Posts related to: Computational Thinking
From Symbols to Statistics: The Parallel Histories of Machine and Human Learning

From Symbols to Statistics: The Parallel Histories of Machine and Human Learning

Over the past 12 years, we have been writing a regular column in TechTrends, broadly focused on "Rethinking Creativity and Technology in Education." More recently, we've focused our attention on the role of GenAI in teaching, learning and creativity. In our previous...

Human Creativity to the Power of AI: The Event

Human Creativity to the Power of AI: The Event

When Nicole Oster, Lindsey McCaleb and I were discussing the design of DCI691: Human Creativity × AI in Education before this semester started, we envisioned a space where we (students and faculty alike) could collectively explore the fascinating boundaries between...

Control vs. Agency: Exploring the History of AI in Education

Control vs. Agency: Exploring the History of AI in Education

Over the past 12 years we have been writing a regular column in TechTrends, broadly around "Rethinking Creativity and Technology in Education." More recently, we have been exploring the complex relationship between emerging technologies and educational practices, with...

Incorrect Scientific Simulations as an educational tool: Vibe coding the wrong way

Incorrect Scientific Simulations as an educational tool: Vibe coding the wrong way

What happens when you drop a ball while running? Will it fall in front of you, at your feet or behind you? Most people are convinced it will fall behind them. Makes perfect sense, right? Where will the ball fall? Then there's the famous textbook problem of a monkey...

The Attribution Problem: Why we can’t stop seeing ourselves in AI

The Attribution Problem: Why we can’t stop seeing ourselves in AI

Note: For over 20 years I have been taking photographs of everyday objects that appear to have faces, a phenomenon known as pareidolia, for a series I call 'Faces in the Wild.” The above image was captured during a family trip to Mexico in 2012. I have “cleaned up”...

Code, Kathak, and Confusion: A Story of Learning with GenAI

Code, Kathak, and Confusion: A Story of Learning with GenAI

One of the students in my Human Creativity x AI in Education class is an accomplished Kathak dancer and last week we got into a discussion of how she could bring this personal interest into projects we were exploring in the class. How could GenAI help? So yesterday,...

Sine Language: Circling Pythagoras Through Sound and Color

Sine Language: Circling Pythagoras Through Sound and Color

This semester I am teaching a course on Human Creativity X AI in Education. (More about our first week here.) A key focus of the class is on the idea of transdisciplinary creativity – that of bringing different lenses and senses to the process of learning and...

From Self-Driving Cars to Selfish Genes: Trapped in AI’s Metaphors, Literally

From Self-Driving Cars to Selfish Genes: Trapped in AI’s Metaphors, Literally

Tesla recently, unannounced gave me temporary access to its Full Self Driving system, and I decided to give it a whirl. It was somewhat unnerving to sit back and experience the car "do its thing." But over time you get to understand how the car is behaving, where it...

AMA with Digital Promise: An AI-opening Discussion

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...

Of Stochastic Parrots and Drunk Interns: My Chat with Win Coalition

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...

Many Voices, One Song: Orchestrating Polyphonic Learning

Many Voices, One Song: Orchestrating Polyphonic Learning

In music, polyphony describes a texture where multiple independent melodic voices interweave to create something greater than the sum of its parts. The philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin expanded this idea to human discourse, seeing it as a way for multiple voices and...

Tech integration models and GenAI: Podcast episode (Part I)

Tech integration models and GenAI: Podcast episode (Part I)

I was recently invited to be a guest on the Superspeaks | Microsoft EDU podcast on the BAM Radio Network. the topic at hand were technology integration frameworks in the age of Generative AI. I was joined by a literal who's who of educational technology scholars, all...

Advancing Education in the AI Era: Video Update

Advancing Education in the AI Era: Video Update

I was recently in Washington, DC, for a panel discussion titled "Advancing Education in the AI Era: Promises, Pitfalls, and Policy Strategies" organized by the Center for AI Policy. The panel, moderated by Jason Green-Lowe of the CAIP, also included Michael Brickman,...

Beavers, Brains & Chat Bots: Cognitive Illusions in the Age of AI

Beavers, Brains & Chat Bots: Cognitive Illusions in the Age of AI

Imagine a world where tape recorders fool beavers, triangles tell stories, and AI convinces us it's sentient. Welcome to reality—where our cognitive biases are colliding with technology in ways we're only beginning to understand. In this post, I focus on our tendency...

