My name is Mark Christie and I set up Learnshifting to capture and tag education related things I discover through web browsing and through working with great educators in Australia and beyond. As a parent with a son in school university, many things I see would be useful to other parents and they might like to know about it. Although this blog started some years ago, I let it languish as my focus shifted to other things.
Some of the titles and names of what I do have changed over 25 years, but computer based training/learning, multimedia, eLearning are some of the words used in my job titles over that time. Lecturer, teacher, trainer are other names I have been called over the years, but storyteller is the one that resonates with me.
So this site is my pensieve, my place to store memories and facts that are useful to me, but less terrifying that those harboured in Albus Dumbledore’s mind. I was going to refer to it as my remembrall, but I didn’t like the way it screamed at poor old Neville in Harry Potter.
Hopefully many items in this blog are things you haven’t encountered, therefore they will be new, not something forgotten.
Disclaimer about promoting solutions
I offer opinions in the pieces I write and most times they are because I been excited by the prospects of someone learning or someone who is teaching has shown me a wonderful way technology can be integrated into schools.
Many of the things I have written about are shared with my son to gauge interest in the topic. My belief is that if it is something I think my son would benefit from, then it is worth sharing. Of course that isn’t the only yardstick I use in choosing what to write about, but I can say that due to my small circle of influence, I have never been induced to pick a particular topic on the grounds of anything other than strong personal belief that it adds something positive to that mix of things we call education.
So in today’s world of product placement, nefarious backroom deals I can at least say that all that is written here is from the heart and mind… which is probably why I don’t have many blog readers… 🙂
PC – Political Correctness
Sometimes we write things and then think twice about whether there is a group in society who we might be offending, excluding or presenting something as a stereotype or domain of one particular group.
I personally celebrate difference, tolerance and understanding and my friends in Indonesia (and probably other places) have a lovely saying which starts of by apologising for anything that may offend – not because they (or I) want to offend – far from it – but if we do say or do something that unintentionally does that – let me apologise beforehand.
Violence, racism, bullying and anything that contravenes values along the lines of “do unto others” is off limits for me except to call it out if something I write about helps stop it.
Some of the things I write are in fact reflective of being a dad and a husband and being almost sixty… but there again I don’t want to pigeon hole myself or any other dad of the same vintage…
So even though I may self-censor, being 110% politically correct doesn’t always help tell a story in the way it is meant to be told.
So if I write something that does offend – let me sincerely apologise in advance.