I’m English, and sending a Christmas card with a winter image on the front and a warm message inside is a significant part of our Christmas tradition. This article offers 5 tips for the family Christmas card tradition.

Before social media, we used the phone and letters to connect with friends and family. However, Christmas made things a little more complicated; there weren’t enough hours in the day to communicate with everyone. Christmas cards helped address this problem. They offered a simple way to send good wishes for the holidays. This practice began a tradition in England that has endured without too much change (see a little more about the history here).

SEE ALSO: Making Christmas Cards: My lessons Learned

When I moved to the U.S., I realized this tradition had evolved a little differently; it was all about the family picture on the front. I’m not criticizing this tradition, but I did tell my wife that I want a family picture that has a little festivity and captures our little ones’ personality. However, sometimes this wasn’t possible, and we ended up with the summer family vacation photo or the official family photos taken during the Fall. 

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A few years ago, we were in the U.K. for Christmas, and I was super worried about how our Christmas card would go down with the family. A few offered me the, “oh, that’s a nice picture” comment, but there was one family who just hit me up with the banter and jokes about the perception of that perfect family image – which, as we know, doesn’t exist. 

Fast forward a few years, and I’ve identified 5 tips for the family Christmas card tradition, which I think offers an appropriate balance for my American/British children. 

With my youngest, I found it helpful to go over his drawing in blank pen before he began painting. We used YouTube to find things to draw. Somehow we ended up with a Unicorn (it’s not a reindeer).

5 Tips the Family Christmas Card Tradition

1. The weekend after Thanksgiving, we transition into the festive spirit by painting pictures for our Christmas Cards. We use paints because they make this activity extra fun and produce a nice vibrant image to capture with the phone. It’s a great way to get Christmas started!
2. I identify the Christmas card template before we begin painting; this helps determine if the boys are painting landscape or portrait. It also allows you to identify the best Cyber Monday sales.
3. We blend the U.K. and U.S. tradition; we include pictures of the family and homemade festive pictures. This strategy reduces the need to find a festive picture of the children, which can’t exist in November.
4. We let the kids paint freely; this creates a nice balance between perfect family pictures and messed up drawings. However, I do require that they are Christmas images, and they draw in pencil before we get to the paints. I’ve also found the “how to draw” videos on YouTube to help the two youngest. (so perhaps it’s not a total free frenzy)
5. This year I’ve also taken up my Mother’s tradition of writing an annual family update to share with close friends and family that I only connect with over the Holidays. I see this as a great way to record a yearly journal, which I’m now storing in Google.

There’s nothing original about these tips; I’ve seen other families with similar traditions. some even make the cards, which is taking it to a whole new level. I’ll also add that although it can reduce the pressure on securing a perfect family picture, it does require time for the activity. However, this activity is now part of our tradition and provides some cool annual paintings for the boys to store in their safe keep box. Just avoid making this activity too complicated; it should be fun and festive! 

Oh, I’ll add that the family who gave me the banter, they sent me a family Christmas card this year, which in good English humor was a fully American style Christmas card. I’ll be watching them carefully to see if this becomes a trend in the future.

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When new folks hear my accent, they nearly always ask the same question; “do I like it here?” My answer is nearly always the same; I love the ice-cream, I’ve adjusted nicely to living outside a major city, and I absolutely adore having four true seasons. Specifically, I LOVE the Fall in New England. This love unearths an innate interest in photography and painting, partially because I have a desire to capture the contrasting colors of the Fall foliage.

My eldest use the camera to snap pictures of his Nona and flowers. This article considers how my actions of introducing a new tool might influence his creative journey.

I never act on these feelings. I worry they will lead to another thing; making me concerned about my capacity to learn the necessary skills needed to master another tool. A paint brush is a tool. A camera is a tool. To express my feelings of the Fall foliage, I will need to master these new tools.

This introduces the topic of this blog article, a tool like camera is something that either exists or doesn’t exist in our home or in our classroom. For those familiar with this concept, you’ll know I’m beginning to play around the edges of sociocultural theory, which includes investigations into how individuals interact with tools inside their environment. This includes how a learner perceives a tool, and how a learner is influenced by other people when using the tool.

My question for readers of this article is how do parents influence the way a child perceives and uses a new tool like a camera? I thought about this question when I gave my eldest a camera and asked him to take pictures of the Fall foliage. I think this question is also something to consider as we look into gifts for  Christmas!

