I read this really interesting conversation with Georgetown professor Jeanine Turner on how smartphones have fundamentally changed the dynamic of what students “being present” means, even when the phone is turned off. This section in particular gave me pause: I absolutely believe that every teacher, every presenter in a business situation, if you want people’s attention on you, you …
This past weekend I attended the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) virtual conference as a speaker and participant, along with 500+ other smart and fascinating folks. NAMLE is the place to be if you work in the field of media literacy pedagogy, and I was so pleased I got to attend my first …
After two and a half years of the pandemic, I was so excited to go to my first real education conference for KQED, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) in New Orleans, Louisiana at the end of June. ISTE is one of the largest edtech conventions in the country, bringing together industry leaders, …
Thirteen years ago I was a new educator at Global Kids in New York City. I was co-leading an ambitious virtual summer camp called “I Dig Zambia” in collaboration with the Field Museum of Chicago. Along with all the challenges of putting on a science camp with 20+ students in two locations, I had been …
In November, my manager Randy Depew and I gave a lightning talk for the virtual Open Education Conference. Our topic was “KQED Media Academy: Designing Open PD that is Open to All Educators”. It was a great opportunity for us to talk about how we have designed our KQED Media Academy courses to be as …
Today I was reflecting on all the different causes and issues I have devoted my career to over the past three decades or so. On the one hand, they seem pretty disparate and distinct. On the other hand, I can see the links that connect them to each other, and how one organically led to …
This blog post by Maarten van Doorn on education really hit home for me today. van Doorn writes about how the educational system has made learning into a specific set of rote actions designed to pass a specific test, in order to get to the “next level” of your education, and eventually your career. He …
Here’s the bad news about imposter syndrome: it doesn’t get better the older you get. In fact, it can get worse. My first professional job was as a policy analyst on transnational financial institutions for a think tank on Capitol Hill. I was fresh out of college and I had no background in macro-economics. But …
I’ve been doing instructional design for the past three years, working at the nexus of education and digital technology. I’ve managed LMSs, created SCORM files with authoring tools, and built modules, lessons, courses, and learning paths. But at the back of my mind, I’ve always been wary of the grand promises of instructional design and …
Despite having lived in San Francisco for seven years and working in a tech field, I’ve never actually participated in a hackathon. Since I’m not a developer or a designer, it just never felt like something that I would have much to contribute to. That changed this weekend. For the past couple of months, I’ve …