Punya Mishra's Web

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any—Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (10/2/1869 – 1/30/1948)

[Side note: A few years ago I discovered an interesting personal connection to Gandhi. The full story, that speaks to creativity, the nature of the web and can be read here: Gandhi, ambigrams, creativity & the power of small pieces loosely joined. Enjoy.]

I have been a great fan of Baskerville, the font for a long time. I love the manner it looks on a page and most importantly I love its italic ampersand! Check it out below… isn’t that beautiful.

I remember setting my doctoral dissertation in Baskerville and receiving grief from the University of Illinois dissertation formatting police because it was not in the listed list of fonts. I believed in this strongly enough that I fought it – and won! My dissertation remained in Baskerville.

Anyway, I had always assumed that my preference for Baskerville was a matter of personal taste (of course my taste was better than that of others… but still). But now there is scientific evidence of how Baskerville is better than other fonts. Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Hershock is an education specialist at the East-West Center in Honolulu and author of Buddhism in the Public Sphere. He was recently interviewed by Matt Bieber of The Wheat and Chaff. I found this interview fascinating, particularly the first half which spoke to the idea of education in the 21st century (something I have written and talked about quite a bit). Here are some excerpts from the interview. I recommend reading it in full.

Hershock starts by suggesting that we need a new frame for education because Read the rest of this entry »

My friend, Hartosh (I had written previously about his mathematical novel here ) and his wife Pam, recently had their second child, a baby boy. Since I had created an ambigram for the first guy (click here to see the ambigram for Nihal), I felt it was required of me me to create one for the new guy as well. Here is the ambigram for Nirvaan. Enjoy!

Brad Honeycutt, a fellow Spartan (he graduated 1996 a couple of years before I started here at Michigan State) is fascinated by optical illusions. He has completed a couple of books on optical illusions the first of which will be coming out in July. Scott Kim, one of my favorite ambigrammists, contributed a foreward and it includes work by Scott and John Langdon (he of Angels and Demons fame).

Brad also runs an optical illusion blog at http://www.anopticalillusion.com and recently featured one of my ambigrams.

This design is one of my favorites… do check it out on Brad’s website, he includes the ambigram and a short note from me regarding how it came to be.

TCRecord has an interesting essay on the role of games and learning, by Alexander, Eaton & Egan, titled: Cracking the code of electronic games: Some lessons for educators. As they say, “This is an analytic article that provides a description of an array of attempts to derive educational principles from the perceived success of students’ learning while they are engaged in electronic games.” They identify three key ways that games have been used in educational contexts. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the Christmas break my daughter and three of her friends got together to make a music video. The idea was simple, what if there were a version of Guita Hero (Sitar Hero anyone?) for Bollywood songs. Out of this idea emerged a 5+ minute long music video – with a story-line about 4 bored Indian kids, deciding to have a good time. Shot over two days in our basement, the music video was recently screened at the annual cultural program of the Indian Cultural Society of Greater Lansing. The video was great fun to make. Here it is. Enjoy.

Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska passed away a couple of days ago. I first heard of her on an NPR show a few years back (and had included a couple of her poems on the blog – see here and here). If you have never read her work, I entreat you to do so. She is an absolutely brilliant poet, simple, straightforward, yet deep, with a wonderful touch of whimsy and humor. Here are a couple of her poems: Read the rest of this entry »

Readers of this blog know that I am always looking for examples of good / bad design (actually I am usually not looking for bad design – it just sort of comes and slaps me on the side of the head!). I thought I might share one with you today, that I found in my hotel room in Barcelona. First off here is  what it looks like. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I had been invited to the Birmingham School District to speak to the administrators, teachers and broader community about their recent initiatives on 21st Century Learning. I had a wonderful visit – which I was reminded of by this article (On the Front Lines of the Future) in the  Highlander, the Seaholm High School’s Student Voice. This is an extremely well written and honest article about the vision, implementation and challenges faced by schools seek to change how they do business. It incorporates thoughts from teachers and students both pro- and con and is really worth a read. Read the rest of this entry »

Richard Olsen over in his blog has an extended posting titled The TPACK Framework is fundamentally flawed. It is a long and thoughtful post and I recommend everyone to read it.

I have posted a short response to his posting (it is under moderation but should show up in a while). In the mean-time I am posting my response here – for the record. Read the rest of this entry »

Every Christmas-break our family creates a stop-motion video new year’s greeting card. We have been doing this for 4 years or so and it is an incredibly fun way to spend time together. It has become a “signature” thing we do as a family. Anyway this year was no exception – though it took us much longer than before to come up with a good idea – and then to execute it was another challenge. Anyway, here it is (on Vimeo).

A very wonderful holidays and a very happy new year to all of you,
from Shreya, Soham, Smita & Punya

Just a few comments on the making of these videos. First, all our new-year videos are stop-motion videos. That’s how we made the first one and it has stuck. Second, all these videos are somewhat typographical in nature – playing with words and their representation. Third, these videos rarely feature us either individually or as a family. A hand or a still-frame may show up once in a while but for the most part our videos are made with inanimate objects.

