I had made this design a while back, just hadn't posted it online. (Actually a hand-drawn version is on this website somewhere.) Have a great day, everyone!
49 Amazing moments of STEM: New article
The universe is made up of stories not atoms — Muriel Rukyeser (Image © punyamishra) Every educator has had an amazing teaching moment. It is that magical moment, when the topic comes to life and the energy in the classroom is palpable. These are moments that we...
Uncreativity: An interview with Chris Bilton
"un-creativity" design, invariant under rotation by 180-degrees In this article, in our ongoing series on Rethinking technology & creativity in the 21st century, we interview Dr. Chris Bilton, Reader at the Centre for Policy Studies at University of...
The Pledge, the Turn & the Prestige: Building teams
Making connections between the movie The Prestige, and the design of 2 activities to build trust and a shared vision in teams... As I have settled down at ASU and the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, my responsibilities have grown as well. I started as...
Wordclouds, mathematics and building a better teacher
Wordcloud created from all the words in the wikipedia page for "mathematics education" What does a teacher need to know to intelligently integrate technology in their teaching? Or better still, what is it that teachers need to know to become effective...
Connections: Photo Haiku from Summer 2016
For the past 17 years (with just two exceptions) my summers have been spent teaching in the MAET program. 2016 was the last time I did that, teaching in Chicago the third cohort of the MSUrbanSTEM project. The MAET program runs somewhat concurrently in three...
Wordplay
Just some visual wordplay that I have indulged in, just for the heck of it. Nothing really special, though I am partial to the "Explore, Create, Share" design. That was the motto of the MAET program at MSU that I directed for years. Innovate 2 on Creativity...
KJZZ interview on STEAM education
I was interviewed recently by Mark Brodie of KJZZ.org for a story titled: STEM Vs. STEAM: Educators Urge Adding The Arts To Classrooms. You can listen to the interview on their page by clicking on the link above, or the MP3 below. My piece comes in at around the 3:14...
Goodbye 2016, Welcome 2017
Since 2009, our family has made short videos to welcome the new year. These videos are great fun to create, often requiring days of discussion, planning, construction, shooting and editing. They are always typographical in nature, often with a visual twist...
Happy Hanukkah: New Ambigram
In keeping with the holiday theme (see Christmas ambigram below) it seemed appropriate to create a design for Hanukkah. That task actually turned out easier than I had expected - with some natural symmetries that I could take advantage of. The "U" at the...
Merry Christmas!
What better way to wish everybody Merry Christmas than with a custom ambigram. The design above, reads Christmas when reflected in a mirror (a wall-reflection) or from either side of the page. For instance imagine printing it on a glass door - it would...
Structured Improvisation and creativity
Improv(e) Design by Punya Mishra In this article, in our ongoing series on Rethinking technology & creativity in the 21st century, we interview Dr. Keith Sawyer, Morgan Distinguished Professor in Educational Innovations at the University of North...
Introducing David Pogue
My college (The Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College) was one of the sponsors of the Arizona School Board Association Annual Conference. As a part of this, we got the privilege to introduce and have lunch with the keynote speaker. As it turns out the keynote speaker...
Happy Thanksgiving
I feel lucky (and quite undeserving) for all that I have been given in this life. It is no surprise that Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year. To celebrate Thanksgiving 2016 here is a new version an ambigram that I had made before.
Infinite Regress: New ambigram / visual pun
You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity... The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened — Jorge Luis Borges Borges’ quote of reality being a...
Math & Visual Wordplay: New video
The word "math" written such that it has rotational symmetryi.e. it reads the same even when rotated by 180-degrees. The relationship between mathematics and visual wordplay is one I have played with and writing about for a while (More here). I just discovered...
Rethinking technology & creativity, now in paper form!
For the past 4 years, the Deep-Play group has written a series of articles for the journal Tech Trends under the broad rubric of Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century. The first article was published in 2014 and we are still going strong....
The process of design: A quote
I have been a huge fan of Bill Atkinson, creator of MacPaint, one of the key players in developing the GUI for the original Macintosh including coming up with things as the double-click, the menu bar, marquee selection and lots of interface ideas we...
Ganesh, new ambigram, & old video
One of the big parts of my life over the past decade or more, has been the Ganesh Festival celebrations in Lansing with friends and family—Good food and good times. Of course this year I have to miss all the fun - being here in Phoenix. I have kept up with all...
Why teachers should care about beauty in science
Figure 1. “We are a way for the universe to know itself” - Carl SaganScience is one of the most powerful ways to engage with the beauty of the universe.We use science to understand the cosmos and, in the process,find beauty in our understandings and...
Good teaching is good design
I just came across Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design and was immediately struck by how closely they paralleled what is essential for good teaching. All one has to do is replace the word "design" with "teaching" and I think we get 10 pretty...
eBook on Creativity, Technology & Teacher Education
Danah Henriksen and I recently edited a special issue of the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education (Volume 23, Number 3, July 2015) devoted to Creativity, Technology and Teacher Education (see blog post here). This special issue has now been issued as an eBook...
Bridging the theory/practice gap: A visual exploration
Theoretically there should a reciprocal relationship between Theory and Practice - but it is the gap that every academic bemoans. This posting is prompted not by any particular insight into these matters but rather to share a set of visuals (ambigrams, memes,...
Good-Evil Ambigram in Pub Med!
My Good-Evil oscillation ambigram design is easily one of my most popular designs - having made it to multiple publications, websites, covers of magazines, on the TV Show Brain Games... and now it has made its way into a medical research journal Frontiers of...
Momentary Lapis Lazuli of Reason: Academia for better or verse
Graduate school can be a grind. Academia can be dull and dreary. But not if poetry and parody are brought into the mix. This is a volume of academic poetry titled Momentary Lapis Lazuli of Reason: Academia for better or verse. The poems in this volume are...
Deep-Play & the Engaged Scholar
The Engaged Scholar is a magazine published by MSU's Office of University Outreach and Engagement with the goal of celebrating "Michigan State University's ongoing partnership with Michigan, our nation, and our world." I just got the 10th anniversary issue in the...
Episteme6 @ Mumbai: 2 presentations
This past December I was at the epiSTEME 6 conference in Mumbai. It was jointly organized by the Homi Bhaba Center for Science Education, TIFR and the Interdisciplinary Program in Educational Technology, IIT Bombay. I presented two papers there, oneabout...
Creativity in mathematics and beyond
Our series of articles related to the broad topic of Rethinking technology and creativity for the 21st century in the journal TechTrends continues with a new article on creativity in mathematics. This article focuses on the 4 winners of the 2014...
Happy 2016, New Video
Since 2009, our family has been creating videos to welcome the new year. The videos are typically typographical in nature, sometimes including a visual illusion or some kind or the other. So as usual, we have a video for welcome 2016. Shot on our dining...
Happy Thanksgiving, 2 new ambigrams
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I wake up every day just feeling incredibly lucky for what I have - and to have a special day devoted to celebrating that idea... how very cool. So here are two new and unique ambigram designs to celebrate this wonderful day. The...