I was invited by my friend Dominik Petko, Professor of Teaching and Educational Technology at the Institute for Educational Science at the University of Zurich to make a presentation to their faculty and staff. The video of my presentation (Contextualizing TPACK...
Tactical creativity in sports
Daniel Memmert is Professor and Executive Head of the Institute of Exercise Training and Sport Informatics at the German Sport University Cologne. A lifelong sports player and enthusiast, Memmert’s research is at the intersection of human movement science, sport...
Creativity, risk-taking & failure in education
Failure and risk-taking are essential to the creative process. It is rare that good original, creative work or ideas come together in the first try. Thus, an important component of engaging in creative practice is both an acceptance of potential failure as well as a...
Value Laden: A new podcast about ethical leadership
What is the role of values and principles in educational leadership? What can we learn from inspirational educational leaders? How did they develop their moral/ethical compass, and more importantly, how do they bring these perspectives to the work that they do? These...
STEM Futures at AAAS
ASU recently hosted, what is known as, the world's largest scientific gathering, the annual conference of the American Association of the Advancement of Science. As as part of this conference I was invited, along with Ariel Anbar and Trina Davis, to talk about our...
Youth participatory creativity in digital spaces
Ioana Literat is Assistant Professor in the Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design program at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Associate Director of the Media & Social Change Lab (MASCLab). Her research focuses on the dynamics of...
Fishing for problems: Podcast interview
I was recently interviewed by Matt Schneidman (Curator, Creator, Podcast Host) for his Fishing for Problems podcast. Matt also publishes an ed-focused newsletter. Our discussion was broadly framed around educational technology and the TPACK framework - but...
Tipping point for online learning: The interview
I had written a blog post towards the beginning of the pandemic (Tipping point for online learning, OR the postman always rings twice). In this piece, I built on something Neil Postman had written back in 1998 to try and better understand the current context....
Designing STEAM
Danah Henriksen and I were recently invited to present a keynote (and conduct two workshops) on design thinking and STEAM education at the 2021 NV STEAM conference, organized by the Nevada Museum of Art and Desert Research Institute. Of course, given the pandemic...
Educational Change by Design: A school for the future
How do we design a school for the future? This recent article seeks to capture (in the form of a case study) our recent experience in designing such a school. The design process was a collaborative process involving a partnership with a local school district and the...
Why creativity, technology and education don’t play well together?
What is the relationship between technology and creativity, particularly in educational contexts? In this article, we provide a critical thematic literature review of existing scholarship at the intersection of creativity, technology, and teaching/learning in...
TPACK & More: Presentation at RemoteK12 summit
REMOTE K12: The Connected Teacher Summit, was a one-day virtual summit hosted by ASU, designed for K-12 teachers and those that support and enable teachers in district public, charter and private schools. I presented a talk titled: Technology in teaching &...
Learning futures: Designing the horizon
I was recently invited (along with Sean Leahy and Jodie Donner) to present at the Winter Games, Digital Immersive Experience organized by ShapingEDU at Arizona State University. Our talk was titled Learning Futures: Designing the Horizon. We described our session as...
Contextualizing TPACK within systems and culture
Melissa Warr and I were recently asked to write a afterword to a special issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior. The focus of the special issue was on the kinds of knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) teachers need to successfully integrate technology in...
Learning Futures: The Podcast
What if education systems were doing more and thinking differently about preparing learners to thrive in the future? The Learning Futures Podcast (from Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College) is a series of conversations on improving education and the future of learning....
Creativity, risk-taking, education
EduSummIT is a global community of policy-makers, researchers, and educators working together to move education into the digital age. The last EduSummit (2019) was held in Quebec, Canada and I was a member of Thematic Working Group 3 (TWG3) on Creativity for Teachers...
China, Australia, Nepal & Australia: A zoom tour
Over the past couple of months I have been asked to give presentations at a variety of different conferences or organizations spread across the world. They are archived below. I was invited to give a talk as part of the Dean's Lecture Series at the School of...
Embracing failure (in a first year technology course)
In his book The child and the curriculum; and The school and society John Dewey identified four key impulses for learning that he placed at the foundation of the curriculum. The key education challenge, he argued, is to nurture these impulses for lifelong learning:...
Education in a pandemic: A crisis & opportunity
Last year I was in Israel to present at the Meital Conference. When I was there I was interviewed by Lior Detal, the education correspondent for TheMarker - which led to an article in the magazine. Earlier this year, once the COVID crisis was in full swing, I was...
From brains to music
From Brains to Music: a Multi-Faceted Discussion of Creativity with Dr. Anthony Brandt Dr. Anthony Brandt, is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University and is co-founder and artistic director of the contemporary music ensemble Musiqa. He has co-authored...
Thank you, Sonya
Written for my dear friend Sonya-Gunnings Moton, on her retirement from the College of Education at Michigan State University. Dear Sonya, wishing you all the very best on your retirement. Just want to say how much I have valued having you as a friend and colleague...
Systems level change in education
How do you design for change in complex systems—like education? Implementing large-scale changes within educational systems can be a challenging task. Doing so requires many actors, working at different organizational levels (and perhaps across organizations), to not...
Designing the futures of STEM education
“What knowledge is of most worth?” is a question asked over a 100 years ago by the English philosopher, Herbert Spencer. His unequivocal answer was—science. This question (and his answer) resonates even today, though the context within which it is asked, and how we...
Teenagers, retirement & the new abnormal
The economist and thinker Andrew Scott once said something that blew me away. He said that: The 20th century created the idea of teenagers and retirement. I had never considered that the idea of teenagers and retirement was a 20th century idea. These seemed to...
Call: Failure and Creative Risk in Technology-Enhanced Learning
I am excited to announce a call for articles on Failure and Creative Risk in Technology-Enhanced Learning for a special section in the journal Tech Trends, edited by Danah Henriksen, Punya Mishra, Edwin Creely, and Michael Henderson. You can download the the...
Of metaphors & molecules: Bridging STEM & the arts
Update on blog post that was published May 30, 2018 - since the article is now published (2 years since it was accepted for publication). Square Root: Illustration by Punya Mishra What do President Kennedy's speeches have to do with cell biology? And what does the...
A systems view of technology infusion
One of the significant changes in my way of thinking about technology integration has been a shift in focus—away from designing training and programs that target individual teachers to designing systems (both at K12 and higher education levels) that support teachers...
Us in Flux: A conversation with Sarah Pinsker
The Center for Science and the Imagination at ASU has a new series called Us in Flux. Every two weeks they publish a (super-short) short story that explores "themes of community, collaboration, and collective imagination in response to transformative events." They...
From being to becoming: Keynote by Shawn Loescher
It is rarely that I hear a talk that blows me away. We have all seen the TED talks, and their mutant offspring. The over-hyped music and catchy taglines; the speaker in front of a rapt audience; the crafted delivery with its carefully punctuated pauses and reveals,...
Measuring what matters: A convening
All of us involved in social design (and I include education in among those as well) ask ourselves, or are asked this question: How do we measure the impact of the work we do? This begs the question, why measure in the first place? Lord Kelvin, one of the greatest...