I was so honored to be featured in the monthly spotlight of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. From the post…. What do you do? I support students in being well rounded digital citizens through fostering effective media literacy pedagogy. I am part of the professional learning team at KQED Education, specifically responsible for two …
I’ve been binge-watching the reality show “The Great British Bake Off” for the past couple of months. For those that haven’t watched it, “The Great British Bake Off” is a baking competition in the UK where amateur bakers compete in a weekly series of cooking challenges, set by two expert culinary judges. If you are …
After more than six wonderful, exciting years at the California Academy of Sciences, I’m now looking for new professional opportunities. I’ve had an incredible run at the Academy, grown a lot, met some wonderful colleagues, and worked on a number of fun and exciting projects. Now feels like the right time to move on and …
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of co-leading a series of community outreach events in the Philippines, along with my colleague Lindzy. This was part of a much larger "Verde Island Passage" scientific expedition, focused on an area of the Philippines called by some "the center of the center of marine biodiversity" …
As you may know, if you follow my other blog, I was recently traveling in South Africa. One of the best parts of my trip was getting to go on a four day safari in Kruger National Park. Being in the Kruger is an incredible experience, one of the most amazing nature experiences I’ve ever …
On Wednesday, I am giving a talk “87 Tips on Running A Successful Serious Game Jam,” for the Digital Media and Learning conference in Irvine, California. I was being a bit facetious in my title. But upon reflection, it was not hard to come up with 87 actual tips, based on my experience organizing game …
I have been helping lead one of our teen project groups for the internship program at the Academy. Project groups are opportunities for our interns to work together on some longer term project or topic, supported by a staff person, over the course of a semester. My project group is called “Big History”, a group of five teens …
This past weekend at the California Academy of Sciences, nine teams of teens from across the Bay Area (including SF, Oakland, North Bay, and the peninsula) gathered to rapidly develop digital climate games on the topics of Bay Area food, water and energy for the 2nd annual Science Game Jam. The game jammers were ably …
Everyone likes free stuff, right? Educators in particular are constantly in need of free resources to use with their students. It's not hard to find or obtain free content online. That's just the nature of the internet. But how do you find media that is both freely available and ethical to use? Fortunately, it's pretty …
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an educator, it’s that you can only be a jerky foreman to your youth miners for so long before they fight back. But I’m getting ahead of myself in the story… Back in 2009, I was in one of the principal educators running “I Dig Zambia.” “I Dig Zambia” …