You may also like – Photography and Creativity: What’s the Connection? 3 Question Interview with Photographer, Dan Kane

Photography and Creativity: What’s the Connection? 3 Question Interview with Photographer, Dan Kane

I’ve been amazed about his interest; he’s been snapping away, holding it like a pro, and even switching over lenses when he wants a close-up of a flower. This experience makes me think about the action of giving a young child a tool for the first time. To what extent does this experience influence their creative destiny?

There’s a whole bunch of things whirling around in my mind as I consider this question:

• What is the relationship between our first access to a new tool and sociocultural theory? Is receiving the tool enough to set a child on their way? Or do they need mentorship to use the tool purposefully? If it’s the latter, will my inadequate photography skills make this experience irrelevant? I think not!

• What about equity? I remember reading how Bill Gates was fortunate enough to gain access to a computer at a young age. Access to this tool (and environment) initiated a life-long curiosity for computers, which obviously contributed to his future success. What if he never received this experience? Would he still be as successful? Here’s another crazy thought – what if he had received the same experience, but a few years later?  

• How does this relate to gifts for Christmas? Twenty years from now, will our child recall the moment they received an electric guitar for Christmas?

• Finally, what if we have too many of these experiences when young? Might we reduce our focus of exploration on one single tool? In Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers, he uses Beethoven as an example of what is known as the 10,000-hour rule. This is considered the approximate time it takes for an individual to master a set of skills at the necessarily level to produce majors changes within a field. What if we have a child who is destined to become Beethoven with a Piano, or Gates with a computer, but we keep giving them new things to try out that they never have an opportunity to put in the hours needed to master one single tool?

Clearly, I’m enjoying my Thanksgiving week and allowing my mind to wonder on a bunch of thought experiments. To conclude, I’ll simply say that my boy has enjoyed access to my old camera and has responded well to my inadequate mentorship. I’ve suggested he stay in auto settings for now and focus on capturing “interesting” images of the Fall foliage. However, I’ve given him complete creative liberty of what he chooses to photograph.

I’ll conclude on this – if he becomes the next Beethoven of photography, we can credit me as the parent who introduced him to this tool – right?

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It’s a little challenging to have a parenting blog and not talk about Covid-19 and homeschooling, mainly because DadsforCreativity explores topics related to early years education (my eldest is 9, and my youngest is 3).

As I reflect on the transition to homeschooling in March, I break into a hot sweat – it was intense! And I’m an educator. I’m supposed to be good at this stuff, right? In reality, we know the challenges we faced as a society were immense. We all experienced an increase in anxiety in response to the challenge of delivering on very different work commitments while also supporting our child’s schooling. We had to organize schedules for the home computers, identify work areas, setup daily zoom calls, and submit assignments on Google classroom. All this excludes the everyday parenting that equally intensified, as our children became quickly agitated by events.

See Also: Learning from Home: Shaping Small Education Opportunities

Some of us have begun to repeat this experience as schools return to another turbulent year. Given this situation, I thought I’d put together some articles that explore relevant topics in response to the increased responsibilities that we now experience (though in different ways). The first of these articles focus on supporting effective feedback during the lockdown, which we know can be highly effective for constructing knowledge.

Take Away: We’re not educators, but we can provide information so we are supporting effective feedback from a distance.

During the initial stages of the outbreak, useful feedback was one of my significant concerns as we made the transition, especially when introducing new topics (e.g., fractions). Although feedback comes in lots of different ways, I’m sure we all recognize the teacher’s important role when it comes to administering feedback. I’m not talking about grades, they have a role to play, but they are not considered an effective form of feedback from a learning perspective. I’m talking about the human interactions we experience in the classroom, the moment when the teacher poses a question and responds to the puzzled look on the child’s face, or when they discuss a problem presented on a worksheet and see an opportunity to elaborate. There’s also the conversations in groups that a teacher overhears as they make their way around the classroom—fellow students sharing misunderstanding about the material, which is then quickly addressed under normal conditions. Finally, a good teacher routinely evaluates their success in administering instruction, and this typically includes tapping into a sixth sense regarding engagement.

I thought there were some great moments of teacher creativity from a distance, but I think we all still developed concerns on how much time children spent on the computer. This information only seemed to become apparent through communication from parents.

How well did we do at replicating this level of feedback during the lockdown? I’m not sure of studies that have explored this question, but I remain concerned as we begin the new academic year.

