Sustainable/Green Design
Designing solutions with sustainability and environmental impact in mind. In particular, using educational technology in ways that lower the environmental impact of learning experiences while still maintaining rigor and enjoyment. This can include anything from lowering power consumption to promoting experiences out in nature.
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Leaving the Back Open
Part 10 of an ongoing series on vibe coding in EdTech. When Spearfish School District started using the Danielson walkthrough tool I’d built, the first thing they did was ask for changes.…
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Simple Tools That Run Offline, and When to Build Them
Part 9 of an ongoing series on vibe coding in EdTech. A course module arrives as a Word document. A subject matter expert wrote it, and it’s good: objectives at the top,…
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Using Less AI in DIY EdTech
Part 8 of an ongoing series on vibe coding in EdTech. When I started building AI-powered tools for education, my instinct was the same one most people have: send the user’s question…
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Outdoor PD for Educator Wellness and Innovation
Working with educational systems across the Great Plains, I keep running into the same pattern: the way we usually do professional development doesn’t touch the problems educators are actually carrying. Here in…
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Biomimicry in Learning: Coyotes & Adaptive Funding Strategies
This piece has been folded into Biomimicry as a Lens: Coyotes, Pine Cones, and Prairie Grass, which consolidates the four-part series into one essay. The coyote section is there.
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The Hidden Cost of EdTech Complexity
There’s a habit in educational technology of celebrating how many tools we can chain together. The lesson lives in the LMS, the collaboration happens in a shared document, the reflection gets recorded…
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Generative AI and the Plastic Waste Problem
When I talk with districts about generative AI, the pace of adoption reminds me of another material that arrived as a miracle: plastic. Plastics were invented early in the twentieth century and…
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Known as the Canvas Guy
This article responds to EndVertex’s video “For-Profit (Creative) Software,” embedded above. Somewhere along the way I became the Canvas person. Colleagues introduce me that way, districts call me for that reason, and…
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Homegrown Learning Book (Preview)
Working as a learning designer across the Great Plains, I’ve found that conventional instructional design approaches often wither when they’re transplanted into rural and otherwise unusual contexts. That’s what started Homegrown Learning:…
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How Science Fiction Can Improve EdTech & Design
I’m an unabashed science fiction nerd. My bookshelf is an embarrassment of riches: dog-eared copies of Le Guin’s Always Coming Home, Butler’s entire Xenogenesis series, and all three volumes of Kim Stanley…
