Posts related to: Science
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...

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...

From Clairvoyant Fish to Static Earths: Scientific Dialogues with GenAI

From Clairvoyant Fish to Static Earths: Scientific Dialogues with GenAI

In my previous post (From Shortcuts to Simulations: Two Contrasting Uses of AI in Higher Education), I shared how my colleague Jim ingeniously used AI to prepare for a difficult conversation about academic integrity. Today, I want to explore another fascinating...

The Conscious Suspension of Belief: Getting Smart about Human-AI Interaction

The Conscious Suspension of Belief: Getting Smart about Human-AI Interaction

A classic tale of early cinema recounts the 1896 Paris screening of the Lumière brothers' "L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat" (Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station). According to popular accounts, some viewers reportedly reacted with panic to the realistic...

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...

Unlocking Creativity: Dr. Anna Abraham on Interdisciplinarity, AI, and Human Innovation

Unlocking Creativity: Dr. Anna Abraham on Interdisciplinarity, AI, and Human Innovation

The advent, adoption and rapid evolution of generative AI has raised many questions about how we think about creativity (human and machine), and its impact on learning. As part of our ongoing series in TechTrends, my colleagues and I have been exploring these issues...

A-EYE: When AI can see

A-EYE: When AI can see

AI can now see! And talk to you about what it sees! ChatGPT released its latest upgrade - the ability to not just create images but also to interpret them. I had been waiting for a while now to get access to these new vision features - and just this morning it popped...

Creativity, AI & Education: A Reflection & an Example

Creativity, AI & Education: A Reflection & an Example

Update (added March 17, 2024): There are a few more instances of using GenAI in creative ways that I would like to add to the list below, in particular 2 posts about using the the image analysis capabilities for ChatGPT: When AI can see and Total eclipse of the sun...

The joy of learning: A reflection

The joy of learning: A reflection

What is this thing called learning? What does it mean to learn something? What makes us want to learn? Why is it fun? Why do we want to know? Even as educators, we often don't take the time to ask ourselves these foundational questions. So it is rewarding when we get...

STEM Ed & Robotics: A foreword

STEM Ed & Robotics: A foreword

Vikram Kapila is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Vikram and his research associate Purvee Chauhan recently published a book titled STEM Education with Robotics: Lessons from Research and...

Talk at Fulton School of Engineering

Talk at Fulton School of Engineering

Last August I was invited to speak at an event organized by the Ira Fulton School of Engineering's Learning and Teaching Hub. For some reason I had not posted about it — so better late than never... here it is, a 30 min talk followed by QnA....

On designing aesthetic educational experiences in science

On designing aesthetic educational experiences in science

What is the role of beauty (and aesthetics) in science in science education? This is something that I have been interested in for a long time, going back to highschool. Over the years I have built a small body of scholarship around this topic. Sadly, this work does...

Plugin’ into superpowers

Plugin’ into superpowers

I have been playing with couple of the newly released ChatGPT plugins (you have to have the paid version to use them) and want to share some of my early experiments. The two I am going to talk about are the ChatWithPDF and the Wolfram plugins. Short answer, they are...

Coding with ChatGPT3: On gaining a superpower

Coding with ChatGPT3: On gaining a superpower

I had heard that ChatGPT3 could help with writing code and just hadn't much time to play with it. Part of the reason is that I haven't really coded in almost 2 decades (maybe more) so was somewhat hesitant to jump in. But again I kept reading of people doing amazing...

ChatGPT as a blurry jpeg of the web

ChatGPT as a blurry jpeg of the web

Ted Chiang is one of the greatest, insightful writers working today. I had written previously about one his short stories in a post titled: Truth of fact and feeling: Unpacking McLuhan (2/3) about his short story The truth of fact and the truth of feeling. (If you...

Aesthetics and science education: Beauty at Work podcast

Aesthetics and science education: Beauty at Work podcast

Beauty at Work is a podcast that "explores how beauty shapes our lives and the work that we do" hosted by Brandon Vaidyanathan, Associate Professor of Sociology at The Catholic University of America. In its first season the focus is on beauty in science. As part of...

Creative Provocations: Speculations on the future of creativity, technology & learning (New Book)

Creative Provocations: Speculations on the future of creativity, technology & learning (New Book)

I am excited to announce the publication of a new book, edited by Danah Henriksen and yours truly. Titled Creative Provocations: Speculations on the future of creativity, technology & learning, it is part of the Springer series on Creativity Theory and Action in...

Can a computer program be sentient? Insights from Rodolphe Topffer, the father of comic books

Can a computer program be sentient? Insights from Rodolphe Topffer, the father of comic books

Can a computer program be sentient? Or are machines just getting good at "behaving" in ways that make it seem that way? And what does the work of a 18th century caricature artist (and father of the modern comic book) help us understand what is going on when we...