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

Took a drive today and that is my number one mundane thing to do to get creative inspiration. I can’t tell you how many ideas I have had to write on receipts strewn on the car seats or notes hastily recorded on my phone. Today I was thinking about Learning Steve Wheeler had just published a blog about a short film I saw yesterday called What Is Learning? I plan to pen another post regarding that, but in pondering I thought about a reflective tool I like to use with my daughte

In honor of the day Warhol passed away, I created this little film. It’s an extension of my #getsmART: Lessons from the Artists keynote I presented at Alan November’s Building Learning Communities. I’ve added more images and points, and this of course is only about Warhol. I’ll be doing more, but if you haven’t seen the Pablo Picasso one, please check it out. (I really need a better mic) #art #creativity #teaching #lessons #life #andywarhol #getsmart #pedagogy #picasso #amybu

I recently had the privilege of presenting at the 50th anniversary conference of the Federation of Independent Schools of British Columbia, Canada (#fisa2016). My session went well and I met a lot of incredible educators (see my Storify of tweets here) My highlight, however (aside from the student marimba players), was of course the closing keynote by Colonel Chris Hadfield, Commander of the International Space Station and the first Canadian to walk in space! He was humble an

A few weeks ago I took up the challenge from the Learning and Performance Institute in the UK to make a video articulating the greatest changes in learning in the pst 20 years. You can read about my process (an animated poem) in my previous blogpost. I was thrilled and honoured to win the contest, but still had a few things left dangling from my notes. So by the light of the newly erected Christmas tree I hashed out the remaining verses and got to illustrating each concept in

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

I’ve been waiting to make these “breakout videos” spotlighting the artists from my “#getsmART: Lessons from the Artists” keynote for a while, but just haven’t had the time. However, October 25 marked Picasso’s birthday, so I felt utterly compelled to whip this out. The process was: use my keynote slides to create the Quicktime, self-playing video import into iMovie and record a voiceover I plan to these for the other artists I discussed in the keynote, which you can view HERE

A while back the ever engaging Mr. Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) proposed yet another whimsical blogging challenge. As you recall, we started doing #blimage a while back with a volley of images (mine were sketches). This time, it’s called #twistedpairs and you can read about it and view others ON STEVE’S BLOG I’ve been thinking a lot about blogs lately. I certainly think they are wonderful, and a great testament to how participatory culture has democratized media / publishing

When the Learning and Performance Institute (@YourLPI ) in the UK challenged me to a video contest they were having in honour of their 20th anniversary, I thought (as I am likely to do) – why not? Besides – their colours are pink! The challenge was to think about the greatest changes in learning over the past 20 years, then – and this is really tricky part- create a mere 20 second video expressing your thoughts. I love a good creative constraint, so I took some brainstorm not

The other day I was struck by an article on Cultural Literacy  in one of my favourite magazines, Wired, which claimed: “When it comes to living in the here and now, your education is incomplete” After teaching Middle and High School (emphasis on Juniors and Seniors) for the past 22 years I could not agree more. Kids seek relevance more than anything. They want to know WHY the curriculum (usually “chosen” for them) is something they need to know and HOW, specifically, it will

Here is the video archive of my 15 min mini keynote ( I was last on a panel of 4) for Alan November’s Building Learning Communities Conference, 2015. I’ve been attending since 2010 and love it every time..this year I did a couple of presentations as well as the keynote and 3 Master Classes (between 4-7 hours each). (to view on the November Learning Homepage, CLICK HERE) One of the slides at the beginning got cut off and the illustrations look a bit purple rather than my signa

A while back, I wrote a brainstorm post about rethinking one’s course environment (be it digital, traditional, or blended): The Café, Studio , and Stage. Over the summer I was asked by Edutopia, one of my favourite go-to education sites, to compose a blog post for them on the same topic. You can find “Left-Bank Learning: When “Work Time” becomes “Studio Time” here. (includes a handy-dandy list of 6 hyperlinked tips. In December I’ll be kicking off CUE’s E-Learning Strategies

What if “professional development” became Pro-FRESH-ional Devlopment? I am tempted to begin this short but nonetheless inspired post with an opening line nicked from one of my favourite YouTube channels, the PBS Idea Channel… Here’s an idea… Here’s an idea to remix professional development or at least those “pre-school meetings” we all attend or even weekly faculty meetings (btw isn’t “meeting” crying out for a euphemistic alternative word?) into something more refreshing, en

Week 1 Assignment for #teachtheweb MOOC: Reflect on Making as Learning. I decided to piece together some of my slides from a presentation I did about Creativity and Making for students in Vancouver, Canada (Van Tech and Crofton House), as well as some additional clips and quotes. I really had planned on providing a voiceover but the music was so groovy (thanks, Jamendo.com !) that I decided to leave as is and annotate it here in this post. BREAK (out of the box), SHAKE (it up