Speaking

I give keynotes and invited talks at conferences, universities, and organizations around the world. The topics track my research: TPACK and teacher knowledge, generative AI in education, creativity and design in learning, aesthetics and STEM, and the broader question of what technology does to how we think and teach. I think of a keynote as a designed experience, not a lecture.

What I speak about

Note: these five topic blurbs are drafted from your 2023–26 talks — edit freely to make them yours.

Generative AI in Education (most-requested right now) — I argue that generative AI is less a tool than a new kind of “psychological other” — a smart, drunk, biased, but supremely confident intern — and that we keep falling for its illusions because we’re built to read minds into anything that talks back. The real work isn’t catching students who use it; it’s understanding the nature of the medium before it quietly reshapes how we think and teach. Recent: Education International’s first Global AI Conference (Brussels) · University of Glasgow’s first AI-in-Education symposium · EDULEARN25 (Palma) · SITE 2024 · the MACUL/Michigan AI Summit · ASU-Cintana.

Designing Education for a Transformed World — Education is a design problem, not a delivery problem. From “how to design a school for the future” to “from artifacts to systems,” I make the case that the future of learning has to be designed — deliberately, ecologically, at the level of systems and not just classrooms. Recent: my TED talk · UCD Dublin (the Ecological Imperative) · the Ankara Forum on Learning Engineering · the Heart of Innovation Summit (Iowa).

Media, Minds & Machines — Why we anthropomorphize our machines, and what it costs us. “The Mirror and the Machine” walks through the metaphors we reach for to make sense of AI, and argues that real literacy means reading the medium and reading our own minds at once — a through-line from my earliest work on how media shape cognition.

Creativity in a Time of AI — “The promise and paradox of creative AI”: what machine creativity is and isn’t, and what it means for how we teach making, originality, and the courage to create. Grounded in two decades with the Deep-Play Research Group.

Wonder, Beauty & STEM — The aesthetic dimension of learning — beauty, elegance, wonder — as a serious driver of curiosity and understanding, not decoration. Reimagining STEAM around knowledge, community, and care.

Selected keynotes

Note: pick 2–3 of these to actually embed video for (TED is the obvious anchor).

TED: “How to design a school for the future” (2023) — the flagship
“Teacher Knowledge in an Age of GenAI” — SITE 2024 Keynote
“The Mirror and the Machine: Navigating the Metaphors of GenAI” — 2025 conference talk
UNESCO, International Day for Digital Learning — closing keynote, 2025 (tied to Silver Lining’s 5th anniversary)
“AI, Education & the Unregulated Global Experiment” — closing keynote, Education International Global AI Conference, Brussels, 2026
“My journey through design” — IDC School of Design keynote, 2020
MITE 2019 Keynote, Sydney (video)

Reach

Talks span TED, UNESCO, Education International, and universities and conferences across the US, UK, Ireland, Turkey, India, Australia, and beyond — keynotes, plenaries, and the occasional commencement.