Educational Technology and Design Summer Institute – Day 3
On the third day of the summer institute we were treated to Michelle Davis’ journey in creating maker spaces in new places. Lucky for us she wrote an ebook detailing the key decisions, and influences that lead to the learning commons maker space taking the shape it did. If you’d like to learn more about…
ETAD Summer Institute 2016 – Day 2
Today we continued our facilitated discussions about making, maker spaces, design, and education lead by two of our guests: Brandy Burdeniuk and Marc Gobeil. Brandy kicked off her session with a quick creative exercise. We were paired and asked to interview the person next to us: Roles Jet Fuel Kryptonite Unknown Fun Fact Following the…
ETAD Summer Institute 2016 – Day 1
Today we kicked off the fourth annual ETAD Summer Institute, a project I have had the pleasure of supporting since before it was called a summer institute. Jay Wilson opened the day with a brief history of the Institute and an overview of the philosophy we follow in planning the event. The short version is,…
Reclaimed – “The Curator’s Code”
I have been meaning to write this post for a while now, but I was always unsure about how to really get it from my head onto the page. About a month ago – or so – I was on my way to work, listening to Design Matters from Design Observer. I listen to this podcast…
Reclaimed – “Last Day of DETEF”
Really it is only the last ‘official’ day of DETEF. Today was one of the busiest days I have ever had in Helsinki, period. Let me begin with the morning. A few DETEF students were interested in touring the Crafts Teacher training facilities at the University of Helsinki. I have to say that this tour…
Reclaimed – “Special Education Site Visits”
Today I went to Toivola special school in Helsinki. I’ll point out right now that Finland differs from Saskatchewan in how special education is offered. Both places have part-time special education that takes place in the regular classroom, as well as part-time and more full-time assistance in resources rooms. Where they differ is that Finland still…
Reclaimed – “Video Research in Education”
One potential solution to our problem from yesterday is the video research method. Remember that there is trouble in having a macro view of education when trying to understand the entire system. However, even Finnish education experts refer to the classrooms of Finland as black boxes, it is difficult to say what really happens in…
Reclaimed – “Special Education in Finland”
Today we had our introduction to special education in Finland. The instructor this morning talked about PISA, again. However as I think I’ve mentioned before it was helpful to have the perspectives from many instructors. Some interesting comparisons he drew were between medicine and education. He compared PISA to an epidemiological study, which I though…
Reclaimed – “Another weekend in Helsinki”
Friday evening rolled along and I went for dinner with a friend to Zetor. This was supposed to have great food and somewhat “traditional” Finnish foods. This place was pretty out of the ordinary. Upon arrival (after 8pm) we were ID’d. Apparently the place is a restaurant/bar/club. Ok fair enough so lets see some pictures.…
Reclaimed – “Teacher Education in Finland”
You can find all kinds of information about the Finnish teacher education programs, so for this post I may only show some blurbs from my notes. There are four factors that result in a strong teaching profession: common, consistent, long-term policy educational equality devolution of decision power to the local level culture of trust (ok,…