Posts related to: Engineering
Generative AI: Will history repeat or (just) rhyme

Generative AI: Will history repeat or (just) rhyme

As generative AI continues to reshape our world, we're faced with a crucial question: Will we repeat the mistakes we made with previous technologies or will this time be something different? George Santayana famously warned, "Those who cannot remember the past are...

“Tipping” the Scales: When Metaphors (Quite Literally) Blur Reality

“Tipping” the Scales: When Metaphors (Quite Literally) Blur Reality

Should we tip machines for the work they do for us? Does that question even make sense? What follows is a reflection on metaphors, technology, deceptive design, AI and more... Read on. Metaphors and more In her book God, Human, Animal, Machine, Meghan O’Gieblyn...

Media, Cognition & Society through History:  A Mapping

Media, Cognition & Society through History: A Mapping

If oral cultures prioritize memory and print cultures emphasize systematic organization, what types of knowledge will AI systems foster? Marie Heath and I wrote this line in a chapter that is currently in press. But the idea underlying this quote has been with me for...

Keynote Presentation: AI in Education Summit

Keynote Presentation: AI in Education Summit

Note: The image above is the result of a two-stage creative process—done in collaboration with AI. Dall-E was tasked, over multiple iterations, to craft a woodcut-style image, to abstractly capture the idea of AI and education, with dark and light motifs, aiming to...

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...

Designing learning in a transformed world: Keynote

Designing learning in a transformed world: Keynote

I was recently invited to present virtually at The Heart of Innovation Summer Summit, organized by the Heartland Area Education Agency in Iowa. The video of my talk can be seen below. Maybe my first serious keynote talk about generative AI and education. Enjoy...

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....

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...

Gilbert Daniels, the gardener who changed our world

Gilbert Daniels, the gardener who changed our world

Note: I wrote and submitted this piece as an op-ed to the Indianapolis Star to be published on April 14, 2023, exactly 3 years after they had published Gilbert Daniels' obituary. It would have helped set the record straight about his amazing contribution to the world...

Bringing Design to Education: Benjamin Cluff Jr. Lecture at BYU McKay School of Education

Bringing Design to Education: Benjamin Cluff Jr. Lecture at BYU McKay School of Education

I was recently invited to present the Benjamin Cluff Jr. Lecture by the dean and faculty at the Brigham Young University, McKay School of Education. I had a short but lovely visit, meeting old friends, and making new ones. We had some wonderful conversations, over...

A chat about GPT3 (and other forms of alien intelligence)

A chat about GPT3 (and other forms of alien intelligence)

We recently celebrated the 10-year anniversary of writing a regular column series on Rethinking Technology & Creativity in Education for the journal TechTrends. Over the next few articles in this series, we are going to dive deeper into Artificial Intelligence...

How to fix your Indian accent using AI

How to fix your Indian accent using AI

Featured image design © Punya Mishra (background image courtsey PxHere) There are many meanings to the phrase "having a voice." It can mean whether you are present and acknowledged within a space - but most literally it means what you say and how you speak? And...

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...

On merging with our technologies (Unpacking McLuhan 4/3)

On merging with our technologies (Unpacking McLuhan 4/3)

This is the fourth of what was supposed to be a three post-series about how media influence our thinking. The first post, uses the invention of writing and print to unpack the meaning of McLuhan’s statement, “The medium is the message.” The second post, focuses on a...

The Postman always rings twice: Unpacking McLuhan (3/3)

The Postman always rings twice: Unpacking McLuhan (3/3)

This is the third of three blog posts about how media influence our thinking. This is the second of three blog posts about how media influence our thinking. The first post, uses the invention of writing and print to unpack the meaning of McLuhan’s statement, “The...

Unpacking McLuhan’s “The medium is the message” (1/3)

Unpacking McLuhan’s “The medium is the message” (1/3)

This is the first of a series of blog posts about how media influence our thinking. This, the first post, uses the invention of writing and print to unpack the meaning of McLuhan’s statement, “The medium is the message.” The second post, focuses on a story by Ted...

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...

STEM Futures at AAAS

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...

Designing STEAM

Designing STEAM

Danah Henriksen and I were recently invited to present a keynote (and conduct two workshops) on design thinking and STEAM education at the 2021 NV STEAM conference, organized by the Nevada Museum of Art and Desert Research Institute. Of course, given the pandemic...

Designing the futures of STEM education

Designing the futures of STEM education

“What knowledge is of most worth?” is a question asked over a 100 years ago by the English philosopher, Herbert Spencer. His unequivocal answer was—science. This question (and his answer) resonates even today, though the context within which it is asked, and how we...

Of metaphors & molecules: Bridging STEM & the arts

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...

EDUsummIT 2019: eBook released

EDUsummIT 2019: eBook released

EduSummIT is a global community of policy-makers, researchers, and educators working together to move education into the digital age. EDUsummIT has been convening every two years since 2009. In each case the participants focus on some significant theme relevant to...

My journey through design: Keynote at IDC

My journey through design: Keynote at IDC

Design is core to my identity, to who I am. Education is the space within which I function but I try to approach everything I do as a designer. This was not always the case. Back in 1984, I had just graduated with an undergraduate degree in engineering, and if there...