About
Melanie McBride is a Canadian educator, consultant and speaker specialising in web2.0 social and participatory media strategy for education and publishing.
Background
A veteran online writer, Melanie has created award-winning e-learning and interactive content for government, national media and educational clients including The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Trapeze Media, Learning Agents, Mystus Exhibits and distinguished museum clients in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Of note, her stories for the CBC Archives project have been repurposed for use in Canadian classrooms and cited in WikipediaHistori.ca and various educational websites.
In addition to her e-learning content, Melanie’s writing and ideas are frequently cited by leading educators and technologists online. She is a regular contributor to Howard Rheingold’s Smartmobs, Mindjack Magazine and her edublog at Melanie McBride online, where she writes about emergent issues in education, learning and technology.
Speaking and consulting
As a speaker, Melanie has appeared at The National Inner City Educators conference, The Canadian Association of Communicators in Education (CACE), Trillium Lakelands School Board, Magazines Canada’s Web Weekend series, The Atlantic Magazines Association conference and various faculty events and meetings. Melanie currently provides digital content strategy and consulting for schools, school boards, educational institutions, publishing and media.
Recent clients
- Trillium Lakelands School Board
- TDSB’s Triangle Program
- Canada Wide Media
- Learning Agents Inc.
- Phantom Compass
- Magazines Canada
- The Windsor Review
Recent Projects
Beyond Blocking: Embracing the social web (presentation)
This slideshare was originally created as part of a presentation for the Canadian Association of Communicators in Education. The current version is available for download and re-sharing via the slideshare link above.TDSB Triangle Program school website(school website)
After an initial consultation, I created a more robust web presence using a Wordpress content management system. The new site has improved the program’s search engine rank, simplified site and content maintenance and provided a number of web2.0 features that were not present on their HTML-based original.
Teaching
Melanie’s academic background includes formal media and technology training from Ryerson University (media studies) and Centennial College (online writing and information design). She holds an Honours Specialist Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from University of Toronto and a teaching degree (B.Ed, I/S English, Politics/Civics) from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.
A qualified secondary teacher and college instructor, Melanie has taught at the secondary and post-secondary level. Melanie began her teaching career at Centennial College’s Centre for Creative Communications where she designed and taught post-graduate professional courses in online new media writing, social media tools and online reporting and editing for the New Media, Journalism, Publishing and Corporate Communications faculties. She is a member of the Ontario College of Teachers and recently joined the Toronto District School Board as a secondary teacher.
Interests and focus
Emergent and digital literacies, critical pedagogy, participatory and social media trends, technologies of cooperation, Open culture, digital democracy, privacy, video games and virtual worlds, youth culture, electronic music, remix media culture.
Contact
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