A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" and its resonance with our AI age (The Mirror Cracked: AI, Poetry, and the Illusion of Depth). In that post I explored how our experience of the world is increasingly mediated by technology, AI...
Two pieces of news caught my attention this week. The first was the passing of Lee Shulman, a giant in educational research, whose profound understanding of teaching and learning shaped generations of educators - including myself. The second was the approval of a new...
The news of Lee Shulman's passing has led me to reflect on the profound impact he has had on my career and worldview, despite our paths crossing in person just once. While we never formally collaborated, our academic journeys shared a fascinating connection through...
Over the years, our column series in TechTrends has explored the evolving relationship between technology, creativity, and education. Recently, we've been particularly focused on understanding how generative AI is reshaping teaching and learning through conversations...
Since 2008, our family has been creating short videos to celebrate the start of a new year. Each video is crafted from household items and usually includes some form of typographical optical illusion. Today, we share our sixteenth, and final video—a deceptively simple...
Tesla recently, unannounced gave me temporary access to its Full Self Driving system, and I decided to give it a whirl. It was somewhat unnerving to sit back and experience the car "do its thing." But over time you get to understand how the car is behaving, where it...
I've been exploring ChatGPT's ability to analyze images, and the results have been impressive. From interpreting complex refugee statistics to conducting semiotic analyses of street art, the AI has shown a remarkable ability to extract meaning from visual information....
According to MIT Technology Review (AI can now create a replica of your personality) a new paper from Stanford and Google DeepMind researchers claims that a two-hour interview is enough for AI to create an accurate "replica" of your personality. The idea that we can...
I recently had the pleasure of participating in Digital Promise's inaugural AI Education Exchange "Ask Me Anything" series, hosted by Kelly McNeil. This was my first LinkedIn AMA and was great fun, in large part due to the team that helped set it up and the broader...
In my doctoral seminar last Monday, I started class as I always do - with a "This Day in History" moment. Essentially Nicole Oster and I spend a bit of time digging through that date’s Wikipedia page finding interesting nuggets that connect with topics we are...
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...
What is the relationship between AI and human creativity? Will AI supercharge human innovation, amplifying our ability to discover and invent? Or will it replace human ingenuity altogether? Or are we entering a hybrid future where humans and AI combine in unexpected...
[Because apparently one self-congratulatory post this year wasn't enough] A few months ago, I wrote about some academic recognition that came my way, noting how "time in the field" eventually leads to certain accolades. Well, 2024 continues to bring two more pieces of...
For almost 12 years now we have been writing a column series for the journal TechTrends, exploring the intersection of technology, creativity, and learning. Recently, my colleagues and I have been diving deep into generative AI through conversations with scholars like...
It started with a rejection. That's nothing new - we academics collect rejections like kids collect Pokemon cards (or whatever it is that they collect these days). But rejection, if it must come, must be for the right reasons. This particular rejection hit...
In a recent episode of Silver Lining for Learning on Hybrid Intelligence, I was going on about how AI systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated at mimicking human emotion and agency. Nothing new for readers of this blog - my usual concerns about synthetic...
DCI 691 (Spring 2025)Human Creativity x AI in Education: A Transdisciplinary Exploration by DesignInstructor Dr. Punya Mishra (punya[AT]asu.edu)Mondays 9 – 11:45 Tempe Short description This graduate-level course examines the dynamic interplay between human creativity...
My friend Leigh Wolf sent me the Journal of Imaginary Research's 2024 call for abstracts (note, abstracts not papers) on the theme of "Flourishing." Do check out the journal. It IS a hoot! I do plan to submit something to the journal. I mean how cool would that be......
In this post, I share a conversation with Claude.AI (my words in purple, Claude's in blue) that began as a playful exploration of visual wordplay. What emerged was something unexpected - not about AI's lack of consciousness, which was never in doubt, but about the...
In music, polyphony describes a texture where multiple independent melodic voices interweave to create something greater than the sum of its parts. The philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin expanded this idea to human discourse, seeing it as a way for multiple voices and...
I'm excited to share that I'm part of a new monthly podcast focused on generative AI in education (AIR|GPT) alongside some great colleagues and friends: Helen Crompton, Caroline Fell-Kurban, Liz Kolb, and Ruben Puentedura. The podcast is structured as an informal yet...
I recently participated in a panel discussion organized by the Center for American Progress. Our conversation focused on the emerging impact of generative AI in classrooms. During the Q&A session, someone posted the following question: I am a designer / engineer...
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." These words from Martin Luther King Jr. speak to something fundamentally human – the belief that...
Note: The image above is inspired by the cover of Time Magazine's 1983 Person of the Year issue - at the dawn of the personal computer age. Created using Adobe Photoshop and composed in Keynote Angela Gunder reached out to me recently about a project that she is...
As someone who enjoys playing with images, words, and typography, I'm always seeking new ways to generate ideas. I recently tried an experiment: collaborating with an AI language model (Claude) on a series of typographical designs. It all started after I had created...
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...
It is almost a cliché to say that generative AI can be both a challenge and an opportunity in education. Here's a story that captures this duality perfectly, showcasing two different approaches to how generative AI can be used in educational contexts, one ethically...
Arizona State University continues to push boundaries. I'm excited to share two recent developments that intersect with my collaborative work at ASU over the past few years. These initiatives showcase our institution's commitment to leveraging AI responsibly while...
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...
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...