As I think back to my role as a parent during this situation, I think the most significant contribution I made – from a homeschool learning perspective – was reviewing my boy’s work before submitting to Google Classroom and maintaining communications with their teachers. I recognized when my eldest had rushed through a worksheet and not addressed the questions correctly; I could pick up signs that my middle son needed more support toward the concept of estimation. And I concluded I don’t know enough about fractions to help my eldest son in any way when he was beginning to struggle. Consequently, I engaged with the teacher and shared my interpretations of how my child was progressing in response to the new material. These communications were sometimes short notes added to worksheets or more direct emails when necessary.

This final sentence addresses the main point I’d like to make. I believe that lockdown brought me closer to my boy’s schooling. Over the summer, I continued to challenge one son on his sight words, another son in his letter sounds, and another son on his multiplication. I was precise. I knew what they had done during the final semester. I knew their ability level and utilized this information during reading sessions, selecting apps for the iPad, or engaging discussions during dinner.

This new knowledge of my children is something I continue to cherish. I believe it brought us even closer together as a family. It certainly expanded my understanding of their learning beyond quarterly grade reports. However, as we begin the new school year, I think it’s important to highlight that parents are not teachers. We can’t effectively deliver feedback on our children’s work. We also don’t have time. Consequently, I recommend focusing our efforts to support one of the most crucial components of learning – feedback.

As parents, we have an opportunity to observe how our children respond to the temporary normal of formal schooling. We can review their worksheets, ask them questions, and, most importantly, communicate our observations to the teachers. They need our support. We need to be their eyes and ears as they deliver the instruction from a distance. They need this information to provide useful feedback, which I feel remains challenged under these current conditions.

We also know when our child has had enough time on the computer. We need to find ways to address this situation; a bored, hungry, frustrated, and fidgety child will struggle to master new concepts. As we communicate the information to teachers, we also need the patience to recognize they require time to process the data and consider a solution. What time of the day is most productive for your child? When is it appropriate to introduce new material? How might you revisit this material later in the day?

I write this article with a recognition of my boy’s privilege; during lockdown, I had the knowledge and time to support their schooling. This situation is not the same for everyone – which is why I believe we need all children to return to school ASAP. But I digress!

My point is simple. I hope that as the new year begins, we as a system of schooling can develop more robust methods of communication channels between parent and teacher. This communication channel is not one way; it must be a back and forth throughout the year. It’s something the system has always needed; we might not have an opportunity to be better.

Enough said. I’ll be following up with a 3 Question Interview with an expert in this space very soon.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been up in the mountains for a few years working on other projects that have given me little time to blog about my three boys. I’m now back and looking forward to sharing new stories on how I try and promote creativity by shaping small learning opportunities at home.

For the most part, this blog has focused mainly on content about my eldest son. As my firstborn, I had a lot more time to engage him in creative activities while Mommy worked on the weekends. Once the second and third boys arrived, and I transitioned into a mid-career professional time became more challenging. I now have sports and extra-curricular activities to contend with; I have intense sibling rivalry, making it difficult to partake in collaborative tasks. If I record a video with my eldest, my middle boy demands a video, which is soon followed by my youngest – who’s three, by the way.

See Also: Daddy’s Day Out: Creativity is about making connections

Consequently, with increased time, I’m hoping to establish a schedule that allows me to engage my boys at the individual level. Today, I felt like I began this journey by taking my youngest to a small farm not far away from our home in Connecticut. He’s recently taken an interest in nature. I suspect this has come about from his oldest brother, who loves flowers, plants, and animals almost as much as his iPad, and parents. However, the walk itself, and focus on insects, was initiated during a one and one reading session that took place a few days before. This article reflects this experience, intending to highlight how we can shape small learning opportunities that take place in the home.

REFLECTION OF EVENTS

• Read a book about bugs
• Engaged in a discussion based on questions initiated from pictures
• Focused questions on interests of the child
• Continued discussion about insects during the week
• Went on a walk to find insects
• Reviewed pictures of the insects we found

These short learning events combine into a somewhat formal education experience that occurs as a consequence of sustained parent/child interaction. It is these types of experiences that can help shape the small learning opportunities that take place in the home. 

During the week, we read a book about bugs—no scrap that. We didn’t read a book about bugs. The book was a pop-up book that made sounds and didn’t have many words. What’s great about these books is they facilitate discussion between parent and child – something we know from the learning sciences is crucial for human development. As part of our conversation, I was able to identify his interest in butterflies, his fear of bees, and recognize he was ready to identify some of the characteristics of insects. We counted the legs and looked for the antenna, but skipped the three-body part characteristics because I felt it would be a little too much. My goal was to present insects as a subgroup of bugs.

