ewanmcintosh

The Learning Project

Posted by Dean Shareski on in ecmp, learningproject, Personal, professional learning, Video 18 Comments

This post was last updated on November 16th, 2011 at 06:42 pm

 

 

It's been said and discussed often here and many places that a real shift for educators is moving from teacher to learner. Not so much moving, we still need teachers, expertise matters but until we see ourselves as learners and intentionally show are students we can't be the educator our students need us to be. 

Last week I began my ECMP 355 course with largely freshman pre-service teachers. My usual introduction to my course reminds them that they are the winners of education. They were successful students because they were largely compliant and knew how to survive and thrive in a system that values a "mind your own business" style of learning. Do what you're told, when you're told to, and you'll be fine. Learning isn't very self directed in this system. Students wait to be told what to learn.

I'm trying to get them to consider something new. I truly believe that the best coaches in sports aren't usually the best athletes. They are often the bench players, backups and lesser known players who end up becoming the best coaches because they truly understand and … Read the rest

Well this is Embarrassing

Posted by Dean Shareski on in Blogs, flat world, techlearning 19 Comments

This post was last updated on December 12th, 2011 at 03:15 pm

Cross posted at TechLearning

Global education, diversity and multi-cultural appreciation are ideas that I believe are essential for our student's success. I also believe as educators we need to model this for them.  So when I used this tool to see where the folks that I follow reside, it was a little embarrassing.

Twitter friends

A little North American centric ya think? While this tool only allows a sampling of 100 of your followers, (I currently follow about 700) it's likely a pretty reasonable indicator of who's got my attention.  Ewan's concerned about this as well. He blames time zones and short attention spans and he's got a point. Christian Long argues:

 

 

And perhaps — no matter how much Friedman and well-intentioned educators may want — the world defaults to hyper-local (scaled accordingly) rather than global when it comes to conversation over time.

While that offers some explanation I can't quite take myself off the hook. Add to the fact that a number of those outside North American are ex-pats I have to hang my head in shame. Clarence Fisher is doing wonderful things to help … Read the rest

A Scotsman and 5 Canadians walk into a bar…..EdTech Posse 4.5

Posted by Dean Shareski on in EdTechs, Podcasting 3 Comments

This post was last updated on September 5th, 2011 at 11:04 am

Leave it to Rob Wall to have his handy microphone ready for a podcast with Ewan Mcintosh. After 6 hours of work with teachers, we were ready for a break and what better place to spend a hot August afternoon that in a local Scottish tavern with our visitor. Rob, Alec Couros and I along with Cindy Seibel and Kyle Licthenwald picked Ewan’s giant brain for a few minutes prior to our evening event.

Have a listen:… Read the rest

A Fresh set of Eyes

Posted by Dean Shareski on in assessment, Blogs, change, Classrooms, professional learning, workshops 1 Comment

This post was last updated on September 5th, 2011 at 11:04 am

Ewan McintoshWhat a privilege to spend time with a good and smart friend.  Since we began planning for this day back in January, I’ve been looking forward to it.  It was remarkable to see how many traveled a fair distance to attend this one day event.

The day was well crafted by Ewan that included a series of short presentation type deliveries followed by opportunity to discuss and play.

As a group, we decided these were the most important ideas from the morning:

  1. R & D is for everyone
  2. Building Shared Awareness
  3. Remix the curricula
  4. Balance between structure and flexibility, saturation and overload
  5. Importance of rules in play

The afternoon was spent exploring gaming and the concept of gaming as a learning tool.

One participant summarized his learning this way, “One mistake I’ve made is I’ve never played with a computer”. This was a telling statement about how we view ourselves as learners.

Lots of ideas were explored and my goal was that folks left willing to continue to innovate, explore, learn and share. Not entirely new but a fresh set of eyes always helps.Gamers

Working out a New … Read the rest