Camera crews search for clues amid the detritusAnd entertainment shapes the landThe way the hammer shapes the hand. Jackson Browne, in Casino Nation In this post, I examine how AI systems have evolved from capturing attention to manipulating intentions, creating an...
AI, Human Rights, and Education: A Virtual Panel Discussion
I recently participated in a virtual panel organized by the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia (FPSE), examining the intersection of AI: Human rights, and Education. The event brought together five panelists from different institutions and...
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...
Exploring the TypeVerse: When Typography Meets AI Poetry
Back in January I wrote about my typographical designs where letters do double duty and how I was collaborating with Claude to create poetic/verbal responses to my designs. What started as simple visual puzzles—like "THINK INFINITY" with the shared "IN"...
Teacher Education in the Age of GenAI: Special issue of the Journal of Teacher Education
Note: This post was cross-posted on the AACTE/ EdPrep Matters website on April 30, 2025. I am excited to announce that the special issue of the Journal of Teacher Education devoted to GenAI and educator preparation is now published. Back in August of 2023 the members...
Who Ordered That? On AI, Education, and the Illusion of Necessity
On April 22, 2025, The Washington Post reported on a draft executive order from the Trump administration that outlines a sweeping plan to embed artificial intelligence into K-12 education. The order calls for AI to be integrated into teaching practices, teacher...
Can AI Be a Therapist? A Friend? What Are We Even Doing?
I was recently invited to a webinar organized by the AZ AI Alliance, titled: Thorny Topics: AI and Student Mental Health Along with Dr. Kristen Mattson (University of Illinois), Mica Mulloy (Brophy College Prep) and host Luke Allpress, we jumped into some of the most...
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...
Designing for Creative Learning: New book chapter
I'm excited to share my recent work with colleagues Richard West, Jason McDonald, and Melissa Warr exploring how instructional designers can intentionally foster creativity through Gl?veanu's 5A Framework. It was published in the prestigious Oxford Handbook of...
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...
On the Ethical Perils of Mass-Produced Books: A Concerned Scholar’s View
The prose below is from a manuscript that was recently discovered in the archives of the Indian National History Museum. It was found among papers donated in 1923 by the estate of Colonel Jackson Vivian Quill III of the Royal Fusiliers, who served in British India...
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...
Human Creativity^AI: Team Energy Blog post
Below is Team Energy's blog post for my Human Creativity x AI for Education class. In the urge to top every other group in class, Team Energy decided to write two posts - one in third person and the other through their individual voices and perspectives. I have...
A New Definition of Literacy
Note: For some context on the title image (above) please see an addendum at the end of this post. This past Friday was AI Literacy day, and I was invited, along with Ian O’Byrne (College of Charleston) to participate in a webinar on the topic. Readers of this blog...
SITE 2025: Lost and Found
I spent the last week in Orlando at the SITE 2025 conference. During this conference, I set a new personal record for losing everything from my belongings to an election, from water bottles to conference panelists and more - all leading to unexpected tensions and...
Play—I: Blog post by Team AI
Below is Team AI's blog post for my Human Creativity x AI for Education class. As always, I have not edited their post in any way. You can read the previous posts by following the links here: Post 1; Post 2; Post 3; Post 4; Post 5; & Post 6 This was a great way to...
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
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
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
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 Promise & Paradox of Creative AI: A Presentation
I'm excited to announce my upcoming presentation at the Second International Seminar on 'Design Education in the Post-AI World' taking place tomorrow (Saturday) at the Centre for Design Studies in Indore, India. This seminar holds special significance for me as it's...
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...
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...
When Ghalib meets AI: One student’s experiment
In my previous post about rediscovering Ghalib through metal and rap, I mentioned sharing his work in my creativity class. What I didn't share was the remarkable ripple effect this had. Every week, students take turns writing reflections on our class discussions and...
The Hidden Metal in Ghalib’s Heart
Mirza Ghalib, was a celebrated poet who lived in Delhi in the 19th century Delhi. He was as famous for his wit and defiance of conventions as he was for his verses. He mostly wrote ghazals—a form of lyric poetry built of rhyming couplets, each standing alone yet...
From Yawn to Yeah!: How I Got an AI to Stop Being So Darn Serious
As part of my class on Human Creativity x AI in Education, students were randomly assigned to Teams A through E. One of their first tasks? Create team names starting with their assigned letter. So we ended up with with teams AI, Brainstormers, Catalyst, Dreamers and...
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...
GenAI Reasoning Models: Very smart & confident (but still drunk)
A year or so ago, I came up with this metaphor that working with a chatbot is like having "a smart, biased, supremely confident, drunk intern." While the bias aspect is a crucial issue I've written about elsewhere, for this discussion we'll focus on the other...
The Avengers, Creativity & the EdTech Midgame
If last week we had Bollywood, could Hollywood be far behind? Here is the fourth blog post from students in my class on Human Creativity x AI in Education, documenting what we do each week. The only edit I made to their post was including the image and description of...
The GenAI and Expertise Paradox: Why It Makes Expert Work More Important But Harder
I've had many conversations recently with colleagues about what happens when we integrate GenAI into our daily work. What effects does it have on our cognition? What do we gain and what do we lose in this process? Does using Claude or ChatGPT to help with writing...