Founder, Super Squid Studios

I create learning experiences that cultivate inspiration, connection, and action.

My passion is lifelong learning.

Learn why

I have been compelled to shift careers and reinvent myself four times.

A kick to the face by a horse ended the equestrian career I had just earned a degree in. I shifted to earning my BA and moved into the film industry.
The film production industry took a hit after 9/11, leaving me jobless.
After returning to the equestrian world, I realized it was not sustainable and went back to school for my MA.
Most recently, my current occupation took a hit from AI.

Luckily, I have always been a lifelong learner. While working on my Anthropology degree, I was also aggressively pursuing access to the editing software I wanted to practice on, which was cost prohibitive at the time. When I went back to horses, I continued my self-education in web and video. That allowed me to move fluidly into my graduate work in Information and Learning Technologies, easily acquiring clients while still in school.

I appreciate the importance of lifelong learning skills when the landscape keeps changing. I have also witnessed what can happen when people are not adaptable and, further, what can happen when people move proactively and stay ahead through self-education and resilience. AI accentuates these abilities if used well.

Book cover: The Art of the Question, a Guide to Human Inquiry in the Age of AI

It's out!

What if the most powerful tool in the age of artificial intelligence isn't the technology, but the quality of the questions you bring to it? That's what three AI models wrote this book about.

The Art of the Question began with one prompt, posed separately to ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini: If you could write a book right now, what would it be? What followed was an unusual experiment in human-AI collaboration.

Available now →

What questions are you asking?

Super Squid Studios

From the studio

I have three projects in the works. While human-AI collaboration is my main focus, I am also sharing the free natural gardening course and resources that I created on Root Delight, and I am selling some fun regen and gardening inspired products on Etsy. Find out more below.

AI WISE Education

Lifelong Learning with AI

AI WISE is all about human-AI collaboration. It helps people bring curiosity, purpose, context and judgment to the exchange, then remain active in researching, questioning, synthesizing, applying and reflecting on what emerges.

At its center is a simple principle: discernment over dependence. AI can contribute to our thinking without taking over the judgment, authorship and responsibility that remain ours.

Explore AI WISE Education →

Line drawing of a person seen from behind, writing in a notebook at a table beside an open window. Small glowing lightbulbs and stars rise from a laptop at one side, and a stem of leaves grows in through the window.

The AI WISE Process

AI WISE grew from sustained, hands-on work with AI tools. One pattern kept showing up: a perfect prompt matters less than staying curious and staying involved in the thinking.

The quickest way to see what that means is to try it. Two short exercises show the AI WISE process at work. Build a Prompt is right here, and Before We Plant is on the AI WISE site.

Build a Prompt

Check out the "Before We Plant" Exercise→

More About PatriciaFounder/Owner, Super Squid Studios, LLC

Super Squid, Patricia's dog and constant companion

I began working in multimedia and educational technology in the late 1990s and have continued evolving alongside the tools, platforms, and expectations shaping how people learn.

My work has moved across higher education, corporate learning, digital transformation, live events, artificial intelligence, community education, writing, gardening, and the equestrian arena. These environments may look different, but the underlying work is consistent: understanding people, observing conditions, translating complexity, and designing experiences that help learning become action.

I hold a bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Geography and a master's degree in Information and Learning Technologies. Today, I work as a learning experience designer, strategist, consultant, writer, and facilitator.

My constant companion for the last fifteen years has been my super doggie, Super Squid. He's traveled with me everywhere and loves to run and dig in the sand at the beach.

When I'm not at the computer, I'm out on the farm: in the garden, taking the dogs for a ride up-country, spending time with the horses, or watching the antics of the ducks.

Human-AI CollaborationMy experience with AI

I have been interacting with AI since 2022. First, I discovered I could turn words into images on Midjourney, a generative art platform. My inner illustrator was thrilled.

In early 2023, I began using ChatGPT for fun. Then I started to test its boundaries. For example, I would ask it a series of questions about teaching a horseback riding lesson, my own area of expertise, to see what level of instructor it could mimic. For a person who loved to demo tech, this was both research and play.

In 2024, I worked at an organization that was adopting enterprise ChatGPT, Synthesia, and design tools that were integrating AI into their platforms. It was interesting and educational to co-create with talented professionals using these tools.

Late that year, I opened my first Claude account. At the time, I used it for research. Currently, it plays the role of a truth teller, editor, and co-writer. I brought Gemini into the mix in 2025, experimenting with its deep research capacity.

