Reading Group on AI and Technology in Education and guest lecture by Dr. David Williamson Shaffer

About

The reading group is hosted by Daniel Spikol, Morten Misfeldt, Jesper Bruun, and Sa'ar Gershon, and will examine recent research at the intersection of artificial intelligence, educational technologies, and education.

Guest lecture by Dr. David Williamson Shaffer: Understanding Learning in the World of AI

Ongoing advances in artificial intelligence have the potential to change work, education, and even what it means to 'think' in the first place.

In this talk, Dr.  David Williamson Shaffer looks at what AI is (and isn’t), its impact on what and how we learn, and how AI can change what it means to do research.

Dr. Shaffer is the Sears Bascom Professor of Learning Analytics and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Data Philosopher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Before coming to the University of Wisconsin, Professor Shaffer taught grades 4-12 in the United States and abroad, including two years working with the US Peace Corps in Nepal. His M.S. and Ph.D. are from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Shaffer taught in the Technology and Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and was a 2008-2009 European Union Marie Curie Fellow. 

His current focus is on merging statistical and qualitative methods to construct fair models of complex and collaborative human activity. 

Professor Shaffer has led the development of a suite of quantitative ethnographic tools that are being used by more than a thousand researchers in 20 countries as part of the annual International Conference on Quantitative Ethnography. He has authored more than 250 publications with over 100 co-authors, including How Computer Games Help Children Learn and Quantitative Ethnography.

Past Meetings

• IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (25 March 2026)
• Computers & Education (11 Feb. 2026)
• The Impact of Generative AI on Learning (10 Dec. 2025)
• Education & Information Technologies (8 Oct. 2025)