The blog this morning made an argument. This is the tool to put it to work on yourself.
Two pages. Ten questions. You'll get an honest read on where you sit across AI fluency and AI judgment, plus one concrete next action based on your SeedStacking phase.
Download: https://www.harvestkernel.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/two-track-self-assessment.pdf
Share your scores in the comments if you want a second pair of eyes on your next move.
When a room of graduating seniors booed a tech billionaire for talking up AI, it was not because they hate technology. It was a verdict on how AI gets sold to them. Inevitable. Enormous. Vague. No empathy.
Real AI literacy includes a working hype detector. So I built you one.
THE AI HYPE DETECTOR is a four-phase activity worksheet. Each phase maps to a SeedStacking level, so wherever you are, there is a step sized for you:
SEED (5 to 15 min): Spot the Moves. Learn the four moves every AI hype pitch makes, then catch them in a real piece of writing.
SPROUT (15 to 20 min): Can You Show Me? Practice the single question that separates a real capability claim from a sales line.
GROW (20 to 30 min): Translate the Hype. Take an inflated claim and rewrite it into something honest and specific enough to act on.
HARVEST (30 to 45 min): Build Your AI Hype Detector. Turn the whole framework into a one-page checklist you can keep, use, and share with a colleague.
Download the worksheet here:
https://www.harvestkernel.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/hk-ai-hype-detector-worksheet.pdf
Work through it at your own pace. When you finish the Harvest phase, drop your one-page detector in the comments. Seeing how each of you adapts it is the best part.
Plant Ideas. Cultivate Skills. Harvest Results.
New Resource: The AI Literacy Audit (interactive tool)
Today's blog post argued that a finished AI policy is not the same as a capable team. So here is a tool that measures the part that actually matters: what you, your department, or your institution can genuinely do.
It is a 16-question self-assessment scored against the four SeedStacking phases:
Seed (first contact), Sprout (repetition until the tool stops feeling foreign), Grow (real application to work that matters), and Harvest (teaching or deploying it).
You get a score out of 16, a literacy tier, a per-phase breakdown, and one specific next Seed to focus on. It takes about four minutes and nothing is saved or sent.
Run it for yourself first. Then, if you lead a team, run it the way you would answer for your department. The gap between those two scores is often the most useful thing the audit shows you.
New activity set is live: Build Your Student Experience Stack.
Today's Daily Seed covered the four pillars of the AI enhanced student experience. The first three, personalized support, retention, and accessibility, are things an institution builds for a student. The fourth, everyday AI fluency, is the one you have to build for yourself. This activity set is how you build it.
Four activities, one per SeedStacking phase. They are designed to be done in order, because each one hands its skill to the next:
- Seed, 5 to 15 minutes. The 11 PM Question. Take something you do not understand and get an AI to explain it three different ways until one clicks.
- Sprout, 15 to 20 minutes. The Re-Shape Drill. Take hard material and reshape it into a summary, a plain language rewrite, and a quiz. Notice which form helps you absorb it.
- Grow, 20 to 30 minutes. The Fact-Check Loop. Stress test a real AI answer, verify a claim yourself, and sort what held up from what did not.
- Harvest, 30 to 45 minutes. Your AI Fluency Playbook. Pull the first three together into one page: your go-to prompts, your trust rules, and the one thing you will never hand to AI.
Here is the ask, and it is the most valuable part. When you finish the Harvest activity, post your AI Fluency Playbook as a comment on this thread. Reading how another member decided when to trust AI is worth as much as the activity itself.
Start wherever your level is. A complete beginner can do the Seed activity today and feel the win. A power user can go straight to building a playbook worth sharing.
Grab the activity set here: https://www.harvestkernel.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/hk-student-experience-stack-activity-set.pdf
Plant Ideas. Cultivate Skills. Harvest Results.
TUESDAY ACTIVITY DROP, May 19, 2026
Topic: As we march closer to AGI, what job am I preparing my students for?
Format: Four-Phase SeedStacking Standard (Seed, Sprout, Grow, Harvest)
Total time: 70 to 110 minutes if you do all four. Or just do the Seed in 10. Anything you complete counts.
🌱 SEED (5 to 15 min): The "Doesn't Exist Yet" Audit
You are going to do a tiny audit. Three lists.
- List three jobs that exist as common career paths in 2026 that did not exist in 2015.
- List three jobs that were everywhere in 2005 that have effectively disappeared today.
- Look at your two lists side by side. Finish this sentence in your own words: "The pattern I notice about which jobs survive is ____."
Why this works: Nobody can tell you the pattern you noticed is wrong, because you saw it yourself.
Deliverable: One sentence answer. Drop it in the Daily Discussion if you want, or keep it.
🌿 SPROUT (15 to 20 min): The Meta-Skill Inventory
Open Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT. Paste:
"I want you to act as a career counselor who specializes in skill durability across technological disruption. I am going to describe what I do in my current role. Your job is to identify the three META-skills underneath that work (judgment, problem-framing, learning velocity, ambiguity tolerance, communication, ethical reasoning, cross-domain pattern-matching, or others I might not name). Do not flatter me. Be precise. Ask me one clarifying question if you need it before you give me the list. Here is what I do: [describe your role in 3-5 sentences]"
Then push back. Ask the model: "What evidence in what I told you supports each of those?" If the evidence is thin, the meta-skill is not really yours yet.
