I was recently interviewed by David W. Schropfer for his DIY Cyber Guy podcast. David is an expert on cybersecurity and, and that is the focus of his podcast. I am clearly not an cybersecurity expert, so I was somewhat surprised at being invited to his show. What...
Mind(ful) Wandering & Creativity: New article
Illustration by Punya Mishra We have covered a wide range of issues related to creativity, technology and learning in our almost decade-long series that we write for the journal TechTrends. Over the past few years we have conducted almost 30+ interviews with some of...
The darker side of curiosity
Curiosity, the willingness to learn more, is often seen as a positive trait one that drives learning, and one can argue, it drives creativity and innovation. It has been argued as being important for leadership, among other things. I have prized curiosity in my own...
TPACK Newsletter, #44 March 2021
This is a delayed (by more than a year) posting of the TPACK newsletter #44 (link to PDF). My apologies, I am not entirely sure how I missed that. As always, Judi Harris and team have done a great job. You can find the previous issues archived here. This issue...
Into mindfulness & creativity
We have covered a wide range of topics in our ongoing series on creativity, technology and learning (in the journal TechTrends), including 30+ interviews with some of the top scholars in the field. More recently we have been trying to create a series of 2-4 articles...
A Socio-cultural Perspective on Creativity, Tech & Ed
Almost exactly a year ago Danah Henriksen, Carolina Torrejon Capurro and I submitted a chapter for the second edition of the book Creativity and Innovation: Theory, Research and Practice edited by Jonathan Plucker. Given the time that had elapsed, since we had written...
Presentation at University of Zurich
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...
Common sense in science class
Students can sometimes perceive scientific ideas to be in conflict with their common sense. How do we approach such conflicts in the classroom? Do we see these commonsense ideas as being wrong or, at best, misconceived? Alternatively, do we see them as resources and...
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...
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...
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...
Teachers ARE designers (in many different ways)
One of the pleasures of academia is working with awesome graduate students. This paper is an example of such a collaboration. Melissa Warr, for some reason or the other, decided to do a network analysis of some of the top-cited papers related to teaching and design....
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...
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:...
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...
Let children play: From evolutionary psychology to creativity
As a part of our ongoing series on creativity we recently spoke with Dr. Peter Gray, professor of Psychology at Boston College. Dr. Gray’s interest in creativity emerges as a consequence of his background in evolutionary psychology and interest in how humans (and...
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...
Play & Creativity Across the Lifespan
As a part of our series of conversations with creativity scholars we recently spoke with Dr. Sandra Russ, Louis D. Beaumont University Professor, and interim dean at the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychological...
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,...
Facilitating collaborative design: New publication
Essential tensions in design. Image designed by Punya Mishra Design facilitators play an important role in the open-ended collaborative design process. This becomes even more important as design based approaches expand to groups and teams that may not be as familiar...
COVID19 & Education
The COVID19 crisis has disrupted education globally at an unprecedented scale. In some ways, we are living through the largest educational social experiment in history! Over the past year I have been involved in a range of initiatives, discussions, interviews, and...
The value of school: Part 2
Note: This is the second of two posts on the value of school by Kevin Close and Punya Mishra. Read the first post: What value do schools bring? Revisiting Accountability In the previous post we argued that schools play a varied and rich role in the economic, social,...
The value of school: Part 1
Note: This is the first of two posts on the value of school by Punya Mishra & Kevin Close. Read the second post: Revisiting Accountability. What value do schools bring? The accepted assumption is that schools are sites for learning and the role of educators to...
Beware of science envy in designing learning
Mike Crowley has a guest post on the silverlingingforlearning.org site titled: If we need to be right before we move. (If you haven’t read it, I recommend it strongly. Go ahead follow the link above. I’ll be waiting). [Pause] Welcome back. I think Mike makes some...