I made this Animoto to introduce myself to this school year’s students and parents.

Enjoy. Share and share alike. Remix at your leisure. Download the .mov file here. Download the Keynote file here.

Our class was featured in the September edition of Canadian Family magazine. Thanks to Jennifer Reynolds for letting me share it here. Click the cover below to take a gander.

cc licensed photo shared by flickr user madpoet_one Let me brag about a couple of things which I think are worthy of boastfulness, though others may think are horrifying. First, I live very close to the school that I ply my trade in. Very close, as in, I could probably sneak out at any time, race home, put on a blue spandex suit with a big red ‘S’ on my chest, come back, and people would think there was a phone booth outside the school. Second, my eldest of three children, Yumi, has recently begun attending the same building as a student. She’s in grade 4, and she’s as jubilant about this as a squirrel who has found a Cadbury Fruit and Nut bar. One of the best things Yumi and I do is ride to and from school together on our respective bikes. It’s a special thing. I shudder to think that there might eventually be a time when feeling the wind brush back our eyebrows while coasting on our mountain bikes together will be an unappreciated endeavour. Sometimes I even find myself getting choked up, cruising behind her while watching her  little body, capped off with a mushroom-like bike helmet, bobbing up and down. She tries to talk to me and tell me about mundane moments of her day, and most of the time I have to yell, "Tell me later, honey, I can’t hear you!" It’s been interesting to observe others’ reactions to Yumi and I. It’s perhaps a sign of the times. The first reaction is surprise that we ride to school in the first place. Everyone burns gas to get to their destinations, you know. I’m not trying to jump on my high horse here; I understand that most people are captive to our bizarre, sprawling infrastructures, that context is king, and that everyone’s family decisions are often based on circumstance. It does concern me, however, that many people seem to have simply discounted travelling to school by foot or by pedal as an option. Like it’s Cherry Cola or something; it doesn’t exist any longer. Another response I’ve received is one of mild horror when people realize I sometimes allow my daughter to walk/ride to school by her lonesome. The distance is 900 metres. That’s half a mile. We’re talking 984.252 yards. Once, on a rainy day in September, I actually had a stranger admonish me for riding home in the rain with Yumi. I was flabbergasted. Are we sugar cubes? I don’t think they realize I’m trying to raise eagles, not budgies. At this point I have to step off my soapbox in the interests of: a) preventing blograntism, and b) keeping this post for what it is. This post is a dad’s love letter to his daughter. I adore eating pho with you on our lunch dates at Sweet Basil. I treasure getting a glimpse of your face in the hallways. And I get all fuzzy in my stomach when we’re cruising around the streets together, ringing our bike bells. drawing by Yumi Lee

I created this video to help my students remember some basic things about filming with mobile devices. I hope it’s useful to other classrooms.

Just a quick instructional vid I made for colleagues at my school which may or may not be useful to you.

My chin is still recovering from the gaping wound that was created by my jaw crashing to the floor the other day. You see, that’s when I met several teachers who had been given district/school iPad devices with its camera functionality disabled. Apparently, this is becoming a common practice. Here are my questions for the decision makers: 1. What are you afraid of? 2. Who are you protecting? 3. What message(s) does this send to your teachers and students? 4. Why do you want iPad devices in the hands of teachers and students in the first place?

Do you have a bunch of fun family photos that no one in your family ever looks at? I bet you do. They’re probably all over the place, too: on her camera, on his phone, on the kid’s iPod, etc. I was playing around with my MacBook’s wallpaper and screensaver settings when I discovered something totally awesome. I didn’t think it was big deal at the time, but I’m now realizing how fantastic it really is. I simply linked all of our family computers’ desktop wallpapers and screensavers to connect to a shared Dropbox folder called ‘Wallpaper’. Then I spent an hour or two putting all of our favourite photos from the past decade into that folder. I also have a shortcut/alias folder on my desktop, so it’s easy to dump photos in as I go now. What’s more, you can link your mobile Dropbox app directly to that folder for easy mobile transfers. One repository for all your photos that displays itself to you every day. I really just did it for fun, but do you know what we spend a lot of time saying to one another now? I laughed today when I saw that photo of us when we were… Math class was about to start, and I saw that hilarious one where we… I couldn’t believe I once looked like that… Oh, that was my favourite day ever! Essentially, it’s prompted my family to talk more about the process and history of our time together. And what do we know about people who talk about process and history as they’re living life collaboratively? Well, they tend to have perspective of the big picture, for one. Don’t get me wrong, we’re the loudest, most obnoxious family ever. Still, we’re pretty happy reminiscing about those small moments that you shouldn’t forget, yet sometimes do when life’s manic pace takes it toll. If you’re looking for a way to bring a touch of sunshine into your busy family’s abundance of photographs, try out the below (I’m pretty certain the following has its multiple equivalents for PC).

