Today is a two-fer in my extended week sharing my favorite ice-breakers. I’m going to share with you two games I like to have students play a lot: “Wah” and “Name Wah.” Wah “Wah” is an quick and energizing game that is about coordination, observation, and timing that lots of student programs use. “Wah” Instructions …
“Robot Factory” is a fun team-building ice-breaker that gets kids creative juices flowing. It scales well for groups of different sizes. It involves no supplies or preparation. I’ve found it engaging for middle school to high school age youth. The objective of Robot Factory is for each team to work together to communicate what their …
Zoom In, Zoom Out is an ice-breaker designed to help students to explore how good stories engage the reader by focusing on tiny details and by telling universal truths. We’ve used it to good effect to get our students creative juices flowing at the beginning of our youth programs. The ice-breaker requires no supplies or …
The Raccoon Circle is a collection of games and ice-breakers all centered around a circle of rope or tubing used by a group (typically youth). There are hundreds and hundreds of Raccoon Circle activities that have been created and shared virally for years. You can find several online listings of activities (Jim Cain’s being the most …
The New York Times recently ran a series of articles on how parents are increasingly worried about the amount of time their children are spending on their digital devices. The click-baity headlines include: “The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected“, “A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to …
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 …
Art doesn’t spring from nothing. It emerges from something that already exists in the world. As Michelangelo famously said: “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” A major barrier to creating art is how to …
It’s been awhile since I’ve had a work-related dream. But a couple of nights ago I dreamed that I was leading a group of young people in some sort of after school program that was going very badly. The youth were supposed to learn some poem or chant in an African-sounding language. I think they …
“We’d like to help children through some of the difficult modulations of life.” – Fred Rogers I finally got around to watching the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor“ a loving tribute to long-time television personality Fred Rogers, or “Mister Rogers” as he was universally known by children and adults for three decades. The film …
I have on my desk a pile of plastic 3D-printed marine animal parts that I’ve kept for years. I’ve use it as a reminder of that: Technology can and often does behave in unexpected ways. Running a Digital Learning program involves a certain amount of risk and uncertainty. Plan accordingly. I realize that I’ve been …