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This little antidote is helpful because it highlights the decisions I made as a parent educating my child within that experience. The pictures and pop-up features of the book initiated questions he had about bugs. In my responses, I was able to test his existing knowledge while introducing him to new information about insects. Information I controlled based on what I felt was relevant to his questions. For those of you who are familiar with the learning sciences, you’ll probably now thinking Vygotsky, scaffolding, and possibly the zone proximal development. However, the key take away from this story is the importance of child and adult interaction when storytelling, and how engagement in these discussions can shape learning opportunities at the home.

A picture of my eldest taken during a similar walk when he was young. His love and curiosity for the Earth Sciences is still as strong today.

As I referenced in the opening, I took my youngest to a farm to look for insects. We took our insect box and went on the hunt. It quickly brought back memories of when I did the same activity with my eldest. I didn’t do this activity with my middle boy, because he never expressed the same interest in nature. Children are different, but today’s visit was a deliberate visit to build on the conversation we had during the week. It’s about connecting the dots as we promote curiosity and learning at home. Sometimes we may decide what we want to expose our children to in the world, but other times we should listen to their questions and let their curiosity dictate the experiences we offer.

Later that night, we reviewed some of the photos we took during our walk. I also showed him the pictures of similar walks I had with my eldest, which hopefully gives me some brownies points in the future when it comes to discussions about “I loved him more.” (For the record, I love all three of you the same. Only as a parent can you understand that!).

As I write this, I hope my youngest takes up the same interest in butterflies. My eldest and I generated some fun stories raising butterflies when he was young. Repeating the same experience with his youngest brother would be great. Only time tell, but he did ask me to snap the picture below, which he described as a “beautiful butterfly” I only wish he had also referred to it as an insect! Here’s to Learning at Home: Shaping small learning opportunities.

After our walk we reviewed the photos we’d snapped during our insect hunt.

I started DadsforCreativity to combine my interest in creativity with my desire to be the best possible Dad. At its height I had an audience. Folks would email me about my articles. I saw monthly increases in traffic. I included the website in my introductions, and then BANG. A graduate program, a documentary, and a third child came together in a massive storm that wreaked havoc on my schedule. Since then, my contributions to this blog have been disappointing. What’s even more depressing is a worry that the decrease in output is a reflection upon my interactions with my boys – are they becoming less? The answer is no (I hope). I say this, because during the past 15-months they have pushed me, forced me, nagged me, and tricked me into the production of a variety of YouTube videos that have now taken over my YouTube Channel. Therefore, today’s blog signals a series of future articles in support of our emerging studio.

See also: What is YouTube was an encyclopedia? 

YouTube

YouTube serves as an example of the affordances offered through the World Wide Web. It is a platform where you can access information about anything and everything, while also having the capacity to easily produce and share information as well. I used YouTube to explore changes to how we interactive with information in the documentary, Class of 2032: Schooling for a Digital Culture.

There are genuine concerns we need to address when working on any open platform, and I do not mean to undermine these concerns by promoting an article that focuses only on the creating and making aspect of our digital culture. However, learning to produce content using digital technology is important, and producing videos can challenge our little once to synthesis information and articulate what they’ve learned to others.

What follows is a few anecdotes on how I’m working to organize and manage the production of all these videos, while also working to explore other opportunities for learning during their creation. As you watch the videos, you’ll see my how my boys have begun to take greater ownership of the content, with personalized openings, closing, and an increased sense of how best to articulate their story to the audience.

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Plant Videos

This is really where it all started. My eldest developed an interest in plants and gardening, and YouTube was a major source of information. YouTube videos have led to the creation of a terrarium and the purchase of a variety of different succulents that are taking over our house. Naturally, he wanted to express his learning of plants via YouTube, and because the DadsforCreativity YouTube channel already featured his work, he figured he had a claim to take over the channel.

During the summer we produced a collection of random plant videos, and later began exploring how these videos might also introduce some history and cultural topics as shown in the War of the Roses video above.

Travel Videos

Travel videos offer an opportunity to integrate some formal learning experiences into your family vacation. Whether it’s a visit to the museum, the beach, or a new city, have your little one/s offer a summary of the experience in a short video using your phone. Keep it short and simple. Where are we? What did we see? What did you discover? On a side note, remember to hold the phone horizontally.

