I spent the last week in Orlando at the SITE 2025 conference. During this conference, I set a new personal record for losing everything from my belongings to an election, from water bottles to conference panelists and more – all leading to unexpected tensions and adventures along the way.

My conference marathon started a day early when an ASU panel suddenly became a solo act. Turns out – for a variety of reasons – we had lost two panelists out of three. Janel White-Taylor, Lindsey McCaleb and I were volunteered by Catherine Reardon, the lone panelist standing, proving that sometimes the best presentations come with zero preparation and maximum panic.

My official schedule began early Tuesday morning, with a UNESCO keynote on International Day for Digital Learning. And given the theme of this post, I started somewhat inauspiciously by flooding my hotel room with coffee because I had forgotten to put a cup under the machine! Luckily, I managed to clean up the mess and, more importantly, brew myself a new cup, before jumping into Zoom, thereby ensuring that my credentials as a technology professional remain unquestioned.

The 15-minute trek from the hotel (once this session ended) to the campus where the conference was being held might as well have been the Oregon Trail for how prepared I was. Thank heaven for Catherine’s rescue before I totally lost it, driving me to the venue. This allowed me to lead and participate in an ASU themed session on all the amazing creative work we are doing here at the university. One of the highlights of this session was a presentation by Lindsey McCaleb, Nicole Oster and I about the human-creativity and AI in education course we are currently teaching.

Technology troubles continued when I nearly missed the FPSE Human Rights panel, on Wednesday, due to login issues—because nothing proves the need for human rights like technology denying your right to participate in a panel about rights. The theme of loss continued with the SITE presidential election—where I was a candidate. While initially disappointed at the result, I realized it was actually a win—Jason Trumble will make a great president, and I remain gloriously free from administrative shackles. SITE is still my intellectual playground and community, just without the presidential responsibilities.

The best part of the conference for me was a presentation on creativity and AI with Michael Henderson, Danah Henriksen and Ed Creely. Michael, for some flimsy reasons, decided not to travel to Orlando, so I spent the week trolling him with photos of Orlando cocktails and the fun we were having. He retaliated with a video of his students mocking me—and now it was war. Since he wasn’t there, Michael had submitted a video of his talk, which I stealthily got to view before our session. I scrapped my planned talk (much to Danah’s and Ed’s surprise) and focused my presentation entirely on systematically dismantling Michael’s ideas. And I must add Michael had no response. As I said in the session, his silence was telling. At the end of the day, this seession ended up being one of the most fun presentations both for us (the panelists) and the audience. (I should add that Michael is a good friend AND I meant every mean and nasty thing I said about his ideas).

My talent for misplacing essential items had reached Olympic levels: AirPods (ninja-hiding in my backpack), water bottle (vanished into the conference dimension), jacket (apparently needed a solo adventure), and even my driver’s license (of all places, at the airport, just as I was approaching the TSA Pre checkpoint!). I almost lost my name as well – it took some imagination to recognize how my full name (Punyashloke Mishra, which is on my driver’s license) was being mangled on the airport PA system by the poor guy who had to make the announcement.

Clearly it takes a village (and maybe more) to keep me just barely functional.

What was amazing was that in each and every case – it ended up being fine at the end. Between sessions on AI creativity and metaphors, I continued playing hide-and-seek with my belongings, getting help from friends and strangers, just to stumble through my days.. Perhaps next year’s conference theme should be “Finding Your Way Through Technology (And the Hotel Lobby).” And, more importantly, I should invest in airtags.

Despite all the misadventures, the conference proved to be both intellectually stimulating and unexpectedly entertaining – just like my journey through the lost and found. Below are all the sessions I was part of – with links to the submissions and the presentations.

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SITE 2025 Presentations

Tuesday, March 19, 2025

• Randomly invited to be part of a panel on a topic I knew little about. Less said the better.

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

• 7:30 – 9:30 AM | Zoom (mostly 8:45 – 9:30): Closing Keynote at UNESCO International Day for Digital Learning
• 10:15 – 12:30 | Room 12: Creative Applications in Generative AI: Applications in Educational Research & Practice (Chair & Discussant) [ Paper | Presentation ]
• 1:45 – 2:15 | Room 107: AI-Integrated Design for Educators (AIDE): Teaching & Learning with a Smart, Drunk, Biased & Supremely Confident Intern (with Lindsey, Nicole, Melissa) [ Paper | Presentation ]
• 3:00 – 5:00 | Room 111: Implications of AI in K12 and Higher Education (with Khazanchi, Khazanchi, Warr, Blankenship, Jacques Petit) [ Paper | Presentation ]

Thursday, March 20, 2025

• 11:30 – 12:30 | Room 101: AI Creativity in Education: Reframing the Human-Machine Creative Partnership (with Creely, Henriksen, Henderson) [ Paper | Presentation ]
• 12:10 – 12:30 | Room 111: Swiss Army Knives, Stochastic Parrots, Drunk Interns & Overlords: Understanding AI Through Metaphors (with Oster, McCaleb) [ Paper | Presentation ]
• 1:00 – 3:30 PM | ZOOM: FPSE Human Rights and International Solidarity Speakers Tour – AI: Human Rights + Education

Friday, March 21, 2025

• 10:45 – 11:15: Human or AI? Understanding the learning implications of Anthropomorphized GenAI (with Oster) [ Paper | Presentation ]