Have you ever thought yourself to be a fraud in some respect? Have you questioned your so-called “expertise” in your field or even wondered, as so poetically expressed by eighties new waver-in-existentialist-disguise David Byrne, How did I get here? Whilst I am relatively confident in my own skills, experience, and talent, I’m certainly not immune to self-doubt. It occurred to me this morning that, while I love learning for learning’s sake, and continually seek out opportunit

My 6th grade daughter had her first dance the other day (cue *sigh*). On the way to school in the morning there was some confusion as to what time the dance started – was it 5? 6? 7? Normally this would not be an issue but on this particular night I was off to see one of my most beloved bands – the Psychedelic Furs – in concert for the first time! Trying to problem solve whilst belting out Pretty in Pink, I suggested that she search for the dance time on the calendar on the s

“I’d like to use my lifeline…” I’ve really not watched Who Wants to Be A Millionaire more than a few times, but my pop culture literacy is pretty high, and I am quite familiar with the concept of “lifelines”. Apparently the show has dropped “Phone a Friend“, “Three Wise Men” and “Ask the Expert” and now only allow jumping the question and asking the audience. Listening to Julian Stodd’s podcast this morning on how learning is changing and the learning spaces needed in organiz

Today I had the pleasure of watching (and reading) Howard Rheingold’s interview with Unflattening author Nick Sousanis. Like Howard, I am a big fan of Nick’s work- not only for the content (which is phenomenal), but for the essence of it- the “ness” I mentioned in an earlier post. I love the way Nick maintained a process journal of sorts on his “Spin Weave Cut” site and always points people there to be a part of his “living” work. That is what the #showyourwork movement (via

all images made with Paper 53 for iPhone A couple of weeks ago (March 2 to be exact) was the birthday of beloved whimsical author and illustrator Dr. Suess (Theodor Geisel). In honour of what has come to be known as #DrSeussDay on social media, I whipped up a few sketchquotes I found particularly poignant. I purposefully did not what to take them directly from his books, but rather from the man himself, as I am more interested in the creative process and the backstory and bac

Started thinking about this play on words when I was reposting a Stephen Downes piece earlier. I think we “peek” into others’ minds as we experience (note not just read) content they share. Sometimes that causes little peaks or spikes of thought and creativity in our mind…Perhaps the “peak” can also be a wonder or an idea you have that might challenge the one from the author. I think this might be a great reflective “exit ticket” exercise at a meeting or in a class of student

Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) has started a blog series called #LearningIs (referenced in my last post) and in doing so has challenged all of us to think about how we define learning. Learning Like a Machine My thoughts drifted first to other, non human things that “learn”. I considered the artificial intelligence “stars” of pop culture- Apple’s Siri, 2001 A Space Odyssey’s HAL, Bladerunner’s Rachael and Samantha from Spike Jonze’s poignant film Her. I’ve long been fascinated

I’ve been wanting to produce a little animated vlog series called “Thinkerings” – where I discuss my “what ifs” in eduction, new literacies and media, art, and technology. The first few will most likely be remixes to some extent of some blog posts. For the first episode, I wanted to do something about networked knowledge – and knowledge as connection. the big question is: What if we valued connections as dearly as we do “knowledge”? This came about because of  a few things I

A few days ago I challenged Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) to compose a blog post based on 1 of a choice of 3 images I sent him. Being the sharp mind he is, he happened to incorporate all three! He volleyed back with this image of bread spilled on the street, and was careful to say he took the photo in Paris. After some rumination here it goes – 3 analogies… Bread as Knowledge One if the first things that struck me was the tone of “waste”. It was particularly intriguing that t

It’s been exactly a week since I stood onstage at the lovely Kamehameha Schools presentation hall in Hilo Hawaii  (aka The Big Island) to do the closing keynote for the Hawaii Island TechEd Collaborative Conference  (#hitc2014). It was called “Digital Life” and, I’m told, named so because my “Digital Life” parody video of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” was an inspiration at a faculty meeting. I had a great day doing a short workshop on fostering creativity on a da