Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. I remember when “x” was just the “unknown” – the variable that we needed to compute. It could be anything, but also knowable. Now “x” is a toxic wasteland. I remember when Grok was a lovely word, created by Heinlein, back in the...
Teaching in the Age of AI: Reflections from EDULEARN25
I was recently invited to the 17th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (EDULEARN25) in Palma, Spain. Getting to visit beautiful Palma, Mallorca, speaking with 800+ educators from across the world... what could be more awesome? At...
The Edge Cases Are Endless: Google’s Digital Plastic and other Curriculum-Shaped Objects
Summary: In which I explore three sticky metaphors—digital plastic, curriculum-shaped objects, and the endlessness of edge cases—and how they illuminate the risks of AI-powered education tools that look like learning but fail to teach. In a previous blog post (The...
Kant, Borges, & AI go to Bollywood: Connections Nobody Asked For
Intro: I am not entirely sure of the point of this post: a somewhat random associative rumination that brings together a German philosopher, a blind Argentinian author, a lovely though not well known, Bollywood movie, and large language models. All I can say is that...
The Rorschach Test of AI Research: New Episode of AIR | GPT
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,...
Small pieces, meaningful connections: Why I love the open web
One of blogging's greatest pleasures, often unspoken, are the truly serendipitous connections one makes. Not networking in the conventional sense, but unexpected encounters with people who find something on my website that connects with them and they reach out. These...
Reflecting on a Semester of Discovery, Creativity and GenAI
This past spring semester I taught (with Nicole Oster and Lindsey McCaleb) a masters/doctoral seminar on Human Creativity x AI in Education. I had wanted to write this post after our last class meeting over a month and a half ago—but travel and life kept getting in...
The Stranger Who Changed My Life: A tribute to Bill Atkinson
Bill Atkinson was someone I had never met. But he changed my life. I learned of Bill's passing a couple of days ago. It was not that I had thought about Bill a lot but the news of his death brought back memories and a recognition of the critical role he had played in...
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...
From email to Istanbul: A 17-Year Journey
Back in December 2008, I received an email from a graduate student at Yeditepe University in Turkey requesting me to serve on their dissertation committee. I did not respond to it right away—despite my attempt to respond to every email I get. Not sure why, maybe it...
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 jagged frontier of reasoning models: Revisiting eclipses & illusions
Keeping up with GenAI can be difficult. Every few months, another language model arrives trumpeting crisper logic, improved outputs and more. The upgrades land so quickly that yesterday’s marvel becomes today’s baseline, enticing us to believe each new release is the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Creative Minds: The AI Edition
Note: Team Catalyst for their weekly blog post for my creativity chose to submit a podcast transcript. I then went ahead and created some python code to convert it into an actual podcast, with real (well... that may be a stretch) voices. You can see how that was done...
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...






























