For the past few years, I have been working to develop my
course titled Internet for Educators.
This is an optional course for students in their final term of an after degree
B.Ed. degree. My goal is to create an engaging, up-to-date course based on
constructivist principles. Shortly after I began my work in the faculty of
education at BU three and a half years ago, I became acquainted with the work of Alec Couros and Dean Shareski
at the University of Regina, about a 4-hour drive west of Brandon. Since that
time I am pleased to count these two educators as friends. They have jokingly
called themselves “lazy professors”, since they often had various educators
present to their classes. I have since “borrowed” this approach. For the past
few years I have been fortunate to enlist several excellent educators to
present their insights and experiences to my students (this post talks about
the speakers who helped out last year). The students keep a blog in which they
make sense of the presentation topic and how it would apply to their own
teaching and learning. This has proven to be very successful, as evidenced by
the reflective thinking of the students as they explore these ideas.
This term my 1st guest was none other than Dean Shareski
from Moose Jaw, SK. Dean is known far and wide for his views on sharing as an
important part of teaching. Dean spoke to my class (and to a colleague’s class
who joined us) via Skype. He presented his ideas about sharing and transparency
and how it can benefit not just the individual, but others as well. He provided
many examples to illustrate. Dean certainly lived up to his credo, giving up
over an hour of his time to share his ideas with student teachers from another
Province. It was gratifying to see the effect this talk had on my students. Not
only did they speak and write glowingly of the presentation, many have taken
Dean’s advice and have been working to increase their online presence in order
to share their own work.
I personally try to actively promote and model the same
attributes. When others, like Dean any other guests I have lined up to present,
are so willing to share their expertise, it can only help to promote this
culture of openness, respect, and sharing. If you have not heard Dean speak
about his passion, I would suggest you watch the video of his K to 12 online
conference keynote below.