CC licensed image shared by Flickr user Jordan Cameron I invite my middle schoolers to bring their headphones to class. It’s not just because the year is 2012, or because stringy white ear buds are as ubiquitous as skinny jeans that sag beneath boxers. I want them to use their music and headphones for at least a few reasons… CC licensed image shared by Flickr user Wolfram Burner It’s a beautiful way for students to attain instant solitude when it is needed in a class of near-thirty. Whether it’s listening to your favourite playlist, an audiobook, or a podcast exploring your passion, there’s a place for being in one’s own head in the sometimes-melee that is a middle school classroom. CC licensed image shared by Flickr user Ed Yourdon Learning partners can find paired solitude when doing invaluable partnered work and thinking. It’s a hygiene-obsessed person’s nightmare, but it often aids the best kind of group work - that which occurs between two, not more, people. CC licensed image shared by Flickr user nerissa’s ring I have so many metacognitive students. When left to their own devices (so to speak), many of them contend that music is a must for studying and/or learning. I don’t really see why that shouldn’t be leveraged in my classroom, simply because the proverbial buck ultimately stops with me. Do you permit students to use their iPods and headphones in your classroom? What are your reasons for doing/not doing so?

I’ve been asked by a couple of people to share a digital version of the anchor chart I developed with my students to help remind them about certain things in their formal writing. Here it is for all of you too. Reuse, remix, recycle.

students in my class doing a haiku deck presentation Disclaimer: No one paid me to write this. The app: Haiku Deck What you can do with it: Create slides from their database of beautiful, free to use photos, searchable by key words. Why it’s awesome: You can’t make boring slides. How to present like a boss (slides from my Haiku Deck presentation):

I read Mary Beth’s tweet and accompanying link about an hour ago and decided to delete my Instagram account. I’m leaving it for my first love, Flickr. It’s not because I haven’t found it to be a beautifully engineered app and social network. Nor is it because I haven’t found it funner than anything, as my son would say. It’s not even because I think their terms of service are necessarily any more clandestine or problematic than any one else’s (hello, my beloved Google). Moreover, although I’ve never Facebooked, I’m not going to pretend to be the most well-informed critic of their privacy policies or ambitions for world domination (read Maira Sutton’s post for a good one). Sure, this post would be a lot better if I could quote some Clay Shirky or Marshall McLuhan, but, at the end of the day, I just…really…felt like it. Here’s why: I use Flickr almost daily for CC licensed images that I can reuse, remix, or recycle. I need to get back to contributing to this great community as well. I like the fact that all of my Flickr photos are set up to automatically be CC licensed. All of my Flickr photos get uploaded in full resolution. I found myself taking too many photos in low resolution because of being in the Instagram world. Flickr has finally updated their app to include Instagrammy filters. I’m not a fan of Facebook. Flickr gives me so many more administrative options to play with my photos’ settings. I want those controls back. Are you sticking with Instagram, or leaving the club? Become my friend on flickr!

I have this idea. What if we put a guitar in every classroom? How about a piano? Maybe some drum machines. We’re always sitting around talking about BYOD this and 1:1 that. Why don’t we think outside the glowing screen for a moment or two? I used to use my guitar all the time early in my career, but I realized recently that I’d drifted away from it. Did I get crusty and rigid in my old age? So I brought it back. This was partly inspired by the group of boys in my class who live for 70s prog rock. Let me tell you something: I’ve never taught a group that was into Rush or Emerson Lake and Palmer. Ever. I’ve taught kids who adored all kinds of nostalgia such as grunge, hip hop, gangsta rap, techno, brit pop, but never Eric Clapton. It’s a musical lesson for me. They can’t keep their hands off the guitar. While talking about math, they strum. Sharing their insight into the big idea of a book, they pick and pluck. The give lunchtime concerts. Today I actually heard them talking about drop D tuning. Yes, you can go right ahead and wikipedia that. I absolutely love listening to students having detailed conversations about topics of their own interest. I was so horrified that I myself had gotten out of practice. I admonished myself for losing the calluses on my fingertips. How dare I forget the chords to Hallelujah? Shame on me. I wondered if it was symbolic of something. I find it’s hard to keep joy out of your classroom when you have a guitar in there. Even if no one can play, you end up learning. And, boy, if there are some adept ones, watch out. Long live the classroom piano/guitar.

