How thrilled I was, upon presenting at a recent conference in Portland, Oregon, that the hotel featured not one but two monochromatic-themed bookshelves! The first – in degrees of white- was in the lobby, whilst the second – in more than 50 shades of grey – was in the ‘secret club’ room, to which I happily had access. It was in this room I found myself waiting for some friends to finish work, sipping on some local pinot noir, that I decided to have a go at book spine poetry.

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

‘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

The other morning I was lingering in my bed in my Airbnb in Maine and noticed something stunning on the white paneled wall…the light danced enticingly, almost teasingly. Juxtaposed with the leaves and window blinds it was an overwhelmingly poignant sight that succeeded in captivating me for a good few minutes. I was working out an accompanying audio track in my head when I got the idea to archive this fleeting moment on camera (iPhone6 to be exact), and marry it to some music

I’ve been thinking about this project for a long time. I knew I wanted to capture the somewhat ephemeral words of those poet-songwriters I fill my ears with daily. I love music, but I must admit I love lyrics more. As an amateur lyricist myself, I love the the constraints of penning something to match music..the wordplay it inflicts.  Music offers up a set mood and tone, and the lyricist must try to fit his craft into that beautiful box. Originally I was thinking about a way

For a few weeks now my Building Learning Communities Conference buddy (that’s Alan November’s cool conference in Boston in July) Erin Olson ( @eolsonteacher )and I have been doing a little virtual volley project we are calling “Visual Verse”. We both love to write poetry and to sketch, but I do gravitate to the latter of late and she to the former. Each Sunday she sends me – all the way from Iowa and by way of the magic that is Twitter- a piece of poetic verse. My challenge i

Starting a new project…something for Sundays! I love having something consistent to do…some creative challenge that has a designated time slot but is not too overwhelming (in other words, has a low barrier of entry). My most recent has been my “Friday Five” reflections, but I was craving something collaborative. My gal pal Erin Olson (@eolsonteacher ) and I don’t meet face to face often (only twice actually at Alan November’s BLC Conference in Boston), but she and I are “symp

While brainstorming for an upcoming keynote on Creativity, I started thinking about the artists whose lives I have studied a bit (as a former World History teacher) and what we could learn from them – not particularly from their oeuvres, but from their creative process and the way they lived. At first I set out to make one comprehensive post, but then recoiled, thinking it would be too overwhelming. So, this will be a blog series of sorts, highlighting one artist per post. (

In early September, I was thrilled to get an email request from Mozilla to be a part of their first ever “Webmaker Fellows” program. Apparently, they were pleased with my Introduction video for the #teachtheweb MOOC using the Popcornmaker tool. I had previously used (and loved!) Popcornmaker for my final project for the E-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC with Coursera in this cheesy ’80’s music video parody/commentary on our present relationship with digital devices: “Digit