Robert Martellacci, M.A. EdTech
President, MindShare Learning Technology™
Chief Digital Publisher, The MindShare Learning Report™
Founder, MindShare Workspace
CEO & Co-founder, C21 Canada™

Follow us on Twitter @MindShareLearn
https://mindsharelearning.ca/

Remembering Lisa McCully, a teacher at Debert Elementary School in Debert, the Nova Scotia Teachers Union said late Sunday. 

" She was somebody who taught from the heart," said Nova Scotia Teachers Union president Paul Wozney. "She taught her kids not just the curriculum but teaching about virtues and personal qualities." via CBC News

The Star: April 17, 2020 

For Toronto mother Alicia Soerensen, the last few weeks have been “a little overwhelming” as she waits for the school board to deliver a tablet or laptop to her son, and she’s worried that he’s falling behind.

Her son Jack is in Grade 6 at a Toronto public school in Willowdale. He alternates weekly between the home of his mother and the home of his father, where there’s no computer access. While at Soerensen’s, he shares her laptop, which isn’t ideal because her job in legal services requires her to use it. Plus, internet access at her home is limited, which means it can take several attempts to access the resources that teachers have shared, and sometimes Jack can only do school work at night when connectivity improves.

Microsoft: April 20, 2020 

When the COVID-19 virus reached pandemic levels, shuttering schools the world over, it left educators facing a massive challenge: How to keep students learning and engaged without the face-to-face closeness and comfortable daily routine of a classroom.

Some schools and districts were already using technology that could serve as a foundation; others needed to devise a remote learning system quickly and from scratch. For many educators, sharing ideas with each other and building community has been as helpful as finding the right technology to face this new world.

Now, as teachers use technology to communicate with their classes and conduct online lessons, some are learning about unexpected ways these tools can help strengthen their connections with students when they can’t talk in person — and even build kids’ enthusiasm for doing classwork.

 

 

ICTC: March 12, 2020 

The growing presence of tech products and services in Canadian K-12 classrooms bolsters academic engagement by empowering students to learn in a manner that best suits individual styles and needs, provides unique opportunities to help reduce educational inequalities and achievement gaps while encouraging a shift in how students think, collaborate, and address problems.

These are some of the findings of a new Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) study: Class, Take Out Your Tablets: The Impact of Technology on Learning and Teaching in Canada.

Educators generally support the use of tech in the classroom and recognize that teaching digital skills and competencies is critical for students to successfully navigate an increasingly digital workplace. But the next generation of leaders will face complex global challenges and students will need to become more than mere users of technology. Tech-inspired design thinking, gamification and a facility with technologies such as Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality to create modular, adaptive, and scalable learning opportunities will shape new attitudes towards life-long education.

A University of Guelph innovation for decontaminating fresh produce is being used to sanitize N95 masks for health-care workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

Developed by food scientist Keith Warriner and a Niagara-area company, the “clean flow” technology enables health-care facilities to decontaminate much-needed N95 masks for safe reuse. He said proper sanitation is important for reusing personal protective equipment such as masks to prevent the spread of infection among health-care workers.

College and university faculty and instructors, literacy and basic skills and training providers are increasingly using Zoom to teach and train. Zoom is fast becoming a learning platform of choice.

 

Recently recorded Contact North | Contact Nord Research Associate, Dr. Ron Owston for a free webinar focusing on:

 

• How to use Zoom effectively to engage with and involve students in their learning;
• How to use Zoom, not just to deliver lectures or make one-way presentations to students, but to facilitate small group work, class challenges, and student presentations;
• How to move from talking head to active learning with Zoom;
• How to make learning valuable and successful when teaching via Zoom, and;
• What are the “top tips” users have from using Zoom for teaching.

Next available session: 

Session 3: Monday, May 11th, 10:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Eastern Time

Register here

 

Colleges & Institutes Canada: April 20, 2020

 

At Canada’s post-secondary institutions, online learning options are rapidly expanding. The Canadian Digital Learning Research Association’s latest report gives us a comprehensive look at the state of online learning in Canada, and highlights that 76% of institutions offer some form of online learning, and that interest in a wide range of alternative credentials continues to grow. In the current global context, this data is more relevant than ever and quickly changing.

In a previous issue of Perspectives, we shared the online, distance, and blended learning approaches that colleges and institutes have championed in almost every subject area. With such a strong history in online and blended learning methods, colleges and institutes all across the country were able to respond to distancing measures associated with COVID-19 incredibly quickly.

 

Surrey School District: April 20, 2020

MindShareTV: April 15, 2020

10 Years ago, MindShare Learning was approached to sponsor the first-ever TEDXOntarioEd event. We took a leap of faith in the organizing team made up of passsionte innovative-minded educators and an incredible slate of presenters. " While down at a U.S. EdTech Coference, I purchased one of the newly launched iPads. It was such a cool device that hadn't yet been released in Canada and I decided to donate it for a raffle at the event. Little did I now that this would be a marker for one of the most innovative and transformational events in the history of Ontario education. Fastforward to 2020, the past presenters and organizers, forged incredible learning communities and became ke leaders and change agents of the best kind. I was just happy to be along for the ride as a sponsor and today am fortuante to call many of these trailblazers, friends and colleagues," says Robert Martellacci, Founder & Presdient, MindShare Learning. 

 

9. Coronavirus and the future of learning: What AI could have made possible

Before COVID-19 and the efforts to minimise its dire consequences became what we want to talk and read about, artificial intelligence (AI) was very much the flavour of the month – as a buzzword referring to anything digital capturing and using data in a “smart” way. It’s hard to believe that all the shouting about AI was just a few weeks ago.

Education and learning have been at the centre of many relevant AI conferences in recent months. Watch, for example, “Behind the scenes of AI” that took place during the Finnish presidency of the Council of the European Union. The coronavirus crisis has made the importance of digitalisation and AI in education even more obvious. AI-powered systems could have helped teachers, students and parents navigate the range of digital learning resources out there if they were more available and ready to use.

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