As the winter 2022-2023 term is coming to an end, it gives me an opportunity to think about how we have been using smartphones in my physics classrooms in the last few years. While the original goal was to engage students, especially when we had to teach fully online, as our experience grew, we were […]

This year I was invited to be one of the judges of the International LUMA StarT competition. This is a large international competition organized by my colleagues at the University of Helsinki in Finland. StarT competition invites educators and students from all around the world to present and share exciting ideas about teaching and learning […]

Last year we decided to conduct UBC Physics Olympics virtually. It was the choice we had to make in order to make the Olympics happen. Despite all the challenges more than 40 teams participated and the event went very well. However, surprisingly (at least to me), very few teams from outside of the Lower Mainland […]

For the last two+ years, my colleagues and I have been working hard to organize an international STEM in Education Conference. It is the second time we are organizing it and Prof. David Anderson and I are co-chairs this time around. When we started our preparation in 2018, we had no idea that the conference […]

Today Valery  and I had an opportunity to present together at the International LUMAT Research Symposium in Helsinki Finland.  It was a very special presentation for me for many reasons. First of all, I am very excited about using smartphones to do science. I think this is something positive that came out of this year […]

I was very fortunate to participate and present at the Public Sector Network Forum: “Tapping into the power of technology to transform learning”. If you are interested in broad topics related to education, technology and many other issues related to the current challenges we face as society, become a member and participate in their virtual […]

As another year amidst this pandemic is coming to an end, it is an opportunity to reflect of what has happened and most importantly what we have learned from it. While not surprisingly we hear lots of voices on the negative effects of the pandemic on learning, I would like to ask myself the following […]

While it is clear to everybody that a current situation with the COVID-19 is troublesome, we cannot ignore the positive outcomes that came with the necessity of learning how to teach online. For example, in recent months, I took part in many amazing online seminars and workshops that were only possible because now we all […]

While it is clear that the pandemic wreaked havoc in many areas of education, there is a clear positive outcome of the pandemic – we realized that we can use technology to bring us closer, rather than to move us apart. It is very unfortunate, it took a disaster like COVID-19, to show us the […]

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. – Khalil Gibran (Your Children, from The Prophet) When my children were growing up and I was struggling […]