As I’ve written before, I don’t think there’s ever been a time when knowing how to skilfully communicate with images has ever been as important. We spend a lot of time deconstructing and constructing such texts in my class. Inspired by George Stroumboulopoulos’ show, we’ve been working on creating Best Stories Ever. Here’s one of my own below. If you should feel so inspired, why not record and/or film one of your own, post it on your blog, and tweet out with #BestStoryEver? Note: My Best Story Ever was created and recorded using Haiku Deck and Disp Recorder for iPad.

adapted from the original cc licensed photo shared by flickr user Eva Rinaldi Celebrity and Live Music Photographer [So. 1 billion hits, eh? Here's my obligatory, belated, and uncomfortably personal Gangnam Styles ramble. If you're looking for objective media criticism, you might want to press the back button.] A family with cultural capital? Didn’t have it. Stability in the home? Nope. Extra curricular activities? Only if shoving quarters in arcade games counts. A lot of freedom and time on my hands? One rare thing I had in spades. That’s why, growing up, media was the world to me. I learned everything from TV, newspapers, and magazines. I thought Bill Cosby was the coolest dad. The Keaton family hugs blew me away. I read every magazine I could get my hands on from cover to cover. Muchmusic was my life’s blood. I wanted to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band. The only thing media couldn’t do for me was help me make sense of being in the skin of diaspora. In fact, it exacerbated my insecurity and disorientation. I wanted to be a white kid with flowing, dirty blond locks, not a brownish boy whose house smelled of garlic. When I went over to my friend Seth’s house and had Kraft Dinner with a squirt of ketchup on the side, I thought it was the height of culture. I always remember that evening because it symbolizes the hegemony I was immersed in. You can imagine what someone like myself thinks about Psy’s Gangnam Style. I always picture having some warped dream where I end up speaking to my 12-year-old self to tell him: When you are a middle aged bloke with a family and a minivan (pause to laugh hysterically) there will be a dude that looks like your uncle who dances in a silly fashion and raps in Korean. Yes, you heard right: Korean. He will take the world by storm. Incredulous would not cover it. Of course, there was no internet. What’s more, I think most would agree that the Gangnam phenomenon does not occur in the media landscape of my childhood. MTV could not have acted as a successful agent for Psy’s little 1-2 step. And even if they had, I wonder how much of its success would be based mostly on irony and implicit racism. No. It could only occur virally. It’s the lack of contrivance that makes it all the more special to me. This is by no means an original or hugely revelatory statement, but I really feel as though we are experiencing a watershed moment for the Asian immigrant experience. You could perhaps argue that my feelings about Psy, in fact, serve to support the marginalization of the other. You might even say that the seeking out of global, external fame is exactly what we hope to avoid in self-realisation and empowerment. But, since an academic, cultural deconstruction rarely ends up on the side of mainstream euphoria, I just want to let my FIFA World Cup lizard brain tell you how I really feel. I’m proud of the little guy, and I’m even more exalted by the fact that I (and especially my children) live in a world where the kids at school think it’s kinda cool to have slanty eyes.

cc licensed photo shared by flickr user charamelody Reading and commenting on Aviva Dunsiger’s post on classroom desk arrangement reminded me of a related but different topic I’ve been wrestling with lately. I’ve been asking myself questions about what it means to do group work. I’m not certain which lady or gentleman first automatically equated group work with collaboration, but I need to have a word with her/him. When it comes to project work, l’m a proponent of my students taking a larger role in deciding whether working with a partner to create, produce, and/or present is really in the interests of everyone’s progress and learning. Some cite the infamous ‘real world’, in which we are supposedly inundated with demands to work with random people (in many cases, ones we can’t stand), as the pedagogical impetus behind group assignments, but that reasoning just feels lukewarm to me. It’s a strangely defeatist vista which I don’t see reflective of reality, and essentially lays our own adult baggage onto kids. Just who are these masses of people creating great works with people they have little to no working chemistry with? And what kind of bias are we promoting for our extroverted learners over our introverted ones in this equation? For the next group project you intend on assigning to your class, have you considering having some students work on their own? Shouldn’t our learners be comfortable with the idea that we can differentiate in this area? Why can’t the environment, culture, process, and assessment be collaborative, but products be individual? On the other hand, perhaps there’s something to be said for the serendipity of picking names out of a bag, forcing learners out of their comfort zone? Perhaps it’s a comfortable idea for some but not others? Maybe it disturbs the regular social dynamics for the better? How do you do group work with your learners?

