gifts and wrestling

These days, I am consistently amazed and grateful at the wonderful incredible quality of my life. I am head-over-heels with my crazy, human situation.

First - school is awesome. I have 5 full-time fascinating courses, all with really engaging instructors and thoroughly interesting and challenging material. Second - my new job as a research assistant is kind of like the coolest amusement park ride, mixed with a collaborative project and some fabulous philosophy. The project that I'm involved with is part of a much larger one called the Experiential Design and Gaming Environments Lab, a cross-disciplinary collaboration involving folks from three different universities, from a whack of different sectors (technology, DIY, social economics, gaming, new media, early childhood ed & development, hacking, disabilities studies, etc, etc, etc). Everytime I go to work I hang out with exceedingly smart people and have wicked-cool, INSPIRING conversations. My work there is hilarious, and has so far involved learning to play Farmville (to explore social media), having in-depth conversations about co-construction and autonomous learning (to work out what our themes are for the project I was hired to work on), organizing cardboard (for the adaptive design lab and workshops), and playing with (learning how to use) an off-the-shelf brainwave monitoring device that Dr. Jason (the prof who hired me and a pretty awesome amazing guy) got off the internet to study biomapping. So many brackets in that last paragraph!

It feels like there are so many situations and conversations and people who are like gifts in my life right now! So, my brain and heart are being regularly kicked into overdrive, but in a good way. I have noticed that my critical thinking has picked up it's pace, too. I have started to wonder about school and teaching and the edu-crisis that is smacking North America upside the heads. I have thought about teaching styles and why I love direct instruction (it's like candy to me) but don't think it's an effective way of helping folks learn...and that's just it. I have started to think about helping people learn, instead of teaching people. That's a wonderful, fundamental change that feels really good.

Anyways - I wish I could post the gazillion things that are rushing around in my head right now - things like:
- how can we create learning environments that foster autonomous learning in a school system that is so authoritarian you have to ask to go to the bathroom?
- what is the role of technology in learning, now that technology is becoming more and more inseperable from everyday life for a lot of people on the planet?
- who has access to good educational opportunities, and what can we do about the folks who don't?
- do schools work? Teachers sure do - HARD! So what's creating the oncoming educational crisis?
- imagine teaching kids in early learning environments that asking questions was one of the most important things they could do - how would that change a lot of things about school, society, inequality etc?
- with technology becoming so prevalent - what are schools going to look like in the future?
- how can I make the greatest playground in the world?
- games and learning - bringing play back into education, don't just stop playing once school starts...
- does there have to be a struggle between 'natural' and 'technological'?
- authentic learning, collaborative innovation, asking questions - how do you inspire people do deeply engage with these things?

These and another million things are pummeling my brain. I feel so lucky to be wrestling with it all...

Nerd out for now

oh my '80s

I never realized how much I'd been influenced by Whitney Houston.



Soon more, but right now I just have about 500 pages of politics to read - and I'm not even behind in my readings or anything.

nerd 0ut

yowza! year three in full swing

Hello there -

Third year is going full-bore already, and we're only in week 2! Yipes!

Got some interesting courses - a families course that focuses on diversity, ethnicity and culture; a politics course looking at well-being and opportunity; a literacy course where we'll learn instructional methods and theories of literacy, as well as get to explore a lot of good books; and a year-long Research class, with Methods in our first semester and Applications in our second. Each class has a bucket of reading, and a couple of projects, but if I keep on top of it all I think I'll be ok.

Add my Feminism in Society class, a professionally related course, to the load, and that's some heavy-duty academics. I'm going to be reading and writing and thinking 'til the cows come home, and I haven't seen them for ages.

So, of course, I'm psyched, being the silly little nerd-lord that I am. But I ALSO just got a pretty super job - I'll be working as a research assistant on a project in the ECE department that sounds wicked-cool. The project will be looking at how kids interact with technology and sociable media practices, and how those interactions influence their learning and socializing...I think. The prof I'm working with is zany and inspiring, and I have yet to meet the rest of the team, but I am pretty excited about the whole thing. Hence, the post down below of the thought-provoking TED talk about child-directed, technology mediated learning.