This year I tried to change all three of these, suggesting that we make a live action video, with us as actors – and have some kind of a puzzle that was not related to words. After spending days thinking about this, working with various ideas, this whole line of thought was vetoed down by both Soham and Shreya. It was interesting to me that over time we had not only become a family that makes videos but a family that makes stop motion videos! How cool an identity is that! Of course, this meant that we then had to start over from scratch to come up with something that fit what we had done in the past.

Speaking of videos made in the past, you can see them by following the links below:

• Happy 2011 (last year’s stop motion card)
• Happy 2010 (stop motion card made in 2009)
• Happy 2009 (stop motion card made in 2008)
• Explore | Create | Share (3 short videos with typographical twists at the end)
• Finding Nemo, the sea-quel (a stop motion sequel to Finding Nemo)
• Shreya’s friends animate their names
• A commercial mashup
• or, view the complete collection (including the great Hari Puttar trailer)

I have been haunted the past week or so with the scandal enveloping Penn State. Much as been written about it already – and I really have nothing fundamentally new to offer to this discussion. What I did want to share was a parallel that struck me recently about these terrible events and a lovely yet horrifying short story I had read a long time ago.

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (Variations on a theme by William James) is a haunting short story by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is a short, sparse story, almost a parable, with almost no distinct characters.

It is about a beautiful city called Omelas, a city of happy people unburdened by any pain or sorrow. But this happiness is the result of a faustian bargain—a bargain where the happiness of all is dependent on having one child bear all the pain and sorrow of the entire city. This child lives in a dark, basement room, neglected and in constant pain. The story says that many people, though initially shocked, learn to accept this and seek to lead fruitful lives in Omelas. However, the story concludes that, there are always a few, who walk away, from the city, never to return. The story asks the question of whether it is, “right for the happiness of many to be built on pain and sorrow for one.”

I know that my synopsis does not do justice to the story. Do read it for yourself right here. Yes, right now. I can wait.

OK. Welcome back. Now wasn’t that a great story. I truly think it is one of the greatest stories ever written (at lease one of the greatest I have ever read).

So now coming back to the sorry state of affairs at Penn State. Read the rest of this entry »

I was recently at the Iowa Technology & Education Connection (ITEC) conference in Des Moines IA. I had a wonderful time meeting old friends and making some new ones. I was also asked to be part of a video that would be shared with ITEC members and other online sources. I received an email today letting me know that this video is now available on the ITEC website (and for embedding).

This was one of the most pleasant and professional interviews I have ever been involved in and I like how the final video has turned out. I think it is a pretty good introduction to not just the TPACK framework and our conceptualization of its development but also to our recent work on 21st century learning, creativity and trans-disciplinary learning. Enjoy.

Over the past year I have been involved in an exciting new initiative – a partnership between the College of Education at Michigan State University and the newly set up Azim Premji University in Bangalore, India. (A previous post about our ongoing work can be found here). The International Studies and Programs at MSU recently released a video about this work, featuring yours truly. You can see it here…

There is also an article in their magazine – but that’s not online at this time.

Much has been written about Steve Jobs in the past few weeks since his passing but the best piece I have come across is the eulogy by his sister Mona Simpson. Mona Simpson is an author and professor of writing and delivered this eulogy on Oct. 16 at his memorial service at the Memorial Church of Stanford University. It must be read in it entirety (NYTimes: A sister’s eulogy for Steve Jobs) but the thing that stands out in this eulogy was just how Jobs was truly a person who understood the here-now-ness and enchantment of every moment. The feeling of wonder that is at the heart of creativity, of living life to its fullest.

Read the entire article for your self… (as one of my friends said, it is a “lump-in-throat kinda moving”) but what I want to highlight is how it ends.  Mona describes his last battle against ugliness, his final battle with cancer and says:

But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.
Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.
… Steve’s final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

Oh Wow! What a way to live. What a way to go.

TPACK Newsletter, Issue #11:October 2011

Welcome to the eleventh edition of the (approximately quarterly) TPACK Newsletter! TPACK work is continuing worldwide, and is appearing in an increasing diversity of publication, conference, and professional development venues. This document contains recent updates to that work that we hope will be interesting and useful to you, our subscribers.

If you are not sure what TPACK is, please surf over to http://www.tpack.org/ to find out more.

Gratuitous Quote About Technology
Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?—Nathaniel Hawthorne

In This Issue Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)

To all of us who value creativity and design the passing of Steve Jobs is the passing of an era. I know my world changed when I first saw the Macintosh. I was a freshly minted electrical engineer who was trying to get out of engineering because there was something there that didn’t feel right. I was trying to move into design and education and still keep that technology connection. And it was at this time of inchoate confusion that I saw the Mac. The elegance, the simplicity, the emphasis on design and aesthetics… it showed me a way and inspires me even today.