Deliverable: Ranked list of your top three meta-skills, each with one piece of evidence.
🌳 GROW (20 to 30 min): Your Skills DNA Document
Take the ranked list from Sprout. Paste this into your AI:
"I am building a one-page document I am calling my Skills DNA. The purpose is to capture who I actually am professionally, underneath any specific job title, so I can read it in a year and still recognize myself.
My three meta-skills are: [paste from Sprout]
Help me draft a one-page Skills DNA document with these sections:
- Core Identity (3 sentences): The kind of person I am at work, independent of role
- Meta-Skills with Evidence (one paragraph each): The three skills above, with the evidence
- Compounding Behaviors (3 bullets): Daily behaviors I already do that build these skills further
- What I Refuse To Become (2-3 sentences): The kind of professional I will not become regardless of incentive
Write it in first person. Use simple language. No buzzwords. Make it sound like me, not like LinkedIn."
Rewrite anything that does not sound like you.
Deliverable: Saveable 1-page Skills DNA document.
🌾 HARVEST (30 to 45 min, shareable): The Public Artifact
Choose one:
Option A. Written: Draft a 400 to 600 word reflection titled "The Job I Am Preparing For (That Does Not Have a Name Yet)"
Option B. Spoken: Record a 2 to 3 minute video answering the same question. First take is fine.
If you are faculty, write it about what you are preparing students for. If you are in transition, write it about yourself. If you are a parent, write it about your kids.
Must include:
- The exact frame you chose (faculty / professional / parent / other)
- One specific behavior or skill you are now building because of this thinking
- One thing you used to believe about job preparation that you do not believe anymore
Post it back here in SeedStacking Resources. Going public with a position you formed yourself is the single highest-leverage learning act in SeedStacking.
How these compound:
Seed gives you the pattern in your hands. Sprout turns it inward. Grow turns it into a durable artifact. Harvest turns it into a contribution.
Do all four in 90 minutes. Or just the Seed and call it a week. Anything you complete builds the skill of building skills, which is the only skill that holds its value when everything else changes.
That is SeedStacking.
🌱 Plant Ideas. Cultivate Skills. Harvest Results.
New companion worksheet just dropped: What Comes After Yes? Pair Eng's 4 Questions with the SeedStacking 4 Phases.
Today's blog walks through Norman Eng's Faculty Focus framework for deciding when AI belongs in a classroom. The four questions are sharp. What was missing was the integration model for what happens once you say yes to all four.
This one-page printable worksheet pairs Eng's four conditions with the matching SeedStacking phase, then gives you fill-in space to map any AI-touched lesson, assignment, or workflow through both layers in about ten minutes.
Download the PDF: After Yes Worksheet (PDF, 1 page)
Read today's full breakdown: What Comes After Yes? Norman Eng's AI Framework + The Missing Integration Layer
Bring your worksheet to the next office hours and we'll walk through a lesson together.
The Time-Values Audit (4-Phase Activity)
Today's Daily Seed covered the harder question about AI and your time: not "what can AI take off my plate?" but "what would I do with two more hours if they actually landed in my lap, and how do I know I'd use them well?"
I built this as a 4-phase SeedStacking activity. Pick the level that meets you where you are this week.
SEED (5-15 min) — The 30-Second Test
Answer these three questions in a comment below. Don't think too hard. First answer wins.
- What's the ONE thing you most often say "I would do X if I had more time" about? Be specific.
- Last time AI saved you an hour, where did that hour actually go? Be honest.
- On a normal Tuesday afternoon, what would make you feel like the day was well spent?
If you can't answer any of these in under 30 seconds, that's the signal. Sit with it.
SPROUT (15-20 min) — The Audit Worksheet
A 5-page printable that walks you through the full audit: name your fulfillment anchors, inventory your weekly tasks, tag each as Delegate / Protect / Experiment, commit to your first 3 delegation targets.
📄 Download the PDF: https://www.harvestkernel.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/hk-time-values-audit-worksheet.pdf
Best done with coffee and 20 uninterrupted minutes.
GROW (20-30 min) — The Interactive Audit Tool
Same audit, guided, with a personalized output. Walk through 4 steps and the tool generates your AI delegation map: top 3 delegation targets, your protect list, your experiment bucket, and a copy-paste-ready summary.
🛠️ Launch the tool: https://www.harvestkernel.com/time-values-audit/
The Copy My Audit button gives you a clean text export you can paste into a journal, a doc, or the next phase.
HARVEST (30-45 min) — Build Your AI Buyback Plan and Share
This is where the audit becomes real.
- Take ONE delegation target from your audit output.
- Design the actual AI workflow that will absorb it. What prompt? Which tool? When does it run? What does success look like?
