Growing up, school was a boring place but it did not start that way. When I first arrived at school in kindergarten, it was a joy. There was play, fun, exploration, and discovery. I spent little time sitting still and more time moving about exploring my environment, learning along the way. As I grew older, school began to change into a rigid, boring, environment where I felt my voice was less valued and my creativity was being eroded away with each wave of worksheet after worksheet. Moving about the room was Traditional School - yawn ..read more

Hello everyone! Looking at the calendar, listening to the radio and of course, seeing it on TV, it is that time again in Canada! Back to school here we come! I’ll be heading back myself in just under a week from today and this is about the time where I begin to finalize some of my new ideas for the upcoming school year. A huge gamification goal I have every year is to add something, modify something and/or take something away so that my game does not grow repetitive in the eyes of the students. I’ll be making some videos about some of these individual components later on throughout the year ..read more

Let’s face it, teaching is not an easy job. Since everyone has experience in education as either a student or a teacher, there are opinions galore about our profession. Sadly, with all of these opinions comes the sometimes overwhelming feeling of pressure. I have always wanted to write a piece about this topic but I was fearful of the response. I feel like this topic could produce some backlash or accusations of hypocrisy (more on that shortly) but today is the day I venture out and do it. Why today? About 2 weeks ago, I read a blog by a fellow teacher named Adam Powley. Adam is a phenomenal ..read more

As I walked through the freezing cold, with my dog on a leash in the dead of Canadian winter, a thought crossed my mind. I hate winter and I hate being cold, but here I was, out in -20, walking my new puppy. As my shoes (I’m a Canadian who does not own winter boots) filled with snow and my ears froze, I asked myself what the hell I was doing? I looked down at my puppy Moose, happily plowing through the snow, body covered in ice and slush and it dawned on me, “I need to be more like Moose!”  Me and Moose on the walk in question! ​There are a lot of lessons that a dog can teach a human, e ..read more

A recent e-mail exchange between myself and a fellow teacher prompted me to write this blog post. You all continue to inspire me on a daily basis … stay courageous! Ever since I started this whole gamification journey I have been floored with the tremendous response I have received. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would reach as far as it has or resonated with both teachers and students in any sort of fashion the way that it has. It was a chance; a risk I was willing to take. What do we know about risks? We know that they can ..read more

I hope this comes out written as it did in my head. This was a tough one to write and articulate. If you have any questions please post below... As a science teacher, my biggest nemesis has to be YouTube. Actually, biggest nemesis and supporter, but in this blog I’m going nemesis. Why you might ask? It seems like no matter what I assign in terms of a project, there are 100s of different explanations and variations online, broken down and ready to go. It was not anything I really thought of until I began teaching science 5 years ago. I distinctly remember assigning the creation of a den ..read more

Just a mini post here to coincide with my latest YouTube video ... nothing fancy! ​As I progressed through designing some of my game elements early on in 2015, I decided I needed different ways to hand out their work. Simply giving my students work didn't really make sense to me if I wanted an exciting and captivating classroom. One of the ideas that I decided to use was the concept of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" style delivery.  I've decided to create a short YouTube video describing how I did it because I figured that would be easier to follow than reading a blog post. To go with the vid ..read more

"Gamification – what a bunch of bull#$#” – my favourite message I’ve ever received. More on that shortly… Teaching hasn’t changed for a long time … a long, long time. I’ve been a pretty vocal proponent about my displeasure with education for quite some time. To be clear though, I’m not critical of teachers because we work our tails off for our kids within what we are allowed to do, often over the dreaded standardized tests scores we produce. What I am critical of the system which tends to stifle out creativity in teachers who then become worried about changing things up. I’ve never really b ..read more

Yes, you read that title right... Throughout our careers as teachers we come across a lot of different challenges. Sometimes those challenges are small and easily manageable while others are huge and difficult to even comprehend. Sometimes the challenges we face break our hearts while others ignite a passion in us even we did not know we had. Regardless of the scale or magnitude, at the end of the day, we need to address those challenges and this is yet another one of those stories!  When I started my adventure into the realm of gamification, I knew that I would be embarking on a journey tha ..read more

People often ask people, "Why did you become a ___ (insert profession here)". I was asked this question by the ASCD and asked to blog about it. Teaching is something I fell into but something that quickly became my life's passion. Hope you enjoy! To best explain why I teach, I need to go back to the beginning … As I sat in front of the TV in the early 1990s, it was clear to my young mind that school was going to be incredible. Fun, games, play time, friends, and so much more awaited me behind the tan colored doors of my local elementary school. When it was finally my time, I waited on a chai ..read more