In SelfDesign Learning Community – the innovative school I helped co-found in British Columbia in 2002 – our praxis is to support learning in all its shapes, forms and guises. And since we started we have come to recognize that learning is as varied as each learner. To educators and parents perhaps it comes as […]
Beware the Jabberwock, ‘er Margaret Wente, on 21st C Learning
Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a hyperbolic rant against 21st Century, Personalized Learning. In a column on June 28th (Brave New World of 21st Century Learning) Ms Wente cherry-picks criticism and PR bumpf to trump up her opposition to the long-overdue movements to remake approaches […]
Social Innovation Week – Let Learning Flourish in Schools
This is Social Innovation Week in Vancouver, with many events planned to stimulate thinking and collaborating about … social innovations (Find out more here). I have an innovative idea to share with SIW in mind, one I perceive as arising with starker irony given the province-wide teachers’ strikes that have also arisen this week. To […]
Innovation Valued & Revered in Business, MIA in Education
Innovation must wonder why it is as cast as society’s bi-polar child. On the one hand it thrives in business, technology and health-care, domains to which we flock to see the latest gadgetry, invest in start-up opportunities, even volunteer to join beta-testing groups. This past week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a perfect […]
Personalized Learning in the news for valid reasons
The first week of September means back to school for millions of kids and young adults in North America. What happens this first week will largely presage the events of students’ learning lives in the coming school year. I’m not talking about what classroom seat is chosen or whether a new math textbook is handed […]
Interpreting the “Personalized Learning” Landscape – A Zookeeper’s Guide
On May 5th, I am giving a keynote presentation at the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Groups (BCCPAC) Spring Conference and AGM (link here) on the theme of Personalized Learning or PL. I thought I’d take this opportunity to provide a brief overview of the PL landscape as it exists in education today. What’s most […]