About
Andrew B. Watt is me. I am a history teacher in central Connecticut at a small private K-8 school. That’s enough to identify me to the discerning reader, if he really wants to know my school.
In 2009, I made a trip to the Nueva School in California to meet Kim Saxe, and visit their Innovation Lab, and learn about Design Thinking. My boss sent me out there, hoping to bring Design Thinking to an East Coast school in a big way. I can’t thank her enough for the ways she’s shown me to grow and develop as a teacher. I don’t think I’ve been the same since; my boss says “you’ve swallowed the blue pill.” That place made a deep impression on me, and I owe them so very, very much out at Nueva.
I am a level 1 USFA-certified foil coach and a NOLS-trained outdoor educator. I struggle with issues of how to connect students to technology use beyond Facebook and MySpace. I am interested in visual thinking, skills-based teaching, and constructivism. I have been blogging since 2002 on several different sites, including livejournal.com (most of the posts there have been ported here, though).
In addition, I am the Chair of the Commission on Professional Development (CPD), of the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools. We plan, design, and prepare programs for teachers at private schools across the state. Our (new) blog is here, with very little content; our Wiki (with much more content) is here.
In my spare time, I hike and kayak. I also write. Duh.
Feb 05, 2013 @ 16:19:20
Saw this on TED.com today and thought of you. Didn’t know where to put it so I chose here.
http://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_dewitt_hey_science_teachers_make_it_fun.html
Feb 07, 2013 @ 08:04:43
It’s a good video and he’s quite right: textbooks are unswervingly hideous— not just in science but in history and maths and English. We’ve built this sprawling educational bureaucracy, where hundreds of people do work that is only marginally useful to the business of training students. John Michael Greer’s column this week is about the problems in American education and it’s worth a read. But underlying all this is the challenge which goes unspoken — we have one educational system for rich people, where kids do poorly on standardized tests but do better at learning to read, write and think; and hence get better jobs and go to better universities; and another system which is for public schools, but where the district’s ability to pay for school, and the parents’ own educational level, has more to do with overall results.
We’ve dumbed down our schools a lot.
Dec 11, 2012 @ 15:04:52
Stumbled on this thing: http://falconsfables.org/ which is an interesting way to assemble information for students (although making logins and passwords for their subscriptions public is probably a TOS violation). I wonder if in you interest in connecting w/ students via technology you have found any collections/databases of design documents, as opposed to basic references, out there. Also, your personal web site seems to be down.
Dec 11, 2012 @ 18:03:44
THanks for the thoughts. My school has really no filters or blocks on our internet services, but we do have policies about using passworded services and handing over student info to websites; so it’s unlikely we’ll use that service.
GravitysGrace used to run on mac.com; when Mac.com became me.com, I had to shut down the website for a while, and then me.com became icloud, and I lost the ability to host webpages there. I was never able to get GravitysGrace to be as successful a website as this one, so I gave up, and focused my attention here.
Dec 09, 2012 @ 09:47:22
I thoroughly enjoyed exploring your blog this morning. Uncanny the interests we have in common — martial arts of both East and West, the Tarot and other occult matters, writing, and even RPGs (I created one called “Spaz Zone” back in the 80s). I’ll be back!
Dec 10, 2012 @ 06:42:18
A pleasure making your acquaintance. I vaguely recall reading “Spaz Zone” in someone’s gaming library…. Is that possible?
I think the things that make for a good gaming writer come in part from the realm of the occult. You have to be versed in monsters and the machinery of Cosmos for occultism to make much sense, and gaming provides a convenient framework. It’s not to say gaming is a gateway drug to occultism — but I think that the habits necessary to be a good game leader, like a dungeon master or a storyteller, eventually lead one to question how the world works. And those questions lead equally to quantum physics and to Tarot and martial arts, and to the Order of the Stick.
Dec 10, 2012 @ 12:44:24
Good points! I guess when you think about it, an RPG is a tiny universe with its own system of laws, and the Kabbala and Tarot are systems that attempt to describe the laws of this one. Once a year or so I my son & I get out the paper and dice and play the D&D campaign I designed when I was a teenager back in the 70s, but I’ve largely given it up. You might have seen Spaz Zone somewhere. Boardgamegeek used to have a review on their site but it’s since been taken down.
May 14, 2012 @ 09:51:23
Hi Andrew,
I just came across an interesting course on Model Thinking and thought of you. Enjoy!
https://www.coursera.org/course/modelthinking
-Marek
Mar 24, 2012 @ 05:15:42
Feb 29, 2012 @ 14:27:57
I’m so blessed to have found your blog. You have fired up my creativity and taken away a large portion of my own creative barriers with your wonderful artwork. Thank you!
Jan 02, 2011 @ 15:02:53
Dec 04, 2010 @ 10:38:47
Andrew,
I’m building a new class blog and want to improve my explanation of categories and tags. Is this the best to ask you and your collaborators what’s a great resource to explain this distinction?
Some interesting samples; what’s the best? What’s out there that’s better?
* I like the explanation and the history of the functions: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/09/09/categories-versus-tags-whats-the-difference-and-which-one/
* I am a wordpress snob and appreciate the built-in instructions: http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories-vs-tags/
* Is there something better?
Thanks–Bill
Jul 04, 2010 @ 11:42:56
Dear Mr. Watt:
I enjoy reading your blog, and was wondering if you would like to do a link exchange. My book blog’s url is educationanddeconstruction.com. Every week, I make a nonfiction book recommendation in the topic areas of education, history, technology, biography and/or humor. I have already put up your link. Please reply if you would like to do a link exchange. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sally Friedman
Apr 14, 2010 @ 10:02:09
hello andrew! long time no see. lovely blog you have here
please be in touch!
-desiree, from middletown oh so long ago
Apr 14, 2010 @ 10:24:55
Hi Desiree,
how are you?
Dec 10, 2009 @ 11:20:10
Hi Andrew,
I just discovered your blog and am reading many of your posts with great interest. A question, for some reason where you indicate in several posts that you’ve included video, nothing appears for me except for a large white space. I don’t know why this is. I assume you’ve embedded video, maybe from youtube or vimeo? Any ideas? I’d love to see some of the things you are referring to. Thanks
Jen Braxton
Dec 10, 2009 @ 15:11:09
Most of my stuff is on YouTube.com My user name is ABWatt there, so if it’s a video I made, that’s where you’ll find it.
If it’s a video that it appears that I didn’t make, but I enjoyed, then I’ve usually favorited it there, too.
Would you mind leaving a comment on entries where things AREN’T working? They all look like they’re working to me, but the result is that I don’t know which specific videos are causing problems…
Dec 06, 2009 @ 15:26:42
Hey, Mr. Watt! It’s been ages since I talked/chatted with you. How’s the fencing club doing? I still get to fence twice a week, if I don’t have too much homework, but I miss all the old Rectory fencers.
Dec 08, 2009 @ 09:25:47
I’m doing well. The fencing team has its first match today. Where are you fencing these days?
What are you doing with yourself besides fencing?
May 17, 2009 @ 21:19:18
Hi Andrew,
I like the clean, tidy, data rich organization and look to the blog.
My stuff is in a few places.
Home page: http://web.suffieldacademy.org/~bsullivan/
Playground wiki: http://englishsandbox.wikispaces.com/ourwebpages
And a Blog I stared w/my AP Eng. class: http://billsullivan.edublogs.org/
Thought that I would play around a little w/word press; now back to grading. One week of classes; one week of exams.
Take care,
Bill
Talk soon–Bill