Beyond the Algorithm: The Mysterious Variability of Responses from GenAI  

Beyond the Algorithm: The Mysterious Variability of Responses from GenAI  

Note: The shared blogging with Melissa Warr and Nicole Oster continues and this time we also have Margarita Pivovarova joining the team. I (Punya) wrote the first draft which was then edited and polished by the rest of the team.   Do I contradict myself?Very well...

ChatGPT does not have a user manual. Let’s not create one.

ChatGPT does not have a user manual. Let’s not create one.

Note: This is the next post in the shared blogging experiment with Melissa Warr and Nicole Oster. This time we question what and how we should be teaching about generative AI. The core idea and first draft came from Melissa, to which Nicole and I added revisions and...

Teacher Knowledge in an Age of Gen AI: SITE 2024 Keynote

Teacher Knowledge in an Age of Gen AI: SITE 2024 Keynote

16 years ago, Matt Koehler and I were invited to present a Keynote at the Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education (SITE) conference. That keynote changed our lives (link to YouTube video). I was invited back again this year for the same. A lot has...

The (Neil) Postman Always Rings Twice: 5 Questions on AI and Education

The (Neil) Postman Always Rings Twice: 5 Questions on AI and Education

Note: This post has also been cross-posted on the Civics of Technology blog. Marie Heath (with whom I recently co-wrote a blog post about GenAI in Teacher Education: A techno-skeptical perspective) and I were invited to write a chapter for an edited volume titled...

GenAI in Teacher Education: A Technoskeptical Perspective

GenAI in Teacher Education: A Technoskeptical Perspective

Image created using Adobe Firefly & Adobe Photoshop, composed in Keynote by Punya Mishra  By Marie K. Heath and Punya Mishra Hello! This is a cross-blog post between Punya Mishra’s blog, where he plays with ideas of learning, technology, design and creativity...

Can we please slow it all down? School leaders take on ChatGPT (new article)

Can we please slow it all down? School leaders take on ChatGPT (new article)

We have, over the past months, explored a range of issues related to generative AI, education, and creativity in our column series, for TechTrends, with the goal of fostering dialogue among stakeholders—students, parents, educators, and policymakers—to ensure these...

Designing learning in a transformed world: Keynote

Designing learning in a transformed world: Keynote

I was recently invited to present virtually at The Heart of Innovation Summer Summit, organized by the Heartland Area Education Agency in Iowa. The video of my talk can be seen below. Maybe my first serious keynote talk about generative AI and education. Enjoy...

ChatGPT is a smart, drunk intern: 3 examples

ChatGPT is a smart, drunk intern: 3 examples

Harry Frankfurt the philosopher passed away, this past Sunday. He was 94. As the NYTimes obituary said, he was... ... a philosopher whose fresh ideas about the human will were overshadowed in the broader culture by his analysis of a kind of dishonesty that he found...

Creativity, AI & Education: A Reflection & an Example

Creativity, AI & Education: A Reflection & an Example

Update (added March 17, 2024): There are a few more instances of using GenAI in creative ways that I would like to add to the list below, in particular 2 posts about using the the image analysis capabilities for ChatGPT: When AI can see and Total eclipse of the sun...

Wine + GPT4 + Code Interpreter: WOW!!

Wine + GPT4 + Code Interpreter: WOW!!

OpenAI just released Code Interpreter. It allows you to execute Python code within a live working environment. One of the things that it allows us to do is take data files and conduct data analysis and create graphs and charts. Not knowing what that meant I decided to...

STEM Ed & Robotics: A foreword

STEM Ed & Robotics: A foreword

Vikram Kapila is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Vikram and his research associate Purvee Chauhan recently published a book titled STEM Education with Robotics: Lessons from Research and...

Creative uses of ChatGPT for Education: A conversation with Ethan Mollick

Creative uses of ChatGPT for Education: A conversation with Ethan Mollick

Ethan Mollick is a professor at the Wharton School of Business and studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship. He also leads Wharton Interactive, an effort to democratize education through games and simulations. He is also one of the most innovative users of...