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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Thanks for your time again @andrewduval.bsky.social. Loved having you on the podcast!

Reposted by Dylan Ismail

Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Had a great chat about Frankenstories, teaching, writing, creativity, and collaboration with @dylanclassmate.bsky.social. His “Imagine This” podcast is a great blend of big ideas and practical details for creative school projects. open.spotify.com/episode/1KYy...

open.spotify.com

The Game Is Writing: How Frankenstories Is Transforming Writing Classrooms with Andrew Duval

Imagine This - Ideas & Stories for Creative, Meaningful Teaching · Episode

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

🎙️ New Imagine This episode: teachers asked, we answered. Bringing technology to a school that's never used it, building gratitude routines that don't feel forced, and the honest answer to "who's the creative mastermind at Classmate?" pod.link/1893111701/e... #EduSky

pod.link

Classroom Gratitude Routines, Tech Onboarding for Schools & How We Generate Project Ideas

Listen to Classroom Gratitude Routines, Tech Onboarding for Schools & How We Generate Project Ideas from Imagine This - Ideas & Stories for Creative, Meaningful Teaching wherever you get your podcasts...

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Project outline and what I'd change next time in the full write-up: classmate.team/chronicles/vol-115-ancient-civilization-remix/

classmate.team

Vol. 115 🏺 Ancient Civilization Remix

A multi-phase project that turned Grade 7 historians into collaborative artifact designers.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

The teachers said those hexagon debates were the deepest conversations they'd heard all year. It only worked because the research phase came first. Every student arrived able to push back.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

The setup: research one ancient civilization deeply, then pair with someone who studied a different one. Key terms go onto paper hexagons and the debate begins. Which connections between the two cultures actually hold up?

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I have an opinion: Hexagonal Thinking should be a staple in every middle years classroom. Two Grade 7 classes spent two months proving it with an ancient civilization artifact remix project.

Hexagonal thinking poster comparing ancient egypt and ancient china.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

That's place-based learning, and it's the whole new episode of Imagine This: the classroom as a third teacher, hallways that teach lessons no assessment captures, and field trips as launching points instead of rewards. 🎧 pod.link/1893111701/e...

pod.link

Learning From Place with Carlo Sayo

Listen to Learning From Place with Carlo Sayo from Imagine This - Ideas & Stories for Creative, Meaningful Teaching wherever you get your podcasts!

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

As the child of Filipino immigrants, Carlo read it as a metaphor: a migrant community's monument, invisible, literally in the shadow of the train. Someone else would read it completely differently. That's the point. You make meaning of a place from what you bring to it.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

What he noticed: nobody stops there. It's a plaza that's all pass-through. Bike path, walking path, takeout containers, once an entire abandoned computer monitor. A gathering place for his community that the city walks straight past.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

The assignment: pick any place, sit for at least two hours, and just observe. Carlo chose the Filipino Plaza near Nanaimo Station in Vancouver. Built in 1986, a wooden archway with a rooster and a fish, sitting right under the Skytrain tracks.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

My friend Carlo once sat in one spot under a Skytrain line for two hours. No phone, no music. It was homework for his master's in art education, and it changed how he thinks about where learning happens. 🧵 #edusky #placebasedlearning #edtech

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

18/20 Nano Banana portraits are scary good at natural lighting and realistic image grain.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

"I like flowers, they smell nice." It's a tiny sentence. But it's a five-year-old communicating on purpose, in their own voice. And, it turns out they're far more willing to speak outside in nature than at the classroom carpet.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Months before the park, her class practises "I can" statements and short spoken messages until communicating is a skill they actually own. So outside isn't a free-for-all with iPads. It's five-year-olds who have something to say and the words to say it.

group of kindergarteners and their teacher on a beach. facing towards the water on a sunny fall day.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Caterina Gabriele takes 27 kindergartners and six iPads to a park to record sounds, voices, and what they notice. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. It isn't — because the iPads are the last thing she introduces, not the first. Intentional scaffolding is what makes this project work.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

You know the kids who have a hard time participating in a group? Take those same kids outside and all of a sudden, they have so much to say! A kindergarten teacher in North Van figured out how to make that happen on purpose, and record the results. 🧵

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

This is awesome! We often talk about how the ADST curriculum in BC is not a content area. It's design thinking and computational thinking skills that can be applied in cross-curricular projects.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Jen flips it. The students go with a role. At the @vancouveraquarium.bsky.social they showed up as filmmakers making animal advocacy documentaries. Each group had iPads, shot lists and a job to do. The aquarium became a source, not the destination.

close up picture of a shot list and how to explore the vancouver aquarium.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Here's how to change how you think about a field trip. Normally students go somewhere to consume the experience. They walk through, take it in and maybe remember a few facts. It usually happens at the end of a unit, as the wrap-up.

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Reposted by Dylan Ismail

ElizabethwithaZ @elizabethwithaz.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Excellent resource for how we talk to students about computing tech, especially "AI". #teamCompSci #csed #edusky

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

I'm a sucker for the abstract expressionists. I started a class with Robert Rauschenberg's Bed painting. The opinions were STRONG! Here's the lesson: classmate.team/chronicles/v...

classmate.team

Vol. 91 🫗 Mess over Masterpiece

A high pressure track meet the day before leads to a therapeutic art class.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Carlo put it better than I have: we don't teach technology. We use it in service of the learning that's already happening. There's a difference between knowing how to press record and helping a learner craft something that's worth recording.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

The assumption when we show up at a school: we're there to teach people how to use their devices. Walk them through the apps, troubleshoot the issues, done. That's not the whole story. #edtech #edusky

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Hey #edusky! I'm Dylan, an EdTech Coach in Vancouver, BC. Where are my west coast educators? The Classmate Team supports educators all over the lower mainland. At the end of the school year our team delivers gelato and sorbetto to all our partnered schools! This year we packed 500+ tubs! 🍦

Cooler full of tubs of mario's gelato. green sorbetto tubs and blue gelato tubs.

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Dylan Ismail @dylanclassmate.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

That downside is basically teaching any new tool to anyone steeped in established workflows! 😅 How often do you challenge yourself to find new ways of working?

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