It is funny, the two courses are teach in the MAET program are CEP817 Learning Technology by Design and CEP818Creativity in Teaching and Learning. Design, Creativity and their relationship to Teaching and Learning – four words that more than anything else define who I am. And Steve Jobs has been a big part of all four.

Back in November 2010, I had been invited by the Bloomfield Hills School District to speak to their administrators and leadership about issues related to social media and what it means for schools and districts. You can find out more about this session here. As I said in my previous note, I built on a previous presenter, social media guru Shel Holtz, and led a series of brainstorming activities with the participants about specific things they could do (short- and long-term) to meet some of the challenges being put up by these new media. I think the sessions went well.

I found out yesterday, through the magic of Google Alerts, the Bloomfield Hills AV team has released a video of that afternoon’s events. Here it is. I think they did a pretty good job of capturing, in around 30 minutes, all that occurred over a couple of hours that day. Sadly Vimeo does not let me embed the video so I am just providing a link to it here. Enjoy.

The interest in the TPACK framework has led to a upsurge in ways of measuring TPACK development. Matt, Tae Shin and I recently published a survey paper on different ways of measuring TPACK, abstract and title given below. Read the rest of this entry »

I met Karin Forssell back in 2008 at the Las Vegas SITE conference when she was a doctoral student at Stanford University. She came and asked me if I was working with anybody at Stanford and I said, something along the lines of “not yet, but send me an email, that’s how collaborations start.” A couple of months later she did send me an email and, though we never did collaborate in the true sense of the word, we have kept in touch. So it gave me great pleasure to find out that Karin has finally submitted her dissertation. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past few weeks I have been experimenting with using my iPad as a drawing/painting tool. The sketches below were created by tracing on an existing image – usually a photograph. So this is not “freehand” drawing per se – but given my limited talents that may not be such a bad idea.

Read the rest of this entry »

For Whom the Bell Tolls
— John Donne

Read the rest of this entry »

I am extremely proud of what we do as a part of our Master’s in Ed Tech (MAET) program. It is a unique program and over the years we have worked hard to make it a multi-faceted and unique experience for your students. Over the next few weeks I (with some help from doctoral student Laura Terry) will be posting examples of the excellent work our students do in this program. (See here for the first post about representing educational tensions with photography.)

The design of our program is very carefully thought through—driven both by powerful theoretical ideas grounded in the pragmatics of teaching and learning. Just this week I found out that a paper we had written about the kinds of activities we do in the MAET program just got published. If you are interested in teacher education and teacher professional development or specifically in the MAET program please check out: Read the rest of this entry »

Education is always about leadership and leadership has always been about tensions—navigating through them and seeking to find the right balance between them.  Leaders often feel a tug from individuals with conflicting interests or needs, with ideas that often tug in different directions.  Often these tensions are conceptual and abstract.  Have you ever wondered how could you represent these tensions in a visual way? What would that look like?  We, in the MAET program, set out to find a way to illustrate these conflicting viewpoints. Read the rest of this entry »

The Hindu god Ganesh (the elephant-headed one) is celebrated across India, and the world, around this time of the year. The Hindu community in Lansing is no exception. A couple of days ago I was asked to take pictures of a music program at the local temple. Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Jobs retired as CEO of Apple this past week. The Wall Street Journal marked this event by creatingSteve Job’s Best Quotes compendium. There are all worth reading – but a couple stood out for their connection to this course.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something… It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985] Read the rest of this entry »

The following note just went out to all the students signed up for CEP818, Creativity in Teaching and Learning (Fall semester 2011). 

We hope you have had a great summer are ready to get back to school! We (Punya Mishra & Kristen Kereluik) will be your instructors for CEP818.  You can find out more about us by visiting our websites. This note is to welcome you to the class and offer some specifics about what you will need to do before class starts. Please read this note carefully since it contains important information on things that need to be done before the class starts. Read the rest of this entry »

Jim Garrison and A. G. Rud have a wonderful article on TCRecord on Reverence in Classroom Teaching. Though, reverence may be “too exalted a word to associate with the practical and often mundane activities of teaching,” it appears to me that ignoring these deeper impulses impoverishes us as individuals and as a society. Framing teaching as being just about imparting skills, and knowledge, aimed at achieving instrumental goals (jobs, career and the like) misses something crucial. As they write: Read the rest of this entry »

This morning I was at the doctor’s office and picked up a dated (February, 2011) New Yorker magazine and discovered a great essay by Adam Gopnik: The Information: How the Internet gets inside us. I am not sure how I missed this the first time around but Gopnik does a great job of writing about technology and its influences, under the guise of reviewing a series of recent books about the topic. He is sometimes funny (see his take down of Clay Shirky) and often insightful. I do recommend reading the entire article but here are a couple of quotes, just to give you a sense of his voice. This is how he starts his essay, reminding us just how magical these new technologies are. I am reminded of Clarke’s Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Read the rest of this entry »