This month is one of the rare times when I get to teach actual students. For the month of February I get to working with a group of teens at the Boys and Girls Club of San Leandro as a pilot project for our Youth Media Challenge at KQED. The Boys and Girls Club of …
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 …
A few weeks ago, I was so pleased to receive my copy of my friend Barry Joseph’s new book Making Dinosaur’s Dance (American Alliance of Museums). Subtitled “a toolkit for digital design in museums,” the book uncovers Barry’s unique take on how to create powerful learning experiences in museum spaces using a variety of digital …
In my 33 years of professional life, I’ve had the privilege of only working for causes that I believed in. It all started in 1991 with the group of a dozen college students I led to a remote favela outside Tijuana, Mexico to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. And to this day, I’ve been …
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 …
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 …
“Hi, my name is Maya. I go to school in the Richmond and I love badminton!” The “North Star” of our education department is to “elevate diverse youth voices.” As a diverse team, we operationalize this goal through a number of different strategies. My job as the manager of online learning is focused on supporting …
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 …
I’m so honored that the work of my professional learning team at KQED is featured by the California Department of Education on their website as go-to resources for media literacy education for the state! Specifically, they include our PBS Media Literacy Educator Certification and our KQED Teach online courses as key tools to help teachers to bring …
The South by Southwest Education Conference and Festival (or as it’s known SXSW EDU) is one of the premiere national events focused on innovation in learning. I’ve heard about this legendary gathering for years, but never had the opportunity to attend. My team at KQED has put forward three killer sessions that we want to …