Posts related to: Leadership
Human Creativity to the Power of AI: The Event

Human Creativity to the Power of AI: The Event

When Nicole Oster, Lindsey McCaleb and 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...

Technology Transforms Learning: Insights from the 2025 Yidan Prize Conference

Technology Transforms Learning: Insights from the 2025 Yidan Prize Conference

I recently participated in the 2025 Yidan Prize Conference hosted by the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation at Arizona State University. In large part this conference was a celebration of my colleague Micky Chi, recepient of the 2023 Yidan...

ASU-Cintana Innovation Talk for Faculty: Education in an Age of GenAI

ASU-Cintana Innovation Talk for Faculty: Education in an Age of GenAI

I was recently invited to speak on the topic of "Education in an Age of Generative AI" at a special webinar series organized by the ASU-Cintana Alliance. In this talk, I explored both the potential and considerations surrounding Generative AI in education, emphasizing...

Silver Lining for Learning at UNESCO: Celebrating 5 Years of Innovation

Silver Lining for Learning at UNESCO: Celebrating 5 Years of Innovation

I was honored to deliver the closing keynote at UNESCO's International Day for Digital Learning 2025 this past week. The event, focusing on "Digital learning realities in low-resource contexts," brought together educators, policymakers, and innovators from around the...

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...

The Mirror and the Machine: Navigating the Metaphors of Gen AI

The Mirror and the Machine: Navigating the Metaphors of Gen AI

A couple of weeks ago I was invited by Eamon Costello to present a talk at the Education after the algorithm: Co-designing critical and creative futures conference being held in Dublin. And no, I didn’t get to go to Dublin for my talk—had to do it from here in...

With Gratitude

With Gratitude

About a month ago, I woke up to an unexpected email from Dr. Ravi Gudi, Dean of Alumni and Corporate Relations at IIT Bombay. He informed me that I had been selected to receive the Distinguished Alumnus Award (DAA) in recognition of what he described as my...

The Tale of Two Tech Teams: How Small Interactions Expose Our Values

The Tale of Two Tech Teams: How Small Interactions Expose Our Values

A while back, I wrote about an email that made my heart stop—an auto-generated message declaring that an employee had been "terminated." That impersonal, poorly designed communication spoke volumes about the organization's attitude towards its people. And the fact...

Dewey or Don’t We Care? Addressing the Novice’s Dilemma in Learning with GenAI

Dewey or Don’t We Care? Addressing the Novice’s Dilemma in Learning with GenAI

In my previous blog post on the Microsoft Research study about GenAI and expertise I ended with a troubling realization that GenAI may not be the best options for learners. As I wrote "This analysis raises particularly thorny issues about AI use in education. If...

Knowledge, Community & Care: Reimagining STEAM Education for Health Equity

Knowledge, Community & Care: Reimagining STEAM Education for Health Equity

One of the deepest pleasures of an academic life is when something you helped create, an idea, a framework, gets a life of its own. Others run across it, who knows how that happens... and they find meaning in it and use it to guide their work. It is both unexpected...

Corporations as Paperclip Maximizers: AI, Data, and the Future of Learning

Corporations as Paperclip Maximizers: AI, Data, and the Future of Learning

Once in a while, you come across a piece of writing that doesn’t just make you think—it makes you rethink. It rearranges the furniture in your head, putting things together in ways you hadn’t considered but now can’t unsee. Charles Stross’s essay, “Dude, You Broke the...

Mairéad Pratschke On GenAI, Creativity, Culture and the Future of Learning

Mairéad Pratschke On GenAI, Creativity, Culture and the Future of Learning

Over the years, our column series in TechTrends has explored the evolving relationship between technology, creativity, and education. Recently, we've been particularly focused on understanding how generative AI is reshaping teaching and learning through conversations...

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...

Perspectives on Global Learning: SLL at the GLOW Conference:

Perspectives on Global Learning: SLL at the GLOW Conference:

I joined my Silver Lining for Learning (SLL) co-hosts - Chris Dede, Curt Bonk, and Lydia Cao (with Yong Zhao unable to attend due to travel) - to deliver a keynote at the Global Learning for an Open World Conference. SLL has been a labor of love over the past five...

To thine own mind be true: Understanding cultural technologies, from cave walls to ChatGPT

To thine own mind be true: Understanding cultural technologies, from cave walls to ChatGPT

For almost 12 years now we have been writing a column series for the journal TechTrends, exploring the intersection of technology, creativity, and learning. Recently, my colleagues and I have been diving deep into generative AI through conversations with scholars like...

From Shortcuts to Simulation: Two Contrasting Uses of AI in Higher Education

From Shortcuts to Simulation: Two Contrasting Uses of AI in Higher Education

It is almost a cliché to say that generative AI can be both a challenge and an opportunity in education. Here's a story that captures this duality perfectly, showcasing two different approaches to how generative AI can be used in educational contexts, one ethically...

My (small) Role in ASU’s AI Evolution: New Report and Ethical Evaluation Framework

My (small) Role in ASU’s AI Evolution: New Report and Ethical Evaluation Framework

Arizona State University continues to push boundaries. I'm excited to share two recent developments that intersect with my collaborative work at ASU over the past few years. These initiatives showcase our institution's commitment to leveraging AI responsibly while...

Tech Integration Models and GenAI: Podcast Episode (Part II)

Tech Integration Models and GenAI: Podcast Episode (Part II)

Last week, I shared information about my participation in the Superspeaks | Microsoft EDU podcast on the BAM Radio Network. The discussion focused on technology integration frameworks in the context of Generative AI, featuring a panel of educational technology...

From ChatGPT to Chats Devroop: Ed Tech & Time Travel in South Africa

From ChatGPT to Chats Devroop: Ed Tech & Time Travel in South Africa

This past week I was in Durban, South Africa presenting at the Innovations in the Science of the Teaching and Learning (ISOTL) Conference 2024: Bridging Ethics, Equity, and Innovation in Higher Education, organized by the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It was a pretty...

Digital Shadows: AI Scripts a Different Curriculum

Digital Shadows: AI Scripts a Different Curriculum

As we continue to grapple with the hype and transformative potential of generative AI in education, I find myself revisiting a point I've made before: the most significant impacts of this technology may not be within the classroom walls, but in the world that...

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,...

Teachers and genAI: Insights from an OECD Webinar

Teachers and genAI: Insights from an OECD Webinar

I recently had the privilege of participating in a webinar hosted by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) on the topic of "How teachers can use AI effectively." The session was described as follows Supporters of AI argue it has the...

A New Chapter

A New Chapter

I came to ASU 8 years ago, joining the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College as Associate Dean for Scholarship and Innovation. The primary goal was to support our faculty and doctoral students in their research related activities. That said, my role has shifted over the...