Augmented Learning Podcast & Vlog Episode #55

Stephen McConnachie is an educator from Canterbury, New Zealand who experienced some really challenging times during the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011. This has been discussed way back in episode 21, but Stephen (and his school) were without a campus, had access to very little resources, were facing an unorthodox teaching timetable (due to the need to rotate school access to a shared campus) and at times had access to no classroom at all. This forced many teachers to embrace digital technology as a way to reach their students, allow for meaningful engagement and collaboration and was in a way, the precursor to teachers all over the country embracing a digital approach in the classroom.

Over the last 7 days, the world has been gripped in a pandemic that seems to be worsening every 12 hours. With Covid-19 causing issues all over the world, we are seeing a number of schools and educational institutions closing, with teachers placed into positions they have never found themselves before – teaching their students from a remote or online learning space. For some this is nothing new, but for others they are looking at trying to educate their students worrying that they don’t have the skills or capability to deliver the content and knowledge required to teach their students.

Stephen shares his experiences from the earthquakes and gives a variety of tips, tools and strategies that will help not just the teachers out there, but school leaders and also students who find themselves impacted by Coronovirus. He is a wealth of knowledge and experience in this area and this is an episode that I hope will help put a lot of people at ease.
Stephen is no longer in front of the classroom having recently moved into educational consultancy. If you would like to get in touch with him regarding any of the topics discussed during this episode, please use the links below:

Stephen on LinkedIn.

Stephen on Twitter.