Punya Mishra is Director of Innovative Learning Futures at the Learning Engineering Institute (LEI) and Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University (with an affiliate appointment in the Design School).
He is internationally recognized for his work in educational technology; the role of creativity and aesthetics in learning; and the application of collaborative, design-based approaches to educational innovation. He has received over $11 million in grants; published over 200 articles and edited 5 books. A recipient of AECT’s David H. Jonassen Excellence in Research Award, with over 64,000 citations of his research, he is ranked among the top 2% of scientists worldwide (#91 in social science) and the top 50 scholars (top 10 in psychology) who have the biggest influence on educational practice and policy in the US.
Punya has extensive leadership experience in higher education, having previously served as Associate Dean of Scholarship & Innovation (at MLFTC), where he led a range of initiatives that provided a future-forward, equity driven, approach to inter/trans-disciplinary educational research. He has also served as director of doctoral programs (at MLFTC) and the award-winning Master of Arts in Educational Technology program (at Michigan State). He currently is a member of the steering committee of ASU’s Leadership Academy, AACTE’s Technology and Innovation Committee, and editor-in-residence for the Journal of Teacher Education.
An AERA Fellow (2024), TED-Ed educator (2023), he co-hosts the award-winning Silver Lining for Learning webinar as well as the Learning Futures podcast. He is an award-winning instructor, an engaging public speaker, and an accomplished visual artist and poet.
Must reads
Webinars & Podcasts:
Value Laden (archived)
Apple | Spotify | Simplecast
Blog Posts
When Truth Doesn’t Matter: AI Falls for Illusory Optical Illusions
I've been exploring ChatGPT's ability to analyze images, and the results have been impressive. From interpreting complex refugee statistics to conducting semiotic analyses of street art, the AI has shown a remarkable ability to extract meaning from visual information....
Copy, Paste, Personality: AI and the Messy Science of Being Human
According to MIT Technology Review (AI can now create a replica of your personality) a new paper from Stanford and Google DeepMind researchers claims that a two-hour interview is enough for AI to create an accurate "replica" of your personality. The idea that we can...
AMA with Digital Promise: An AI-opening Discussion
I recently had the pleasure of participating in Digital Promise's inaugural AI Education Exchange "Ask Me Anything" series, hosted by Kelly McNeil. This was my first LinkedIn AMA and was great fun, in large part due to the team that helped set it up and the broader...
When Tools Become Culture
In my doctoral seminar last Monday, I started class as I always do - with a "This Day in History" moment. Essentially Nicole Oster and I spend a bit of time digging through that date’s Wikipedia page finding interesting nuggets that connect with topics we are...
Of Stochastic Parrots and Drunk Interns: My Chat with Win Coalition
I recently sat down with Ryan Gray and Robin Bryce of Yavapai College for Win Coalition's What's Next Speaker Series. Regular readers of this blog will know exactly what I must have talked about - no surprises here! We dove into AI, education, and where all this is...
Perspectives on Global Learning: SLL at the GLOW Conference:
I joined my Silver Lining for Learning (SLL) co-hosts - Chris Dede, Curt Bonk, and Lydia Cao (with Yong Zhao unable to attend due to travel) - to deliver a keynote at the Global Learning for an Open World Conference. SLL has been a labor of love over the past five...
AI’nt Fair: Why AI May Make Learning Gaps Wider
What is the relationship between AI and human creativity? Will AI supercharge human innovation, amplifying our ability to discover and invent? Or will it replace human ingenuity altogether? Or are we entering a hybrid future where humans and AI combine in unexpected...
Hype, Luck, and Numbers: More Gratuitous Self-Promotion
[Because apparently one self-congratulatory post this year wasn't enough] A few months ago, I wrote about some academic recognition that came my way, noting how "time in the field" eventually leads to certain accolades. Well, 2024 continues to bring two more pieces of...
To thine own mind be true: Understanding cultural technologies, from cave walls to ChatGPT
For almost 12 years now we have been writing a column series for the journal TechTrends, exploring the intersection of technology, creativity, and learning. Recently, my colleagues and I have been diving deep into generative AI through conversations with scholars like...
… or check out some random blog posts
New TPACK themed book on English Education
My friend Carl Young of NCState recently released an edited volume (co-editor, Sara Kajder a the University of Pittsburgh) titled Research on Technology in English Education. It is a volume in the series: Research Methods for Educational Technology, edited by Walt...
Hobnob with MSU faculty
Paul Morsink & Bakar Razali, two graduate students in our college have been doing this interesting variant of the 60 second lecture. They record short videos of individual faculty members talking about anything that interests them and through that allow viewers to...
iVideos from Australia, the 2011 edition
Last June I had posted a note (Teacher as filmmaker: An update from down under) about the iVideos created by students from the University of Technology, Sydney (under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Kearney). iVideos or "idea videos" are short films often 2 minutes (or...
TPACK @ PLP: cool webinars, great resource
Leigh Wolf pointed me to an fantastic resource for teachers and educators interested in learning more about TPACK. These are a series of online interactive webinars titled TPACK Fridays and are organized by the Powerful Learning Practice (plpnetwork.com). What is...
Nature v.s. nurture, what are we missing
Jordy Whitmer over at the Birmingham School district forwarded me this link to this really cool video by George Kembel on Awakening Creativity. There is a lot in the video to ponder and discuss but I want to focus on something he said about music learning that really...
TPACK & Activity Types
Judi Harris, Matt Koehler and I just submitted an article on Activity Types and TPACK. We had presented this at AERA last year and it took a while getting it ready to submit as a journal article. In this paper we combine the work that Judi (and her colleagues) have...
A defining moment!
I started blogging at the beginning of this year - January 1, 2008 4 days later, when Obama won the Iowa caucuses, I a posted a video of his speech, and asked a simple question, "Is this a defining moment of our time?" See it here Almost exactly six months later, on...
The carving of Carver
Creativity and collaboration. Authorship and editorial prerogative, who has the final say, and who should receive the credit? Here is an article in Drexel University's Magazine "The Smart Set" about the role Raymond Carver's editor played in "finalizing" his stories....
New Orleans (photos)
I took a couple of hours off to walk around New Orleans in the French Quarters taking pictures. Here they are... Click on the image for more pictures...