I would suggest you conduct a run through with these questions before pushing play. Remember to offer clarity. It’s ok to correct errors. For example, in the video above my boys became fascinated with the death of Lord Nelson. They remember the main points about the battle, but couldn’t remember his name, so I had to remind them before hitting record.

As your skills improve you will develop your own structure, for example, I know I was going to have the boys produce a video, so I shot the introduction video before entering the boat, I then recorded them explaining different things while on the ship, and then we did a summary at the end. Using a simple editing app (like iMovie) I then sequence the best clips together, added the music and text, and then pushed to YouTube.

Our travel videos are probably the most random; they include videos about crossing the road safely, as well as travel tips for riding the London Underground.

Discovery Videos

Other videos we’ve produced include safety and travel tips, as well as a collection of discovery videos that explore random topics such as Maple Farming.

Check out our full-compliment of videos on our YouTube channel. I’ve promised them we’ll make more. I just need to get through this semester first!

I’m busy. We’re all busy. We are all busy because we are parents, challenged with the daunting task of raising children. This is on top of all the other responsibilities we have in our lives, which might be our careers, managing the household, caring for a loved one, and in my situation, working on completing my doctorate program. I shared this information for two reasons; the first is because this is actually a social scholarship assignment that requires me to initiate a conversation via social media (hence the inclusion of references), and the second reason is because I’m about to suggest we parents take on another responsibility – taking a more active role in promoting multiculturalism at home.

SEE ALSO: Creativity Chit-Chat: I need more input Daddy

As we are busy, I thought I’d offer some context to multiculturalism and how I am approaching this subject as a white male raising three other white males, and then structure the article via a few simple questions so you can pick and skim the article if time is short.

What do we mean by multicultural?

My boys are learning that the Soccer World Cup is a big deal, and I have an expectation that they support England over USA

When we talk about culture, we could be talking about a few different things. Rather than extend the article into another topic, let’s assume culture to be something that considers behaviors, actions, and beliefs commonly associated with a group (e.g., English culture, white culture, European culture, etc.) or a time period (e.g., 18th Century Culture) (Mason, 2014). Furthermore, let us agree that culture is something that changes and remains complex.  It is likely that we belong to multiple sub-groups associated with a culture (Mason, 2014), for example I am White; I am a White European; I am a White European Male; therefore, I most likely have behaviors commonly associated with being white, but also being of European descent, and of being a male. You see how complicated this can be… I’m going to stop…. The point is raising my boys to increase their awareness of cultural norms other than their own, is moving in the direction of promoting multiculturalism. Rather than perceiving events only from a White European Male, I want them to accept or even acknowledge that this perspective is unique perspective they offer, but it will be different when comparing an experience through another cultural lens.

Ultimately, I want my three boys to develop a capacity to expand their perceptions and understanding of the world beyond the single cultural lense of their upbringing.

What do we need to know as parents?

Pedersen (2000) explains that a major challenge to promoting multiculturalism comes from the fact that us humans like to see things almost exclusively from our perspective; so we measure difference based on how it relates to what we consider to be normal; we measure correct or incorrect behavior based on what our parents (or teachers) taught us was correct or incorrect behavior. Unfortunately, these “rules of the game” (p. 23) become our norm before we develop the cognitive capacity to reflect, compare and even challenge our expectations of the world and its inhabitants.

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Many learning theories, most notably Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, highlight how influential parents are when it comes to the upbringing of their children. They sit quietly, making observations of or actions and behaviors, they construct knowledge about their world from the questions they ask at the dinner table, to the conversations they hear on the ride up to visit their cousins. Ultimately, our children will “group into the intellectual life of those around them (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 88), and that means we need to consider how we are socializing our children to participate in a multicultural world (or reflect on whether we are unconsciously limiting their perception and judgment of the world to one cultural perspective only).

On October 31st we dress up for Halloween, and going trick or treating. I don’t spend much time reflecting on the origins of Halloween, it is just something I did as a child, and therefore something I expect my children to do as well. What other cultural habits am I passing along?

Why is this important?

