100 Days in…

Sophia is learning her numbers up to 100 and to enhance that experience she celebrates the 100 Day mark of school with fellow Kindergarteners and 1st Graders at Ruamrudee International School.

Learning Innovation Markers: A more natural integrative approach

Simply stated, innovation is almost antithetical to standardization.  If the standard is the goal, then there really is no room for innovation.  To innovate is to improve upon something using new methods or approaches.  Conversely, to make something standard is to establish a goal that all products are the same.  Of course, someone can use a...

An Initial Blog Encounter (and why we should blog)

Huddled in my college apartment’s bedroom among my four roomates, we click through the female members’ scanned images on http://www.Hot-or-Not.com at a lighting speed of 128kps. Abruptly, one of our female friends bursts into the adolescent male enclave.  Nicole gasps at our audacity to participate in such a degrading pastime.  We retort that our own...

A Tropical Playground: Culture, Rocks, Flower, and Creativity

A Tropical Playground Gift As I digest ways Seneca’s Stoic philosophy relates to our modern, connective, bustling existence, my daughter, Sophia, and an entourage of friends take an intermission from playing in the park and enter the house. As girlie remarks are offered up amongst the bite-sized gaggle, a few snippets of sense peirce through....

The Highest Form of Internet Use

Feature image via Wikimedia Commons. Human Advancement and Creation Throughout evolution and development, every advancement, from cave paintings to enhanced digital reality, has been driven by the human need to connect and express ideas.  These advances emerged from the human desire to pursue: Explore Build and Maintain Relationships Entertainment Ideas Personal/Community growth Systems and products...

Determined to Skate

Sophia has a developing interest and passion for ice skating.  In Bangkok, ice skating is not extremely easy to come by, but there are one or two skate-able rinks nearish to our house.  Sophia went on the ice recently for her third attempt at ice skating, and here's the result.  She certainly seems to enjoy the...

iPad meet Google Classroom: A New Workflow for Grading

Just a couple years ago, I found grading multimedia projects laborious and time consuming.  The whole process from showing students how to submit their work, the time uploading their large media files, accessing the media files, viewing the media project, commenting on the work, and assigning grades was just too much to deal with and...

Featured Image: Vision-by Mélanie Plante via Flickr In the past, when attempting to draw on student input concerning vision feedback, our school has fallen short of acquiring insightful feedback/ideas.  Whether it's a simple survey or a short video contest, we've either failed at providing enough ideas for students to provide creative feedback, lacked key communication, or assigned...

The Monkey Bars

Featured Image: Monkey Bars by David K via Flicker Almost every lunch, I look out from our lunch pavilion around noon to see my 5 year old daughter hard at work on the playground.  She's not realizing it, nor do I everyday (unfortunately), but for those brief 15 minutes, I'm getting a snapshot of her growing up....

Marking the Conditions for Innovative Learning

Featured Image:Exploration-Innovation Missy Schmidt via Flickr Technology integration at Ruamrudee International School ties instructional practice and technological resources into 6 Markers for Innovation: Expansion, Creativity, Digital Citizenship, Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning, Connections. These markers set forth various indicators/descriptions that can help educators innovatively design instructional experiences and learning environment.  In his book, the Innovative Mindset, George Couros explores the necessary...