This past Friday I stayed up till midnight as I had the privilege to offer the opening keynote for EdTechTeam’s “The Virtual Summit”, EU edition. EdTechTeam Press published my book with Dan Ryder, Intention: Critical Creativity in the Classroom, and this event seemed perfect since its theme was “Creativity”. A few days prior, Ed Tech Team published a blog post I wrote describing some of the things I planned to share. I decided to pen some verse for this: Being creative can me

I often bolt out of bed thinking of things that seem quite sensible at 4am but perhaps not so much at 3:45 in the afternoon. I’m not sure about this idea, but I’m going to give it a go. It’s basically a structure – a lens through which one can look everything new. That’s getting to the ” – ness” of it but what does it mean for learners? Could teachers use this with students? Could leaders use this with their teams? WOW This is, of course, what strikes you. It’s about noticing

Forgive me, but I was a bit tricksy in the title of this post. I’ve been thinking about this for years, probably, but as I see society seemingly crumbling before us in recent months it’s become more of a nagging preoccupation. I’m a big fan of simplification…abstraction…distillation – of getting to the “ness” of something. What if our curriculum  – any curriculum in any school – was based on just two domains…lenses through which one can peer and prod at everything? PHILOSOPHY

I just returned from one of my favourite towns on the planet – Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. Uncharacteristically, it snowed! I was so giddy tidying up Friday’s presentation next to a roaring fire with a winter wonderland outside my window. The presentation focused on integrating the new BC curriculum with my upcoming book with Dan Ryder (@wickeddecent). The link also provided the 500 participants with access to Dan’s Instagram (where he posts a bevy of images of stu

note bene: while this post is directly applicable to educational organizations, the strategies may be effectively applied to any organization As schools start back up again, teachers seek ways to “get to know” their students and cultivate a healthy classroom community. Many schools engage in pre-term professional development and other meetings in order to prepare for the new year. Confession: I have never been a fan of meetings, in particular. In fact, in some of my workshops

Last night I serendipitously came across this great documentary on the great “advertising creatives” of the last 60 years. “Art and Copy”, directed by Doug Pray, weaves together interviews from the people whose work became, as Shakespeare once said, “familiar as household names” but whose own names remain obscure to the average citizen. from http://www.theinspiration.com/ These are the people who developed iconic marketing campaigns such as “Think Different”, “Got Milk?”, “Wh

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

In late January 2016 I was pleased to do a one hour webinar on the topic of “fostering daily critical creativity in the K-12 classroom” for Learning Bird. Linked below is the 3-part blog series I created as a webinar wrap-up. There’s some theory about how creativity works, but loads of practical tips and strategies. By the way – these can be incorporated into your life outside the classroom, and of course may even be applicable to adults. Part I: The Way Back to Wonder Part 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

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

So here’s an idea. This would be great, I think, for students if you are an educator, but I plan to use it in my personal life as well, with my recent pet projects @Serendipidoodle and #threethirtysketchquote We need the “white space” to be creative. Chris Long, who attended my keynote at California State University at Fullerton in May, called it “miracle grow” for creativity (Love!) So my suggestion, as we emerge into an increasingly visual society, is to offer something a b

above: “The Tyranny of Text”, from my Myconography collection This post is going to be penned in haste during a lunch break when I have way too many projects to be working on, but I was overwhelming inspired by this tweet from Brad Ovenell-Carter and a student presentation given today by Nick Pederson. It’s going to be brief – and you will understand how meta that is in a minute. A while back I wrote a post called “Soundbitification”, and this is really an extension of those

The other day I was enjoying a rare moment of #whitespace at the hair stylist’s when he disclosed something that blew my mind. It wasn’t the latest local gossip or Game of Thrones spoiler but rather, something about the technology he was using: THE FLAT IRON Here’s the thing, I don’t regularly flat iron my own hair because I’m afraid I’ll burn it off, and after having had chemo-induced baldness for a few years of my life I don’t think that’s a chance I want to take.  He told

It’s been a few days since returning from my third (and probably most inspiring) year at November Learning’s Building Learning Communities Conference (aka BLC13) at the exquisite Boston Park Plaza Hotel, which- as @Braddo pointed out upon arrival, has graciously included a portrait of me. All joking aside, I was thrilled to have attended, albeit alone (but, with Twitter, is one ever really alone?). For me, BLC is the ultimate conference…not only is it pedagogy (versus technol

This June I was privileged to present 3 sessions at the Kamehameha Schools’ “Imagine” Conference at the Blaisdell Center, Honolulu. I wanted to blog about my “Hack Into the Hybrid: The Whys, Hows, and Wows of Making Your Course a Blended Experience” (aka: The Café , The Studio, and the Stage). (see all resources on my website) I imagined the session (no conference-reference pun intended) as I’ve n increasingly confronted with the necessity to develop a more “blended” or “hybr

It’s been a while since my creative partner Herb Mahelona and I, have uploaded a video to our History for Music Lovers Channel on YouTube. We’ve been occupied with other pursuits (he wrote another Hawaiian opera, new marriages (for him), new jobs, and family concerns but I’m excited to say that after having met him in person again while co-presenting on the Big Island for #ksedtech Tech Slam Conference the future looks bright for some new productions. We have several videos i