Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, Florida for the Teaching & Learning with AI Conference (June 11–13, 2026). I returned to Ohio genuinely energized by the community and content shared at this conference.

Our team from Ohio State presented a 60-minute hands-on workshop titled “Build It for Your Classroom: Vibe Coding AI Tools with No Code Required.” The premise was simpley to give educators the tools, the framework, and just enough time to walk away with a prototype of an  app, stie of chatbot built entirely through natural language prompts. No code. No prior technical experience required.

I’m thrilled to say that the workshop was very well recieved.

The Team That Made It Happen

This workshop would not have been possible without Md Ulfat Tahsin, Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Engineering Education at Ohio State. Tahsin work on responsible use of AI in education and mastery of the vibecoding tool “Lovable” shaped the workshop in ways that went far beyond the slides. I also owe a sincere thank you to Dr. Benjamin Ahn, Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education, for his guidance, mentorship, and steady support of this work. Dr. Ahn’s belief in the intersection of entrepreneurial thinking and AI-enhanced education gave this workshop its intellectual foundation.

What We Taught and Why It Mattered

The framework of our session was built around the Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM). We believe these aren’t just principles for engineering students; they’re the foundation of good teaching and meaningful learning at every level. We introduced participants to vibe coding, the practice of building functional software through natural language prompts, using tools like Lovable.dev. The key message we wanted every educator to leave with: AI builds, you decide. The human is always in the loop. The human (student or teacher) is always the critical reviewer, evaluating whether what the AI produced is accurate, pedagogically sound, and actually useful.

What Happened in the Room

After a brief icebreaker that asked participants to reflect on where their students struggle most with independent thinking and creativity, we moved quickly into the workshop design challenge: Create a classroom tool that helps your students think more independently, ask better questions, or engage more deeply with your subject. Educators were brainstorming Socratic questioning chatbots, scenario-based critical thinking generators, self-assessment reflection tools, and more. Within 20 minutes of hands-on build time with Lovable, many of them had functional prototypes live and shareable.

Watching a room full of instructors many of whom had never thought of themselves as “builders,” light up when their apps came to life was one of the highlights of this conference.

What’s Next

The tools we demonstrated and the pedagogical framework they are built on will continue to be developed through OHI/O and the Department of Engineering Education at Ohio State. If you’re an educator interested in exploring experiential and informal learning opportunities for your own classroom, or if you’d like to learn more about the entrepreneurial mindset, I’d love to connect.

You can reach me at king.3028@osu.edu or connect with me on LinkedIn. And if you want to dig into the technical side of this work, reach out to Ulfat at tahsin.4@osu.edu.

The future of teaching with AI isn’t about handing the wheel to a chatbot. It’s about leveraging better tools, a sharper eye, and more time to do what only great teachers can do.

Cal King is the Director of the OHI/O Informal Learning Program in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University.