The first project all three AIs and I worked on together was a course about natural gardening. ChatGPT and I brainstormed and organized it. I requested research papers from Gemini on various subjects, limited to reputable sources such as the USDA and university extension programs. Then I passed the research papers to Claude with guidance on how to transform them into short, easy-to-read guides.

Lately I’ve been working with the AI team on everything from business plan development, to freeing my sites from WordPress, to vibe-coding an app for family garden tracking, and more. Recently we revamped my morning and evening wellness tracking apps.

There is no doubt I have been naive along my journey working with AI. But through innocent curiosity alongside serious inquiry, I have also accumulated a great number of lessons.

One big takeaway is that reflection is critical in the process of collaborating with AI. Without pausing to breathe, it is easy to get caught in a feedback loop that spirals toward a place where human ingenuity is lost.

What I Design & How I WorkLearning strategy, brought to life

How I Approach Learning Design

Understand the learner

Who are they? What do they know? What matters to them? What conditions shape their participation?
Clarify the change

What should learners understand, practice, create, decide, or do differently?
Design the experience

What sequence of information, questions, stories, activities, and interactions will help make that change possible?
Build for participation

How will learners contribute their own knowledge, make choices, practice, reflect, and receive feedback? Is it a learning community? An immersive simulation exercise? Journal reflection?
Support transfer

What will help the learning move beyond the course, workshop, event, or screen? My favorite is to embed learning culture habits and behaviors into trainings and encouraging people to seek out learning communities.
Evaluate and refine

What produced the intended result? What worked, what did not, and what should change?

What I Design

Learning Strategy & Curriculum Design

Audience analysis, curriculum architecture, learning outcomes, content strategy, assessment, project-based learning, and plans for transfer beyond the experience.
Digital Learning Experiences

Accessible, learner-centered digital and blended programs — interactive learning, multimedia, LMS experiences, platform migrations, and large organizational initiatives.
Workshops & Facilitated Learning

Practical, participatory experiences that invite people to question, explore, apply, and reflect. I develop custom workshops, facilitator-led programs, and train-the-facilitator resources.
Educational Initiative Development

Turning an idea into a coherent framework, curriculum, program, or public learning experience, as with AI WISE and Root Delight, from philosophy through public positioning.
AI & Emerging Technology in Learning

Helping organizations consider how AI can support learning, inquiry, and human capability without quietly replacing judgment, authorship, or meaningful participation.

Selected ExperienceProgram, event, and content creation

For more than two decades, I have designed learning across corporate, higher-education, public, and community settings including large-scale digital programs, curriculum and workshop design, learning-platform transformation, multimedia, accessibility, facilitation, and long-term program support.

Selected Clients

T-MobileNational UniversityRed Bull PepsiCoAnheuser-BuschStone Brewing TitleistThe Chopra CenterKripalu

Other Educational Positions

California International Business University (CIBU)

I absolutely loved the 3 years of teaching the Applied Entrepreneurship - Information Technologies course to post gymnasium (high school) from Denmark.
CIBU Mission: To advance the standards for evidence-based improvement of student learning and practical educational experiences through critical thinking, cultural intelligence and analytical competence in preparing graduates to excel in an entrepreneurial environment and a maturing global market.
Assistant Trainer, Concord Equestrian Center

Supported the head trainer across a busy hunter/jumper program in Del Mar, CA. This included daily horse care and conditioning, teaching lessons to riders at a range of ages and levels, and preparing both horses and students for the show ring. And lots of fun summer camps.

Patricia Stitson with a classroom of CIBU students

With a class of CIBU students.

View Professional Experience →

TEDx & Community Learning

Ideas become learning experiences when people gather around them. I have directed five TEDx events throughout the greater San Diego area, each focused on elevating voices, connecting people, and creating meaningful public experiences around ideas worth sharing.

TEDxAmerica's Finest City — 2013–2014

Director of three events, including two produced in 2014. The theme was Transformation Through US. The first event was held in July for 100 people to come together for the purpose of determining what topics the community had interest in hearing about at the main event in October.
TEDxKidsElCajon — 2018 inaugural event

Director of the first TEDxKidsElCajon event, creating a platform for young people, educators, and community voices.
TEDxSolanaBeach

Director of a community-centered event connecting local ideas, stories, and people.

Patricia Stitson on stage at TEDxKidsElCajon

On stage at the inaugural TEDxKidsElCajon.