- Take ONE item from your Protect list. Write a one-sentence rule for keeping AI out of it. ("No AI in the bedtime story." "No AI feedback comments without my reading the paper first.")
- Post your plan as a new post in this space. Use the tag #BuyBackTime so everyone can find each other's plans.
- Read at least two other plans and leave a comment with one question or one observation.
This is how the audit stops being a worksheet and starts being a practice. The Harvest phase is the one that compounds.
Why this matters
Speed without direction is just running. The audit is the direction part. AI is the speed part. You need both.
Drop your first answers (Seed phase) in the comments here, or jump straight to the worksheet or tool. Whatever fits your week.
Plant ideas. Cultivate skills. Harvest results.
Today on The Daily Seed: how to use plain Markdown files and Obsidian to build a second brain. I built you two free companion resources so you can move from watching to doing without any guesswork.
1. Obsidian Starter Vault Template (download)
A pre-built vault with the Three-Folder Rule already in place. Inbox, Notes, Archive. Sample notes covering Markdown syntax, atomic notes, and the graph view. A Start-Here walkthrough that gets your second brain running in about ten minutes.
Download the starter vault →
2. Build Your Second Brain Workflow Tool (interactive)
Three quick questions, then you get a personalized starter plan: your three folder names, three capture prompts tailored to how you actually work (writers, researchers, professionals, parents, students all get different prompts), and a barrier-aware first-week schedule.
Open the workflow tool →
How the two pieces fit together as SeedStacking activities:
- Seed (5 to 15 min): Open the starter vault, read Start-Here.md, make your first capture in 1-Inbox. That is it. You have a second brain.
- Sprout (15 to 20 min): Run the workflow tool. Get your personalized three-folder names and starter prompts. Apply them to your vault.
- Grow (20 to 30 min): Use your three personalized capture prompts to add five real notes from your actual work. Try one [[link]] between two of them. Open the graph view.
- Harvest (30 to 45 min): Share a screenshot of your graph view (or your three folder names and one note you are proud of) in this thread. That is the Harvest activity. Show us what your second brain looks like at the end of week one.
Both resources live permanently on the Resources page under AI Literacy Foundations so you can find them again anytime.
Drop your questions or first-week wins below. I read every comment in this space.
Plant ideas. Cultivate skills. Harvest results.
NEW RESOURCE: The Confession Moment Checklist
One-page printable companion to today's blog post. Three concrete moves any teacher can run this week to turn AI use from a discipline event into a teaching moment.
What is inside:
- SEED (5-15 min): The 10-Minute Handwritten Diagnostic with three setup checkboxes
- SPROUT (15-20 min): AI-Use Reflection template to add to every assignment
- GROW (20-30 min): Deliverable-to-Process conversion playbook for one paper in your syllabus
📄 Download the checklist (PDF, free for community members)
Print it. Tape it next to your desk. Run one move this week. Drop what happens in the comments.
Workshop: Anyone Can Vibe Code
Four activities mapped to the SeedStacking phases. From your first AI-built app to shipping something real.
Last week's Thursday topic introduced vibe coding: building software by describing what you want in plain English while AI writes the code. Here are four hands-on activities to take you from curious to capable.
Activity 1: Describe Before You Build (Seed level, 10 minutes)
Before you touch any tool, write a plain English description of something you wish existed. A calculator, a checklist app, a quiz generator, a simple dashboard. Describe it in 3-5 sentences: What does it do? Who is it for? What does the user see when they open it?
You just wrote a product spec. That is the first step of vibe coding, and you did not write a single line of code.
Activity 2: Your First Vibe Code (Sprout level, 20 minutes)
Take your description from Activity 1 and paste it into any AI coding tool (Claude Artifacts, Bolt, Lovable, or Cursor). Add this sentence at the end of your prompt: "Build this as a simple, functional web page."
Look at what it produces. Does it match what you described? What is missing? What surprised you? Write 2-3 sentences about the gap between what you imagined and what appeared. Then ask the AI to fix one thing. That back-and-forth is vibe coding.
Activity 3: The Prompt Advantage Drill (Grow level, 30 minutes)
Rebuild your project from Activity 2, but this time use three progressively better prompts:
Round 1: Your original description (the vague version).
Round 2: Add specific details about layout, colors, button labels, and user flow.
Round 3: Add edge cases. "What happens when the user enters nothing? What happens on mobile? Add a reset button."
Compare the outputs side by side. The quality difference between Round 1 and Round 3 is what we call the Prompt Advantage. It is the skill that separates someone who plays with AI from someone who builds with it.
Activity 4: Ship It and Document It (Harvest level, 45 minutes)
Take your Round 3 output from Activity 3, refine it until it works the way you want, and share it. Post the working tool or a screenshot of it in the community along with:
(a) What you built and why.
(b) Your original prompt vs. your final prompt.
(c) One thing you learned about communicating with AI that you did not know before.
The act of sharing is what cements the learning. And your prompt evolution is genuinely useful to every other member who reads it.
Drop your progress at any level in the comments below. Even the Seed activity (describing what you want to build) is a meaningful first step.