Two recent studies about AI and education have been receiving enormous attention—MIT's "Your Brain on ChatGPT" and the World Bank's "Chalkboards to Chatbots." Initially, I wanted to write a detailed post dissecting both studies, but I held back for two reasons: first,...
Six Principles for Educational Technology Implementation: ?A Global Perspective
A few months ago, the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation at Arizona State University hosted the 2025 Yidan Prize Conference. This conference was both a celebration of my colleague Micky Chi’s receipt of the 2023 Yidan Prize for Education...
Guardrails, Guidelines, & Good Intentions + Teaching Creativity in the age of GenAI
I continue to co-host AIR | GPT, a podcast that brings together Caroline Fell Kurban, Liz Kolb, Ruben Puentedura, Helen Crompton, and myself for monthly conversations about AI and education. Our discussions are orchestrated by Emmy Award-winning executive producer...
Keynote at Ankara: International Education Forum on Learning Engineering
In a previous post I had described my recent visit to Turkey and the wonderful time I had at Istanbul with my friend Gokce Kurt. However wonderful that visit was, it was not the main reason I was in Turkey. I was there to speak at the Sixth International Forum on...
Modem Futura Podcast: AI, Education, and the Human Heart of Learning
I recently had the pleasure of joining Sean Leahy and Andrew Maynard on their podcast Modem Futura for what turned into a wonderfully sprawling conversation about AI and education—one that went far beyond the typical “robots in classrooms” narrative that dominates so...
To Dublin and Back: Keynote at UCD
I recently had the opportunity to deliver the keynote address at the 8th annual University College of Dublin's Teaching & Learning Symposium in Dublin. The theme was "Innovative Futures: Engaging Learners," and I spoke on "The Ecological Imperative: Redesigning...
The Hammer Shapes the Mind: GenAI and the Rise of the Intention Economy
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...
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...
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...
Artificial Intimacy: How AI Exploits Our Social Brains
A recent study published in the Harvard Business Review (How People Are Really Using Gen AI in 2025) provides compelling insights into the evolving landscape of generative AI use. The research involved analyzing posts from Reddit, Quora and other articles over the...
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...
Irresistible by Design: AI Companions as Psychological Supernormal Stimuli
In a previous blog post (Supernormal Stimuli: From Birds to Bots) I had written about the idea of super normal stimuli – a term was first introduced by the Nobel prize winning ethologist Nico Tinbergen. His research showed that animals often responded more strongly to...
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...
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...
Supernormal Stimuli: From Birds to Bots
Picture this: a small bird desperately trying to balance atop an egg so enormous it keeps sliding off, while its own perfectly good eggs lie abandoned nearby. This absurd image has stayed with me since childhood, when I first encountered it in a popular science book...
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...
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...
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...
Value Laden: Are LLMs Developing Their Own Moral Code?
Tesla recently quietly granted me temporary access to their Full Self Driving system (something I had written about in another context). It was interesting, to say the least, to give up control, in a relatively high-risk context and just let the machine navigate...
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...
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”...
GenAI and the Education Doctorate: New Article
Note (added March 6, 2025): The article described below made it to the College's newsletter in a story titled: Integrating GenAI at the doctoral level, with a special focus on all the faculty from MLFC who had articles in the special issue. I am pleased to share this...
Human Creativity & AI in Education: Week 1
This semester I am teaching a course titled Human Creativity x AI in Education. We have 19 students in the class, split into 5 groups. (And yes though I love prime numbers, having one more participant would have been better). Each week one of the groups will document...
Special issue on TPACK in Context, with a new & improved model
Since we first introduced the TPACK model in 2006, the role of context has been a subject of ongoing discussion and evolution. The journey began with a grey smudge in 2008, in the first TPACK (actually then called TPCK) Hanbook. This evolved into the now canonical...