Father, Husband, Educator, Product Leader, Lenape…
Adjectives. Titles. Sometimes, shoulds.
I firmly believe that as we grow, the titles and the adjectives that we use to describe who we are change and evolve. Sometimes we choose the titles we take on and sometimes they are given to us. There is a lot of power in how we name ourselves.
For many years, I begin each year with something called a Blueprint. It is a process of walking through the titles that I give myself and how I can use those titles to help prioritize my time and resources. The entire goal is to build a better sense of alignment through truly embracing the parts of myself that I want. By calling out all of the titles I want, I can prioritize them ruthlessly and spend more time and effort working on the things that truly bring me joy.
Again, as I look back on these Blueprints form the last five years, there are some defining trends:
Father: I have two wonderful kids and the biggest part of who I am is who I am when I am present with my kids.
Husband: My second priority is the life and relationship I have built with my lovely wife.
Provider: I spend a lot of my time working and working to better myself, not for the sake of the businesses I work with, but to help create a better life for my family (hence the Educator and Product Leader in my tagline).
Advocate: This one changes every year. Sometimes I want to be a better mentor or leader, other times, I want to help people learn. Recently, my focus has been on honoring my Lenape ancestors and making sure that I own that part of myself.
On this website, you can see a glimpse into each of my titles and my journey of discovery and integrating the life of a technologist, husband, researcher, product manager, executive and father. Thank you for visiting, and welcome!
Showcase
The pages highlighted below demonstrate my desire to work with students and with institutions to integrate methods and strategies that improve learning and development. As time progresses and I continue to update, this showcase will grow and evolve.
Bring Your Own Curriculum
Over the past few years, I have been fortunate enough to work with some wonderful people in the field of Mobile Learning. Through my work as the Technology Director for the Mobile Learning group at ISTE, I had the opportunity to help design some of the larger movements in Mobile Learning: the MobilistNation, and the Mobile Learning Network. Through that work, I have become very passionate, and very cautious when it comes to BYOD – because we tend to focus too much on the device (as the name would imply).
Some of the most important discussions I have had about Mobile Learning were with PhD Researcher Elliot Solloway from the University of Michigan. For the past 5 years, Elliot and I have been working together… read more…
Designing a lab to design…
Two years ago, I had the pleasure of working to create a “Design Thinking Lab” for my school. Many of you may be wondering what I mean when I say that I am creating a “Design Thinking Lab.” Fear not, I am going to walk you through exactly what a DTL will be for us and what it will mean if you want to create one at your school. This page will include our changes to systems, infrastructure, and training to accommodate teachers and learners (or Cowboys and Millennials)… read more…
Google Apps for Education
Among other things, it means that I get to have the title Google Certified Teacher and get to be a part of the Google Certified Teacher Community. Now it falls on me as a GCT to do a better job of documenting what actually happens when we use the Google Apps Suite in Education (or Google Drive for Education as it is now branded). On a more concrete level, this means that I have worked to integrate Google into my School and my Profession through hands on and applied usage and training. I entered, and was accepted to the Google Teacher Academy in Manila this past October (2014) and will be working on my GCT Action Plan in my current school. This page is now the place where I will collate the meta-data of my Google presence. If you need anything Google Related, please reach out to me on Google+ and connect… read more…