As you know, we’ve been knocking around a few ideas here to help us all be better connected. One way is to share news and stories about folks–community leaders, experienced voices, cognitive coaches, and PLPeeps themselves.

network

We have amazing people in our midst, teachers and learners who shape and change the world. On days when we feel discouraged about the slow pace of “shift,” we need to remind ourselves of the good work we are all doing.

Alec Couros, a professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of EducationUniversity of Regina, will serve as our co-director of Community Development with Robin Ellis this year. He will also be serving as a co-Community Leader for the ADVIS and Canadian cohorts. He is a kind, open teacher who shares freely with the rest of us. And, as Carey Pohanka said the first time she met him, “OMG he smells so good!”

He, like so many others, would prefer not to be in the spotlight.(I am sure I just embarrassed him with @capohanka’s comment!) Nevertheless, we want to share some of the things he’s been up to. He not only teaches, he also presents and keynotes all over the world. Recently he presented at the PLE conference in Barcelona with Graham Atwell. And in typical open fashion, Alec solicited ideas and slides from his network, which he used during the conference itself. An added benefit of the trip was his brother, George, who traveled with him.

“It was good one on one time with my brother,” Alec said, about George, who has within the past year become active in social media himself. The tweets and blog posts coming out of Barcelona kept us all on the edge of our seats.

Alec will be teaching another open course this fall, once again using the power of his network to add value to his grad students and to support the community of learners that surrounds him. He has upwards of 70 people who’ve offered to serve as mentors to his students. But, if people prefer to simply attend the course, they may. By enrolling as  non-credit students, folks from around the world will be able to participate.

This fall Alex is slated to keynote at the Quest conference in Ontario, sponsored by the York Region District School Board.  Be sure to attend if you are around in November!

And in just a few weeks, he’ll be presenting/sharing at Learning 2.010 in China along with Jeff Utecht and many others. The line up for this unconference sounds fantastic.

It’s folks like Alec that make us better teachers, better learners, and better people. But true to form, Alec throws it back to his network.

“It’s interesting that there are so many people willing to support others in this journey. A lot of people support the idea of building passionate networks,” he said. “And that’s what PLP does, too.”

image: By dsevilla

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Susan Carter Morgan

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