melaniemcbride.net

After a wonderful and reflective summer I’m readying myself for a new school year at a new board in a new city. Though I will be shifting to part-time teaching in order to write a book, I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to meet diverse learners in varied learning communities throughout this region. In the [...]

My first-year teaching at an inner city school was one of the most challenging, yet rewarding, of my life. Despite five years instructing post-graduate industry tech courses at the college level, I was very much the noob high school teacher. But it wasn’t just any high school but a program for at-risk learners, aged 18-20, [...]

Every day I read the tweets of fellow educators it’s clear that the battle for technology adoption is still going strong. It’s also clear that endless panics – moral and otherwise – are a part of the problem. Just today, wired educator and author Will Richardson described the challenge of teaching critical (technological) literacies without [...]

In my ongoing quest to locate the pedagogical value of games (via game play, research and dialogue), I have come across an interesting example of situated learning in WoW: The random dungeon, or “PUG.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, here is an excellent and educator friendly overview.
“A PUG is a “pick-up-group,” or an [...]

After close to ten years of watching my other half blast his way through massively multiplayer worlds (MMOs), I decided this was just too big a phenomena for me to avoid. Not only that, but I felt I couldn’t really continue to call myself a “gamer” if I hadn’t played an MMO – let alone [...]

Last week, one of my media course (ed PD) classmates talked about the ongoing struggle to help students make sense of the flood of information online. She cited a negative experience with wikipedia, which resulted in an energetic exchange about the merits (and challenges) with open online content.
It’s not about “authority” nor should it be
As [...]

As a media producer, educator and outspoken advocate of emergent media pedagogy (social and participatory media, Remix culture, Open Source publishing and production, Creative Commons open licensing and citizen media in all forms), I’m delighted to announce the launch of my (full disclosure) partner, author, Liam O’Donnell’s newest graphic novel, Media Meltdown. While I am [...]

For months, I’ve been trying to connect my wired educator network with ideas from critical pedagogy while looking to traditional academics (specialising in critical pedagogy, social justice and anti-oppression education) to share the key questions that might inform a meaningful assessment of web2.0 tools in relation to social justice, equity and diversity.
Here are a few [...]