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3 Reasons Ze Frank Should Be Part of Your Classroom

5/17/2016

Recently, I applied for the Google Certified Innovator program. This was my application video.

I admit it: I love Ze Frank.

So what does that have to do with teaching?

Well, what we do as teachers is about relationship and community. And while I'm not much for the cult of personality around the teacher being the Centre of The Classroom, most of us become some variety of stand-up comedian because we have a built-in captive audience.

And Ze Frank is the master of cross-curricular real-world relevant collaborative projects.

His audience made the Earth a sandwich, asked people to dress up vacuum cleaners in human clothes, tracked down a random guy (only known by his first name and his voice, and his audience found him in TWO DAYS) and made him a series of remixes of and a music video for a song he wrote called "Whip Somebody's Ass," made purposely ugly myspace pages, and so much more.

So how can you harness the power of Ze Frank's collaborative projects?

First, copy them.

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Stuff I Wrote

5/11/2016

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For a year, I wrote for Teachability. I was paid to write regular blog posts about teaching, Flipped Learning, and technology.

After Teachability went under, I realised that these blog posts had disappeared into the ether.

So I posted them here! See? I HAVE been writing more than it seems from the state of my blog in the last few months.

Here is a list of posts:
Rethinking Homework, part one
Rethinking Homework, part two
Leveraging Social Media To Build Relationships in a PLN
Why Google Draw Should Be Used in Every Classroom
Revamping Lit Circles
8 Parts...of AWESOME
Teaching Research Like a Football Coach
Why I Won't Tell My Students the Answer
Making Terrible PowerPoint Presentations
Why I Look At Instead of Looking Away

Hope you enjoy.

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Why I Look At Instead of Looking Away

5/4/2016

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When I went away to college, the stuff I knew about the world and how it worked could have fit on the back of a postage stamp and still had room to spare.

I remember being so relieved when I had a professor who would listen to my dumb questions, then not only would she answer them, but she had an ability to make me feel like OF COURSE it wasn’t a dumb question, and it was SO GOOD that I asked and she was SO GLAD to be the one to get to explain it to me!

She was my first mentor. The first professor I didn’t just like, but aspired to BE like. The way she taught is actually a prototype for how I teach now. I don’t believe I’m as good a teacher as she is, but the good things are largely stolen from her (and others...I don’t discriminate about people from whom to steal). She taught me about geography, about the middle east, about gender roles, about the global south, about American political systems, about foreign policy, about physical geography, about the Israel-Palestine conflict...and so much more. From her I stole my now-frequent response to a student question, “Hmm. That’s a great question. That would be really interesting for you to look up and tell us what you found!”

The notes I took in her class are by far the most useful thing I’ve taken away from the 16 ½ years* I was educated. I actually remember specific lectures and conversations from her classes, even though they happened almost 15 years ago. Her classes were the only ones for which I actually studied. I mean, I even organised study groups with my classmates.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if she had been my 6th grade teacher. Or 10th. Or any year before I could legally vote.

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3 Reasons Ze Frank Should Be Part of Your Classroom

Stuff I Wrote

Why I Look At Instead of Looking Away

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