Geoffrey Challen: Teaching and Technology
By Geoffrey Challen
Categories: Education, Technology
Geoffrey Challen is a Teaching Professor at the University of Illinois. Between 2017 and 2026 he tried to teach classical programming to more than 16,000 students. Starting in 2026 he's trying to teach AI collaboration to as many people as possible: through new assignments, courses, and degrees. He is still recovering from writing all his courseware by hand for twenty years, mainly by looking forward to the next twenty years of AI courseware collaboration. In 2026 he received the Grainger College of Engineering's Rose Award for Teaching Excellence and the Siebel School's Scott H. Fisher Computer Science Teaching Award. He writes about teaching and technology at geoffreychallen.com, and invites you to join a community of computing educators at computingeducators.org. These are his essays on teaching and technology. Each episode opens with Geoff in his own voice; the essay is then read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like him.
13 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- Taking Flaky Farther
Calling a coding agent a "flaky compiler" points computing education in the right direction, but it undersells what agents can do and keeps students reading code they shouldn't have to. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen, with a second synthetic voice for…
- Time to Try Teaching
Higher education is too fixated on research to respond to the educational challenge posed by AI. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-11-05-time-to-try-teaching
- The University of the Future
Eight things a university would be doing if it were serious about using AI to support teaching and learning. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-10-22-the-university-of-the-future
- How to Time Travel
If you want to glimpse the unevenly distributed future, talk to people who are living on that frontier. Expect that to be uncomfortable. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-10-17-how-to-time-travel
- Less Peer, More Review
SIGCSE reviewing is straining under record submissions. The conference already has the pieces of something better: fewer, better reviewers, each doing more, and working together. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay…
- Welcoming Thoughts
Welcoming students to Illinois, at a moment when nobody knows what computing will look like when they graduate. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-08-23-welcoming-thoughts
- Tech v. Tech
Educational tech without most of the educational tech companies: An emerging divide in the technology industry and what it means for computing educators. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay…
- Another Skill
Agentic development is not magic, just another skill. It must be learned. It can be taught. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-04-28-another-skill
- With Or Without AI?
Don't use AI to do assignments not designed to be done with AI. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-04-25-with-or-without-ai
- Healing Agents
Maybe I never actually loved to code. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-04-10-healing-agents
- Epistemic Rents
The premium—economic or social—that accrues to people who control access to knowledge or cognitive capacity. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-04-02-epistemic-rents
- Teaching and Doing
Practicing what you profess. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-03-05-teaching-and-doing
- Move 37 Coding
AlphaGo didn't just beat humans—it changed how we understand Go. AI coding agents will do the same to software development, if we let them. Read aloud using a synthetic voice that sounds a lot like Geoffrey Challen. The essay: https://www.geoffreychallen.com/essays/2026-03-01-move-37-coding
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