Joe Michaelis
@joemichaelis.bsky.social
Asst. prof at UIC. Investigating supporting social learning processes for interest and learning from a Learning Sciences and HCI perspective. Now with more robots! HRI, Social Robots, Ed Tech https://jmich.people.uic.edu/ https://www.uiclitlab.com/
Today is the day, folks. Let's go! I'll see you there.
Joe Michaelis@joemichaelis.bsky.social · 3w agoIf you are around Chicago, you should experience the amazing Mindworks space. During their birthday party on July 22nd, UIC LIT Lab's Veronica Grosso will be presenting on our social robotics research in collaboration with Bilge Mutlu and Sarah Sebo. See you there! www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
If you are around Chicago, you should experience the amazing Mindworks space. During their birthday party on July 22nd, UIC LIT Lab's Veronica Grosso will be presenting on our social robotics research in collaboration with Bilge Mutlu and Sarah Sebo. See you there! www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
If you are in or around Chicago, you should really experience the amazing Mindworks space. During their birthday party on July 22nd, Learning + Interest + Technology (LIT) Laboratory's Veronica… |...
If you are in or around Chicago, you should really experience the amazing Mindworks space. During their birthday party on July 22nd, Learning + Interest + Technology (LIT) Laboratory's Veronica Grosso...
linkedin.com
Amazing work! Congrats to an incredible academic role model
Instructional technology and learning sciences@usuitls.bsky.social · 4mo agoFrom student success to faculty recognition, Dr. Lu Lawrence is having a remarkable year 👏 Swipe to see both achievements, congratulations! #InclusiveLearning #CommunityMatters #Collaboration #Innovation #Motivation #ThinkPositive #StayCurious #LearningCommunity
Loveable little dive bar near my office clearly made an AI generated website. It.... did not go well. Did they still, uncritically, put the AI slop website out into the world? Take a gander at the sanity (and gravity) defying images for their bev menu and judge yourself.
Congrats to LIT Lab PhD candidate Veronica Grosso who presented at the first Robotics Seminar Series at UIC Engineering on resisting stereotypes to show competence and warmth in #HRI. Did we need to buy tiny toys and treats for bunnies to test these collaborative activities? Yes, dear reader, we did
Big moment for UIC LIT lab. PhD student, Verona Grosso, just presented our work on collaborating with a robot. @hri-conference.bsky.social Robots need to dynamically demonstrate competence and advocate for choices.
Michael Xu from Wisconsin CS presents work on integrating robots into family life. Happy to be a collaborator on this messy real world exploration. @hri-conference.bsky.social #HRI
#HRI2026 @hri-conference.bsky.social is off to a fantastic start. Benjamin Rosman opened the first day with a powerful keynote on making HRI research more inclusive and truly representative of our diverse world. A timely reminder that the future we build depends on who we include in the process.
Abena Boadi-Agyemang from @cmu.edu with nuanced insights in accessibility needs for HRI. would love to see ASL inputs for more robots @hri-conference.bsky.social
Ready, Set, Go! 🤖🚀 🏰Day 2 of HRI 2026 is starting at Edinburgh International Conference Center, EICC! 🫂Our amazing General Chairs, Lynne Baillie and Bill Smart are welcoming us! 🎙️Don’t miss the Keynote by Benjamin Rosman starting now in Auditorium.
I'll see you there! Had a brief thought of suggesting a local meet up to attend, but its 8am Central, so I will certainly be enjoying this one in my PJs at home.
Charles Logan@charleswlogan.bsky.social · 6mo agoI’m looking forward to joining the International Society of the Learning Sciences’ community to discuss how the field is responding to AI technologies - and I’ll also be helping to facilitate the second forum.
Would you like to join the Interaction Design and Children (IDC) 2026 organising committee as an Associate Chair? If you are passionate about driving high-quality research and shaping an outstanding programme, we welcome your application. Submit an EOI ➡️ docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... #IDC2026
Introducing the IDC2026 Chairs! Violet, a Senior Research Associate at Lancaster University, is Web, Social Media & Communications Chair for IDC2026, and Juan Pablo is Professor at The University of Iowa's Department of Computer Science, taking on the role of Doctoral Consortium Chair. #IDC2026
Does social media harm everyone? No. But it harms *most* adolescents. However, not all platforms are harmful. An analysis of 44,211 diaries from 479 adolescents over 100 days finds that 60% of adolescents experienced small, negative effects of social media link.springer.com/article/10.1...
