Featured Blogger: Peter Skillen

Peter Skillen is an independent Ontario educator who has spent over 45 years teaching students and teachers—mainly in the public system. He was a founding teacher at the YMCA Academy—a secondary school serving youth who prefer an alternative approach. He has been involved in technology supported, project-based learning since the late 1970s, has traveled and spoken extensively in many countries, and continues to explore and support knowledge-building environments for students and teachers.

Peter is active in many online education communities, has co-developed courses for TeachOntario, and has been a Global Ambassador with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). He develops and supports both face-to-face and online learning for the http://www.otffeo.on.ca/en/learning/otf-connects/ and has served as an ‘Experienced Voice’, coach & Community Leader with the Powerful Learning Practice. Peter has recently served on the ECOO Board of Directors. He is also co-founder of the Minds On Media model of professional learning which truly reflects how he wishes classrooms to be.

Peter is Curriculum Leader for Code To Learn—a project that recently received #CanCode funding. Code To Learn will introduce computational thinking and coding to educators and students Canada-wide. The purpose is to support the integration of coding into project-based learning across the curriculum and grade levels.

We thank Peter for allowing us to share 5 of his favourite posts.