There are many reasons why promoting multicultural awareness at home is essential; for a start, we shouldn’t assume that schools can tick every single box when it comes to sharing information about different cultures (which is particularly essential for me as my boys attend parochial school). We also need to recognize the influence we have over how our children are being socialized. For example, if I never engage in actions associated with preparing meals in the kitchen, and my boys only see their mother engaging in these actions, am I inadvertently, though my actions, passing on this cultural pattern to my boys? Might it develop into an expectation of all women? Likewise, as we celebrate religious and national events within our culture (i.e., Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.), what meanings do my children interpret from these events? For example, as an outsider living in the U.S., it seems that the meanings given to Thanksgiving have now assumed more of a celebration of Americanism, as opposed to honoring a historical event. Therefore, my boy’s interpretation of Thanksgiving feels very much connected to freedom, religion, and thankfulness for everything this great country has to offer, as opposed to its colonial routes. I am not suggesting I destroy their perspective of Thanksgiving, but when older perhaps I could ask them what Thanksgiving might mean for a Native American’s perspective, or help them avoid the conversation I often have to experience each year.

PERSON A: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving on the same day (I’m assuming this is because they know of a country to the North that celebrates Thanksgiving on a different day)

ME: No, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in England

PERSON A: Really, why?

ME: Because we’re not American

Ok, I’m not that harsh, I usually find a more respectful way to inform them that not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving.

SEE ALSO: Why parents have an important role to play in Media Literacy

Where might we start?

For this course, we are asked to read Joan Wink’s (2011), Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the Real World. What I’ve shared in this blog article would be referred to as a mess, and my challenge would be to identify something within the mess to address. I think a good starting place is to find ways to expose my children to other cultures, and then find ways to facilitate discussions through questions. For example, having them ask why I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, is an opportunity to expose them to the simple fact that Thanksgiving is part of American culture, and not something that should be expected outside of the Americas. Likewise, exposing my children to other cultural events could help generate questions about those events, and this might lead to exciting discoveries for me as well as my children. The key to promoting multiculturalism is raising my children to understand they will share likenesses and differences with people of other cultures (Pedersen, 2000); however, they must work hard to resist the temptation to limit their viewpoint and judgment to one perspective only.

For those interested, here’s a list of the citations used in the article above:

Mason, M (2014). Comparing Cultures.  In M. Bray, B. Adamson, & M. Mason (Eds.), Comparative education research: Approaches and methods (2nd ed., pp. 19-46). Hong Kong, China: Comparative Education Research Centre. 

Pedersen, P. (2000). The rules of multiculturalism. In A handbook for developing multicultural awareness (3rd ed.; pp. 23-41). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

Pedersen, P. (2000). The rules of multiculturalism. In A handbook for developing multicultural awareness (3rd ed.; pp. 23-41). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

A random blog article for the few readers that stumble across my articles or graciously liked the DadsforCreativity Facebook page. I haven’t written for two years! My absence is not because I have lost ideas on what to write or even lacked motivation. DadsforCreativity simply found itself lower down the priority list that we all must construct to survive our busy lives as parents, professionals, and wondering humans.

In January 2017, my even busier wife gave birth to our third boy. Wow. She’s been either pregnant or nurturing babies for almost a decade. The little guy, of course, created a disruption and is now sitting on my lap as I write this article. He has a pacifier in mouth, a cuddly toy, and yes an iPad (bad Daddy!).

During this period, not only have I been adapting to life as a parent of three children under the age of seven, but I also produced my second education documentary (check it out here), collaborated on a supporting application that helps facilitate a conversation about the future of schooling (download iOS or Android), and started a doctorate so I know a little more about what I sometimes find myself talking about – education technology and changing schooling.

Here’s a clip from the documentary – Class of 2032: Schooling for a Digital Culture. Examining how children interact with YouTube speaks to the opportunity and challenges of learning in the digital age. 

I share this information because it helps add links to the projects online (always good from a digital marketing perspective), and more importantly to provide a statement on a change to how I will approach my future works on DadsforCreativity.

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My favorite thing is parenting. I love my role as a father, and it will be my greatest accomplishment. Therefore, I’m going to continue to write from that perspective, and use my blog as a creative outlet to share my thoughts, ideas, and feelings toward parenting and using technology in the home to nurture the type of skills that we value in our young.

Occasionally I might share a study or academic perspective that I think is particularly relevant for informal learning environments (e.g., the home), but I will NOT be applying APA or offering citations. These articles are not going to find their way into a journal, and perhaps my most important readers will simply be my three boys, and God willing my grandchildren, and great-grandchildren many many years from now.

I’ve realized I like to write. I love to parent. So why not share the occasional weblog?