🧵 Postdoc opportunity at McGill I am recruiting a top postdoctoral researcher to join my lab at McGill through the Canada Impact+ Research Training Awards Initiative. This is a rare, well-funded opportunity to build an ambitious, multimodal EdTech research program in Canada.
What the absolute shit is this? ACM using AI summaries instead of abstracts in search results?! So, if I understand correctly, instead of the author's own summary of the work (i.e. an abstract) we are better off with some regurgitated slop version of that summary instead? @chi.acm.org
Excited to say that I'll be running more robot comedy events this spring! ROBOT RIOT brings together roboticists, ethicists, and some of Denver's funniest comedians, to inform the public about risks of AI and Robotics while making them laugh. Our first show is 2/6/26:
For anyone who cares about rich studies that center and value children throughout the entire R&D process, this is a lovely community for your work.
Interaction Design and Children (IDC) conference@acm-idc.bsky.social · 8mo agoIDC is the leading venue for work on child-centred design, learning, and interaction, and this year’s theme “Sustainable Futures” welcomes papers exploring fresh perspectives on how technology can support long-term, equitable futures for children. #IDC2026 idc.acm.org/2026/calls/f...
It's unboxing day for DEGREES OF FREEDOM from @mitpress.bsky.social! :D
Well, at least we didn't make online survey experiments the dominant methodological approach in major areas of the discipline
Josh McCrain@joshmccrain.bsky.social · 9mo agonew paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
OMG. THIS. PAPER. IS. PERFECT!!! I am going to staple the How to Assess Qualitative Research section to a boxing glove and add that as supporting material for my next HRI submission. doi.org/10.1080/0737...
H is for human and how (not) to evaluate qualitative research in HCI
Concern has recently been expressed by HCI researchers as to the inappropriate treatment of qualitative studies through a positivistic mode of evaluation that places emphasis on measurement and met...
doi.org
Joe Michaelis@joemichaelis.bsky.social · 9mo agoReviews that don’t appropriately evaluate based on the method have been killing me lately. If I had a dollar for every review of a qual paper that criticized a lack of generalizability…
Reviews that don’t appropriately evaluate based on the method have been killing me lately. If I had a dollar for every review of a qual paper that criticized a lack of generalizability…
Rob Moore, Ph.D.@drrobmoore.bsky.social · 9mo agoReally unfortunate that a student led project got rejected for AERA b/c one of the reviewers didn’t understand what a design case is. Their feedback was that the lack of empirical data made it a poor proposal - when that’s not a design case feature or requirement.
Holy crap. I thought my conference homes were broken, but the guardrail for oversubmitting set to 25… wow
Mark Riedl@markriedl.bsky.social · 9mo agoThis is really unfair to my 5 phd students, each of whom were planning on submitting 6 papers with me as co-author. *sarcasm*
At the "listening to Minor Threat while grant writing" stage of disillusionment, burnout and frustration with the crumbling systems of academia. Turns out teen angst and existential threat are on the same spectrum of anxiety and rage. minorthreat.bandcamp.com/album/salad-...
Salad Days, by Minor Threat
3 track album
minorthreat.bandcamp.com
Loving this talk from @joemichaelis.bsky.social at Northwestern today—Mental models at the intersection of Human-Robot Interaction!
EPFL, ETH Zurich & CSCS just released Apertus, Switzerland’s first fully open-source large language model. Trained on 15T tokens in 1,000+ languages, it’s built for transparency, responsibility & the public good. Read more: actu.epfl.ch/news/apertus...
We've recently concluded a classroom study in Japan on our "Mindful Math" Tutor, an LLM-embedded ITS that uses mindful language and messages to guide students learn algebra while calming down their math anxiety. If interested in testing/using/collaborating let me know! tomonag.org/mindfulmath/
