Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Category: design

  • Designing And Narrating a Dream House Tour in Spanish

    This semester, for a variety of reasons, I’m having the opportunity to teach two classes of introductory 5th grade Spanish in addition to our 5th and 6th grade Media Literacy classes. 5th graders at our school take a semester of Spanish and a semester of French, and based on those experiences decide which language to…

  • How I Use Noun Project Icons in my Class Lesson Slideshows

    This past school year I have absolutely loved the opportunity to return to the classroom teaching fifth and sixth grade digital literacy and media literacy at Casady school, and also teaching an adult Sunday school class at our church (First Presbyterian of Edmond) titled, “Curiosity and Questions: Jesus and Science.” In both cases, I use…

  • Virtual Minecraft Camps for Elementary and Middle School Students: June 2020

    Update June 2, 2020: mdtech.casady.org/minecraft has updated information about both these upcoming virtual Minecraft camps for students. Five years ago, our youngest daughter (then age 11) participated in a virtual, summer Minecraft camp through “Connected Camps,” an outstanding organization based in California. She had a great experience, and we recorded a 20 minute podcast reflection…

  • Learn From Mike Wesch How to Create Better Videos for Students

    The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed school leaders, teachers, students and parents in the United States to respond in different ways to “shelter in place / shelter at home” mandates. It has pushed many K-12 teachers into the role of “emergency remote learning” instructors, even if the courses they teach were never intended to be “online”…

  • Tips and Strategies for Remote Learning (March 2020)

    For the past four weeks, starting two weeks before our Spring Break last week, teachers, administrators and staff at our school have been preparing for “remote school” for students as a result of the coronavirus / COVID-19 crisis. On March 19, 2020, our Head of School sent out a letter to our parents including information…

  • Deep Work and the Race to Minecraft

    Last Thursday was the last day of our second trimester at school, and therefore the end of my second opportunity in 2019-20 to teach Digital and Media Literacy to 5th and 6th Graders. As classroom teachers, one of the things we quickly learn is how different the dynamics of separate classes can be based on…

  • Your Seminary Needs Digital and Media Literacy Instruction

    I am enjoying the opportunity to teach adult Sunday School (again) at our church this year, and utilize Francis Collins‘ (@NIHDirector) book, “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” as our initial course text for our class titled, “Curiosity and Questions: Jesus and Science.” This week in preparing for our lesson and…

  • 2003 K-12 Classroom Technology Integration: Pre-YouTube and Pre-Smartphone

    This week I’ve been working on a Family Media Timeline project, using the amazing (and free) Timeline Tool from the Knight Foundation (@knightfdn) to create an interactive website our family and friends can use to browse through iMovies and Flickr photo albums dating back to 2000, right after iMovie was first released by Apple. In…

  • Tips for Self-Publishing Your Book (February 2019)

    Today I had an opportunity to share a 41 minute presentation with Mrs. Finley’s 12th grade Creative Writing class at our school, which I called, “Book Publishing 101.” Her students have spent the past several weeks writing and creating original children’s picture books, and publishing them as eBooks as well as printed books using Book…

  • 8 Months of Android: Lessons Learned (Part 2)

    In November 2017, I shocked my family and many friends by switching from an iPhone to an Android smartphone. It’s been a good experiment, but I’ve been missing iOS and an iPhone for multiple reasons. Later today I’m throwing in the towel and purchasing a used iPhone 6+ for $120 from a relative. If it…