Very pleased to be designing a few online learning experiences in collaboration with the great folks at Academic Tribe. head to the LX Design site The first is perfect for anyone wanting to explore their personal creativity, or test out ways to use photography and the smartphone with other learners. You need a mobile device with a camera, though I have a list of recommended apps you can play with for added effect. This is a 3 week course based around these themes: Wonder: the

What seemed like ages ago I did my first TEDx talk – TEDxHonolulu 2011 – with my creative partner from “History for Music Lovers”, Herb Mahelona. It was really tricksy because we didn’t live on the same island and therefore couldn’t practice together until the day before the event, each having memorized our respective parts of the script and practicing with voice recordings of the other punctuated by pauses. To be honest I thought I’d never do another one until several months

‘It’s not Dada that is nonsense–but the essence of our age that is nonsense.’ One of my favourite creative movements (really more anti-art so I’m hesitant to call it ‘art”) is that of the Dadaists. You’ve heard of them – Duchamp, Man Ray, Tzara… Here’s a list of the major players (taken at the fab Dada exhibit at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art this past summer) As a girl who loves her remix, I’ve always adored the Dada approach. I’m even contemplating starting a workshop or onlin

This summer I took a chance on a new form of conference offering for me – the outside-the-venue-creative-safari. I launched it at Alan November’s Building Learning Communities (BLC 16), which is one of the most intimate and thought-provoking events out there. Part of my raison d’être is that I firmly believe in the use of smartphones as the ultimate device (at present) for the classroom. Coupled with BYOD programs and GAFE (Google Apps for Education), I am convinced smartphon

Salt (aka sodium chloride) has always been fascinating to me, particularly since it’s something we in the modern age seem to take for granted – almost every restaurant and home table has a ample supply of the ubiquitous granular substance. But this wasn’t always the case. It can be said that salt or the lack thereof has made or broken societies, or – in the case of Napoleon’s army, military expeditions. The word “salary” comes from the economic use of salt (by Romans), as doe

For better or for worse, I’ve always been a tad obsessive (let’s blame my maternal grandmother, who purchased 5 of the same type of sweater sets or perhaps my paternal grandfather, who’d make the same special “recipe” for weeks on end – we called it “a kick”).  Creatively, this can be beneficial. I have a weird internal engine that propels me to make as many as of whatever-I’m-currently-into-at-the moment as possible. Of course I inevitably get bored and move on, but there ar

I knew early on I wanted to make a parody music video echoing my work on the History for Music Lovers YouTube channel. I also knew it wouldn’t be as polished, since I didn’t have the fancy-schmancy software (Adobe After FX) and recording equipment we usually use, or the editing genius of Mr. Herb Mahelona, my creative partner. That being said, I wanted to experiment in using solely my mobile devices (iPad and iPhone 5) and tapping into my recent passion for making original sk

I’ve been wanting to try this for, like, MONTHS and finally did it today. It could be more polished (like if I wouldn’t have said both “fancy-dancy” AND “fancy-schmancy” in under 2 minutes), but as my kid says, “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit”. By the way, I believe the term “appsmash” is derived from Mr. Greg Kulowiec (@gregkulowiec) of EdTechTeacher. Process is as follows 1. Make lovely sketches in Paper app by Fifty-Three on the iPad (I use my signature col

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