By this little TED talk alone, I'm not convinced that this is the bright new future of education. However, it is really interesting to think about how incorporating sociable technological learning tools into social, constructive classrooms facilitated by thoughtful, nurturing teachers might invigorate learning.

Anyway - I gotta get back to those books...more for sure soon!!!

whoa

Ok - this is pretty crazy.  It sure has got me thinking...

Nerd oUt, peeps.

the octopus's garden in Victoria

We were brought to this totally AMAZING playground in Victoria on Vancouver Island while we were out there - I have become increasingly fascinated by outdoor play, playgrounds and outdoor learning environments since Teacher Tom bent my brain around some great ideas (and here, here and here) and I found Arcady's blog. Irresistible Ideas and Let the Children Play have also been huge sources of inspiration and fascinated reading and wondering.

So check this out - Octopus, Salmon, and Cadborosaurus concrete climbers and a huge boat playstructure, all poised on the edge of the beach looking out onto the Pacific. AWESOMENESS.

I mean, it's practically heaven. I wish that I was 10 years old and had had all day to hang out here, climbing and playing and seeing how deep the Octopus's arms went under the sand. Ridonkulously great.

If you're out in Victoria anytime soon, go check it out - it's super-fun.

Nerd OUT on the playground

Summer summary and the first day of school

woot!! Today was the first day of school - yeeehaaawww! As I rode my bike downtown to Ryerson to start my THIRD (gasp!) year of this degree, I saw a ton of parents walking their kids to school all the way through the neighbourhood. It got me so excited!

So, today's class was Research methods, and I think I'm going to like it a lot. The prof is very human and approachable, and also the first male prof I've had in the Early Childhood Ed. department.  His name is Bob Rinkoff, and he's from a developmental psychology background, and his research right now is focused on outdoor education and children in mountain wilderness environments. Pretty awesome, as I've been getting excited about that kinda stuff too - playgrounds, adventure learning, outdoor schools and classrooms. Zowee.
Anyway, it seems promising.

The summer went by so fast - I can hardly believe it. Oh! I promised some more photos of the end of Snail Trails Camp - here they are:

So - Snail had a Carnival to celebrate the end of camp, and we had a lot of different carnival-esque activities for everyone to get involved in.  This is a photo of the giant snail that Alison and I built with the kids - 2 x 4s and screws, duct tape and sheets, and the head is made out of foam core.

This giant Snail really wanted to play on the playstructure...

...and looked really wonderful after the kids and their families applied beautiful colours to it's shell...

We put food colouring into spray bottles - and we used the same thing to do another activity, our Spray Snail...

...this activity ended up looking like this...

...so colourful!

We also had another fun activity, using squirt bottle paints on big snail forms. They were pretty fun, and ended up looking fabulous!

Some other cool, but slightly random things that we did at the end of camp were these - check it!

and...the mixing bin!!! It grows real grass!!! Just add kids and water!

I feel so lucky that I was able to work with the kids and educators at Play and Learn - I learned so much and felt so good, and it got me really thinking about playgrounds and outdoor classrooms and learning and ...well, the list just goes on and on. It was super-duper.

What a summer - first being up in Inukjuak, remember that? Look here, and work your back if you don't remember. Then Snail Trails. Jam packed goodness.

Then, when Snail Trails Camp ended, I got to go on holidays! The greatest holiday ever of my life so far. First I was in Nova Scotia with my parents, and then all the way across the country to B.C. visiting friends and family there. I came home feeling soooooooooooo relaxed and recharged, and psyched for school.


And so here I am and here it is - just a quick little look at my summer. More real soon, cuz I want to show you this amazing playground we found in Victoria.

Nerd out!!

empathic civilisation - what we're working towards in early childhood ed!

Watched this AMAZING video on TEDtalks (love it!) and was blown away at how it fits so deeply in with what we're trying to do with the education of young people. Lots of interesting things to think about and some great drawings.
WATCH!

Jeremy Rifkin on "the empathic civilization" | Video on TED.com

Also - I'm home now from my most amazing vacation ever of my whole life, and I'll begin to post regularly again. Third year of school starts in two days, on Tuesday, and I'm looking forward to it, especially with ideas like these bubbling away inside me. I'll get some photos up, and other thoughts real soon.

Nerd OUT!