About

I am currently a full-time, classroom teacher. I started teaching in 1993 and have had rewarding experiences in a wide variety of roles including exchange teacher (Australia), resource teacher (educational technology) and vice-principal. But it is as a classroom teacher that I have learned and continue to learn the most.

I am interested in educational issues that often involve competing tensions or issues such as instructionism vs. constructivism/onism, learning vs. education, oppression vs. empowerment, learner centered vs. teacher centered, play vs. work, learning to code vs. coding to learn, using technology vs. integrating technology. Sometimes, I write about false dilemma fallacies such as iPad vs. Chromebook, block vs. text coding, and so forth. Actually, I hesitate to characterize any issue using an X vs. Y structure because no debate is ever that simple. Reality is almost always located somewhere on a continuum between extremes. Nevertheless, I find X vs. Y and handy way to summarize and simplify as long as the caveats are noted, too. All thoughts and ideas expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect my employer

I have been a maker for my whole life. As a kid I took apart almost every gift I ever received and then built other things from the parts… such audio mixing-boards, loudspeakers, robots, and radios. I spent endless of hours building with cardboard, string, tape, paper, and Lego. I also loved to write stories, create photographs and videos, draw, and write music. Creating and building things were/are the only times in my life when I experience flow so that idea has also become a significant line of professional inquiry for me:

How can educators support a maker learning culture in the youth of today?
How do we foster both creativity and critical analysis as equal players in the educational endeavours of teachers and students alike?

A sample of things I have written: