects specific studies and is particularly good at flagging when popular education practices lack solid evidence. His book Why Don’t Students Like School? grew directly from this kind of work. The posts are concise but rigorous — he explains what a study actually measured and what it can and can’t tell us.
The Effortful Educator (theeffortfuleducator.com)
Written by a high school psychology teacher, this blog sits at the intersection of cognitive psychology and daily classroom practice. The author describes it as a vehicle for researching “cognitive psychology and education” at a self-directed pace, publishing his research, thoughts, and findings online. Posts tend to explain mechanisms (e.g., cognitive load, interleaving) with reference to specific studies, then draw classroom implications.
RetrievalPractice.org (retrievalpractice.org)
Run by cognitive scientist Pooja Agarwal, this site goes deep on the science behind retrieval practice specifically. It includes resources written by cognitive scientists covering the history, principles, applications, and practice of the science of learning , and links to the actual peer-reviewed papers it draws from. If retrieval practice, spacing, and interleaving are your areas of interest, this is the most research-dense practitioner-facing resource available.
ResearchED (researched.org.uk — and associated teacher blogs)
ResearchED is a movement founded by UK teacher Tom Bennett that produces conferences and a publication specifically aimed at improving research literacy among educators. Several UK teacher-bloggers connected to this community are exceptional — notably The Learning Spy (David Didau) and Evidence into Practice. These blogs, mainly UK-based, spread the value of using cognitive psychology in the classroom and are frequently cited in academic papers on the topic.
The Education Hub (theeducationhub.org.nz)
A New Zealand-based blog written by researchers for educators. Posts are longer-form and explicitly structured around what the research says, what it means for practice, and what the limitations are. It covers a wider range of topics than the cognitive-science-focused blogs above — curriculum design, assessment, wellbeing, equity.
Deans for Impact (deansforimpact.org)
Focused on teacher education, but their published guides (e.g., The Science of Learning) are free and explain cognitive science research in accessible, well-cited terms. Less of a traditional blog, more of a curated resource hub — but excellent if you want research explained in structured, practitioner-friendly formats.
Of these, The Learning Scientists and Daniel Willingham’s blog best match your preference for explaining studies in some detail rather than just citing conclusions. The UK teacher-blogger ecosystem (ResearchED, The Learning Spy) is also excellent if you want practitioners who have read deeply in the literature and engage with it critically.
_________
At this point, I could easily have copied the individual URLs that were offered and manually pasted them one by one as inputs to a RSS reader. However, I knew that RSS readers can input what is called an OPML file (output processor markup language) and this approach is useful when moving larger collections of inputs. You may have encountered this approach if you have moved the content of one RSS reader to a different RSS reader. AI activity allows you to issue a prompt and then another prompt that uses as an input the output from the preceding prompt. The output here is XML. I am not certain if it counts as vibe coding, but it works.
AI Prompt: Create an OPML file that will alllow me to import the feeds for these blogs into my RSS reader
AI Output
I have enough to work with. Most of these blogs run on WordPress or Squarespace, which follow predictable RSS URL patterns (/feed or ?format=rss). Let me build the OPML file using the confirmed and well-established feed URLs for each blog.
The OPML file includes all 8 blogs from the earlier list. You can import it into any RSS reader (Feedly, NetNewsWire, Reeder, Inoreader, etc.) via their “Import OPML” option.
One note: a couple of these sites (The Learning Scientists and Retrieval Practice) use Squarespace, whose RSS URLs can sometimes be slightly nonstandard. If either of those two feeds fails to import, try appending ?format=rss to the blog URL directly in your reader as an alternative. All the WordPress-based blogs (The Effortful Educator, Learning Spy, ResearchED, The Education Hub, Deans for Impact) should import without any issues.
________
The content of the OPML are included below. You can copy and paste the following into a text editor if you want to insert the content into your own RSS reader. You have to save the contents with the .opml suffix – for example researchblogs.opml.
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<opml version=”2.0″>
<head>
<title>Educational Research Blogs</title>
<dateCreated>Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT</dateCreated>
</head>
<body>
<outline text=”Educational Research Blogs” title=”Educational Research Blogs”>
<outline
type=”rss”
text=”The Learning Scientists”
title=”The Learning Scientists”
description=”Cognitive scientists making research on learning accessible to students, teachers, and educators.”
htmlUrl=”https://www.learningscientists.org/blog”
xmlUrl=”https://www.learningscientists.org/blog?format=rss”/>
<outline
type=”rss”
text=”Daniel Willingham – Science & Education”
title=”Daniel Willingham – Science & Education”
description=”Cognitive psychologist at UVA translating cognitive science research for educators.”
htmlUrl=”https://www.danielwillingham.com”
xmlUrl=”https://www.danielwillingham.com/feed”/>
<outline
type=”rss”
text=”The Effortful Educator”
title=”The Effortful Educator”
description=”A high school teacher’s deep dive into cognitive psychology and its implications for classroom practice.”
htmlUrl=”https://theeffortfuleducator.com”
xmlUrl=”https://theeffortfuleducator.com/feed/”/>
<outline
type=”rss”
text=”Retrieval Practice (Pooja Agarwal)”
title=”Retrieval Practice (Pooja Agarwal)”
description=”Cognitive scientist Pooja Agarwal on the research and classroom application of retrieval practice.”
htmlUrl=”https://www.retrievalpractice.org”
xmlUrl=”https://www.retrievalpractice.org/blog?format=rss”/>
<outline
type=”rss”
text=”The Learning Spy (David Didau)”
title=”The Learning Spy (David Didau)”
description=”UK educator applying cognitive science and educational research to teaching and curriculum.”
htmlUrl=”https://learningspy.co.uk”
xmlUrl=”https://learningspy.co.uk/feed/”/>
<outline
type=”rss”
text=”ResearchED”
title=”ResearchED”
description=”Movement promoting research literacy in education, founded by Tom Bennett.”
htmlUrl=”https://researched.org.uk”
xmlUrl=”https://researched.org.uk/feed/”/>
<outline
type=”rss”
text=”The Education Hub”
title=”The Education Hub”
description=”New Zealand researchers writing long-form, evidence-based pieces for educators on curriculum, assessment, and wellbeing.”
htmlUrl=”https://theeducationhub.org.nz”
xmlUrl=”https://theeducationhub.org.nz/feed/”/>
<outline
type=”rss”
text=”Deans for Impact”
title=”Deans for Impact”
description=”Research-based resources on the science of learning, focused on improving teacher preparation.”
htmlUrl=”https://deansforimpact.org”
xmlUrl=”https://deansforimpact.org/feed/”/>
</outline>
</body>
</opml>
Summary
I offer this as a template for an activity you might adapt to your own interests. Start with a topic of personal interest and then work your way through a similar process. As I said, I have tried this with several AI tools and all produced a workable output. Once in your RSS readers, discard those feeds that you do not find useful. AI works in mysterious ways and personal adjustments are often necessary.
You must be logged in to post a comment.