8 years ago I got fired. By me. You can read that story here. Well, I've gone and done it again. For the last 10 years I have been the driving force behind the founding of the very first online Christian school in Ontario: Nimbus Christian Education. It's been a long and hard journey. There were so many times that we thought it would fail. We came close to closing the doors time and time again. But God always came through and we always kept working. It has been an honour and a privilege to be called to this task.  For the last 10 years if I had quit, Nimbus would have folded. But no ..read more

 Today I printed 11 paychecks.  I've never experienced this before. It is such an honour and a privilege to be able to create jobs for people.  For the last 10 years I have invested my heart and soul into the idea that Christian Education needs to move online. (No, it isn't the entire solution to what our children need, but it is a piece of the puzzle.) And it is finally happening.  This year there are 15 people working for the online Christian school that God has allowed us to create. While their jobs aren't very big yet, it is a start. Not only are we providing highly ..read more

 I am a white, middle aged male. I have two parents who raised me with a love of learning. I had plenty of good food and medical care. I went to private schools for almost my entire education. I live in Canada. I've got almost every advantage that could fit under the umbrella of "White Privilege". When I look at the systemic racism that exists in our society I have no idea how to fix it. I know that changed is needed, but I don't know what to do. But I'd like to start. So I'll say, #Black Lives Matter ..read more

Ever since schools started scrambling to head online in light of the mandated school closures, I’ve been wrestling with language. How do we articulate the significant differences between Emergency Remote Learning and Online Learning? I also want to honour the incredible work that so many teachers have done in the emergency. Good learning happened. (Shout out to TDChristian and the great work their team has done for my son’s learning experience!) But as we start looking ahead to September, how can we prepare to create even better learning experiences? In the end I came up with one word to desc ..read more

I don’t know what’s coming next either. Buses? Class sizes? Cleaning? PPE? Enrollment? Staffing? Budget? But there is one piece I do know something about. The Digital must become part of our learning space. Of course, I am rather biased on this topic. I have spent the last decade preparing for this. Let me share a few thoughts I have. I see two major red flags the moment we start thinking about online learning in September. You and your staff are fighting to reach the finish line. When you get there in June you and your team will be exhausted.  We have only 2 months to prepare. All ..read more

There are plenty of articles being written right now about "Zoom Fatigue". Like this one. Don't be so quick to point a finger at Zoom. (Or Teams, or Meet, or House party, or....) Do you remember your first year of teaching? (Or your first day on the job for those of you who are not teachers.) I do, because I went through it twice. And now so are you. Remember when you arrived in your first classroom and all the things you had studied in teacher's college had barely prepared you for the reality? (Redeemer, you did a great job!) You don't even have that right now! How many of the courses yo ..read more

Early on in this crisis a group of High School principals from across North America asked me to share some of my experiences with online learning since they were anticipating being shut down and were considering moving online. I've been teaching online for years and I am the principal of a fairly new online Christian school so I've got some knowledge of the field. I figured that I could help. Somewhere in that conversation I said that a student in online learning can do the work in half the time it takes in the classroom. But I was wrong. You see, these schools aren't doing online learning ..read more

For those of you who aren't from Ontario, not that long ago the provincial government here announced that they were going to require that high school students complete a number of online courses as part of the graduation requirement. If you haven't read their announcement it may be worth your time to check it out.  This has touched off a bit of a furor. There are a great many people reacting with strong feelings to this announcement. Now don't get me wrong there are some significant hurdles to implementing this well: High quality internet connection is not available everywhere. Not all stud ..read more