Not so photogenic, but here I am…

Backed up with a degree in instructional design for online learning, I provide educational services to a number of organizations in Ontario. Online course development is increasingly in Brightspace / D2L though I personally prefer working with Moodle. The chief difference between these two is how they are developed. Moodle is open-source and a community of users worldwide contribute to the many innovations and improvements that are regularly promulgated. Brightspace, though it is well integrated with learning expectations of jurisdictions like Ontario, does not implement new features with the same momentum. Online quizzes, for example, are far more advanced in Moodle than in Brightspace and are essential as checkpoint and evaluation tools. If you need help with Moodle or Brightspace, I may be able to help.

Starting in August 2018, I teach at the Six Nations Polytechnic STEAM Academy in Brantford. The Ontario curriculum courses I teach are mathematics and robotics¹. About a week after being hired, I was asked by the school principal to lead the school’s robotics initiative. Though I knew a little bit about robotics competitions, this was something very new to me and I welcomed a challenge. FirstRobotics is facilitated by a network of mentors, in our case a veteran team from Hamilton’s St. Mary Catholic Secondary School’s MakeShift (FRC4039) was (and continues to be) particularly helpful and, more recently, from another veteran team from Hamilton’s Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School Celt-X Robotics (FRC 5406).

Though we were all impacted by Covid-19 and are glad that we have returned to near-normalcy. Our former team members have graduated so 2021-2022 was a rebuilding year aid we hope that 2022-2023 will see further progress.

I expect to continue to learn a lot from both mentors and my students this year. We’ll focus the team (and the robotics courses) on capacity building, designing, prototyping, coding, and fabricate parts with conventional hand or power tools, and with automated tools, e.g., OnShape CAD with 3D printer or CNC router. We plan to compete at the STEMley Cup in October, 2022 with the Everybot that robotics students are building and in First Robotics (FRC) events in 2023 with a robot yet to be built.

Learn more about what I’m doing! I’ll post instructional design, leadership and technical tips², robotics notes, personal thoughts and reflections on teaching and learning here. You can easily search content using the search tool or by title, month, category or by clicking on keywords in the tag-cloud. Feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed³.

(Updated September 10, 2022)

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¹ robotics in grade 9 (TMJ1O), grade 10 (TMJ2O) and grade 11/12 (TMR3M/TMR3M split class); grade 11 Functions (MCR3U) and grade 12 Advanced Functions (MHF4U).
² chiefly related to BrightSpace, Moodle, Microsoft Office or Google applications, Camtasia Studio, and FirstRobotics.
³ instructions on how to subscribe to my RSS feed are available here.