Susan Cain‘s Quiet: The Power of Introverts hit this teacher and parent like a tonne of bricks. Since I’m not in the mood to write a book review, I thought I’d publish a quick post of links for @shareski of my previous posts influenced by/connect to her ideas, as well as essential ‘cliff notes’ on the book many of you have already seen floating around the interwebz. My explanation to Susan Cain on why I think Social Media transforms what it means to be shy or quiet in the classroom. Is social media a game-changer for introverted kids? Susan’s interview with me. My post on why Introverts Make Great Teachers Too. Social Media and Introverts: Guest post on Stephen Hurley’s Teaching Out Loud blog. My post wondering about group work in the classroom. Susan’s informal ‘Quiet Quiz’. A slightly modified version I use to assess my students. The TED Talk and RSA Animate respectively:

I’ve accompanied this post with an image of Paulo Freire because he was one of the first theorists that really rocked my boat in university. To this day, I find myself thinking of his ideas every day in the classroom, as well as in my reflections at home. One concept of his that meanders in my head at all times is praxis. There are so many different definitions and explanations for it, but I always look at it like this: Powerful pedagogy comes from constantly intertwining theory with practice. If life were a science-fiction movie, and I could have a coffee with Freire, I would love to talk to him about the possibilities of social media marrying praxis in schools.

CC licensed image shared by Flickr user Foro do Eixo I was perusing my hard drive, taking a click down memory lane. Man, I have no idea why I’ve never shared these before. I wish I could show you the accompanying music videos we created, but it’s difficult for me to work on the privacy rights on that one. I hope you enjoy them. Watching my students perform these songs for audiences is definitely one of the biggest highlights of my career.

CC licensed photo shared by Flickr user thejester100 Our school library is one of my favourite places to work. The hustle and bustle is so conducive to my concentration. I was working in there today during my prep and had the best time listening to a couple of kids from another class work on their research projects. I couldn’t resist taking notes: Kid 1: How should we present this? Powerpoint? Kid 2: Powerpoint?!?! Ugh, no way. Kill me now. We are not using Powerpoint. Kid 1: OK what’s that one again where stuff flies around everywhere? Kid 2: Ugh, hate that one too. *** Kid 1: Ohmigod, look at this amazing website I found! It has all the information we need! Kid 2: How do you know it’s true? Kid 1: Um… Kid 2: That looks totally unreliable to me. *** Kid 2: There’s too much information out there. Kid 1: I know right.

CC licensed photo of Steven Pressfield’s very useful book shared by Flickr user aplumb "Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work." ~ Chuck Close on creativity. It’s true, as Ken Robinson so seminally noted, that we often have homicidal tendencies with creativity in schools. Lectures, grades, high stakes standardized testing: no one’s ever going to go viral arguing the merits of these tools for creativity enhancement. I feel, however, that one mistake we make when lauding creativity’s place in the classroom is we focus so much on the things which are supposedly stifling it, that we forget to describe how to advance it. We mystify and aggrandize it to the point where it becomes a spoiled child who gets praised a lot but no one ever tells to do anything. I’m wondering if the following would help. 1. Space and Time ~ If we really value creativity, eliminate, or at least diminish the power of, the things that make it impossible to occur. Then proceed to design adequate spaces and provide more time for it instead. Lots of time. 2. Figure out a way to assess it ~ Stop wringing our hands about the subjective nature of creativity, resorting to sheer relativism. Yes, we know it’s often in the eye of the beholder. Fine, so is pretty much everything else we do in education. Develop learning goals, establish criteria, provide feedback, model it. Forget the cliche about the mean grade 1 art teacher who laughed at my drawing of an elephant (which really looked like a fried egg with ears) so I never picked up a Crayola marker again. The problem wasn’t the mean teacher; it was the system that left you so vulnerable and unresilient to feedback, however bitter, twisted, and unnecessarily evaluative it was. 3. Forget the Work-Play Dichotomy ~ Creative work may not be the same as shovelling snow, but it is work nonetheless. We don’t need euphemisms for it. 4. Teach Workflow ~ If you talk to, or read about, creative people who actually (in Seth Godin’s words) ship, it’s pretty clear that the majority of them have strategies and tools to organize their ideas and stay productive. When our students get struck with inspiration, what tools do they use to remember it? What do they do to synthesize their own minds? Many creative people use notebooks, voice recorders, or cameras as metacognitive tools. Do our students? 5. Walk the Walk ~ Any approach to enhancing creativity in our systems cannot preclude the adults and professionals in our buildings from participating in the same processes. We cannot have creative students growing in the presence of adult bystanders. Numbers 1-4 above become a lot easier and context specific when students can actually learn implicit and explicit lessons from creative grown ups. What else can we do to nurture creativity in our schools?