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I Teach Great Humans
“Don’t just have the ambition to be a great engineer, have the ambition to be a great human. Wear your empathy as a badge of honor. It will allow you to do your best work.” David Kelley Be a great...
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When We Miss the Point of the Technology
This week was great. Not like, “easy-peasy” great, but like “filled with tiny moments that I saw great things happening” great. You know, like “Saturday morning sleeping in” great. Technology...
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Every Single Kid
Every single child in your school is a message to the world. Some speak in writing, some in song, some in code. Others speak in paintings created with their hands. Some have a raw talent for...
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When Less Is More
“Are we going to play games?” It’s the question I hear most often as the school year gets under way and I pull out a device in a classroom. In their little minds, devices are tools for fun and they...
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I Stand With Ahmed
Here’s to the kids, restless and dreaming, to create something new, their sparkling eyes gleaming. The kids who will think outside of the book, In a place curiosity keeps making them look. – Deeper...
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Another Dress To Argue About?
This week was a crazy one. If you’ve been on social media, um, at all, you’ve seen the story of the Texas boy who was handcuffed for making a clock and bringing it to school. It sparked a firestorm...
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The Journey Just Keeps Getting Better
New is exciting. I get it. I’m even taken away by it many times. I remember when I was a kid, I got a new bike and couldn’t wait to get it on it. There was something about those streamers, the crisp...
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The School of Fear
Compliance. A quiet line or you’ll move your card. I’ll give you a sticker if you are quiet and finish this worksheet. A test to bubble in. A stringent rubric to follow to ensure a final product that...
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Makeropoly
I used to have a wall in my classroom where I had the game “Castleopoly” hanging on the wall. I won’t go into what I used the game for, so how wrong I now feel I was for focusing so very much on...
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Preparing to Launch
I have a secret. My classroom door has been locked since June. Not just locked, but sealed off. I’ve slowed down on blogging about my work because I have been too busy, um, working. But, I’m going...
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Learning IS Personal
I don’t like the term “personalized learning.” It’s redundant. Learning IS personal. We know that the best classrooms are built around relationships. We know that healthy environments for great...
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AIMS 2015
The Slides: Launching Innovation Activity: Shark Tank “Design Challenge” for Lower School Character Cards Pop-Up Makerspace: Makerspace Notes ~ Add your ideas! Makeropoly
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The Launch of a Makerspace
This past week our learning space transformation was revealed and The Launch Pad is open for business. My fingers are still stinging from the glue gun burns and fingernails stained with enamel spray...
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It’s Not About the Space… All Learning.
If I could sing a parody, which trust me, you DO NOT want to hear, I’d rewrite Megan Trainor’s famous song “All About that Bass,” with the lyrics, “It’s not about the space… all learning.” It’s...
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MAKE Reading More
Yesterday I came across a screenshot from Willy Wonka, the original, and I thought of how the movie both inspired me and creeps me out at the same time. So many bizarre moments, yet so much...
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The Gift of STEM In #STEMChat This Week!
One of the most authentic ways for kids to learn problem solving, collaboration, and resilience is through play. You don’t have to read my blog for more than 2.3 seconds to know that I think play is...
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Thinking Beyond the Furniture, Making the “Making” Shift
All the furniture in the world won’t matter if there’s not real change in the learning environment, the opportunities for kids, and the style of inquiry offered… We can set up awesome spaces in our...
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Be the Learner Your Kids Need
Either way you look at it, teachers are learners and when we let our students know that, we empower them to be learners, too. When we are the “deliverers of all information” we steal something special....
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Because 3d Printing IS Filled With Learning Possibilities
Download practically anything you want from Thingiverse and spit it out. Instantly. That has a certain cool factor, that will make you want to print a few things. (Insert photo of a giant bolt I just...
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It’s So Wrong
Every once in a while I get fired up. Like, you borrowed my Sharpies and broke the tips… THAT fired up. On the drive home today it was one of those moments. Why? Because this week has been AWESOME....
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