“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” – Audre Lorde (1983) Together with a great group of colleagues, we published a piece in the special issue on Bringing Critical Media Literacy into ELA Classroom from NCTE. You can review the draft we submitted to the journal here. The full publication is embedded…
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Gamify Your Learning Process With Habitica
Habitica (formerly HabitRPG) is a free task and habit building productivity app that utilizes a gamified approach to have you build the health of an avatar through your performance. Gamification is the attempt to enhance systems, services, organizations, and activities by creating similar experiences to those experienced when playing games in order to motivate and…
Transdisciplinarity as a Gateway to Critical Literacy
This week I held a webinar as part of my work with the Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) group. The session focused on Traversing, Transforming, Transcending, and Transgressing wicked problems in the classroom. Many critical societal problems are neither simple nor easily solved; they are wicked problems (Zellner & Campbell, 2015). A wicked problem…
Blending Practices, Skills, and Content in Teaching and Learning
This post was written by Nenad Radakovic and Ian O’Byrne. Portions of this come from our publication titled Toward Transdisciplinarity: Constructing Meaning Where Disciplines Intersect, Combine, and Shift. In our educational spaces, we often break our areas of expertise down into specific subject matters. We educate, train, and certify classroom teachers in terms of grade…
Wicked Problems
Many important societal problems are neither simple nor easily solved; they are wicked problems. 1 A wicked problem is a social or cultural challenge that involves many social systems and…
Considering the Post-COVID Classroom
This week I’m presenting a session with some good friends at NCTE 2022 a session titled What We’ve Learned: Two Decades of Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. Though more learners have technology in their hands than ever before, we ask what has changed in the last twenty years. In this session, participants had…
Taming the Digital Dragon
As we discuss the role and purpose of technology in our lives, we often come to the topic of information technology addiction. I should note that I think using the terms addiction and detox to describe our relationship and use of technology is very problematic. Digital detox refers to taking time off from your computer,…
Student Privacy and Pandemics: Understanding and Reducing Privacy and Security Risks
I’m presenting several times at TLTCon 2022 later in May. As part of the conference, they’re having some “live” or synchronous sessions where participants and presenters can interact. One of my sessions was accepted and identified as a virtual, or asynchronous session. This means that I put all of my materials together and make them…
Towards a New Normal: Motivation & engagement in digital spaces
During the past year and half, many educators across the board have had to make a shift to teaching online due to the global pandemic. As a result, educators have been both challenged and inspired in the online classroom. As we learn to live with a new normal, many questions remain as we attempt to…
Bearing Witness
Last week we held a ceremony to celebrate the life of my father. The service was quite wonderful as my sister held a reading and we had two friends from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) speak to their friendship with my father. I spoke at the end before the officiant offered some words and the rendering of…