Real Talk About Education- Distance/eLearning with Guest, Ken Shelton

In this podcast, Ken Shelton and Rachael Mann discuss remote learning in career and technical education and the equity and access issues that are magnified in the face of a global pandemic.  Excerpt from Ken's Blog: "Distance Learning, Remote Learning, eLearning, no matter what you call it or how you package it, is not working. Here's the thing, it never had a chance in the first place. When the decision to shut down in-person schooling swept the country, even the world, educators, and support staff across the educational spectrum had to make significant adjustments. In far too many of these cases, the changes had to be implemented within just a few days. Who would have planned for a pandemic of this magnitude, let alone included something this catastrophic in their strategic plan? The problem is, no amount of planning or preparation would have shielded a significant percentage of students in schools without looking at the systemic structures in the first place. It has been seen, written, and experienced that this entire situation we are managing has revealed the deep enduring wound covered by the comfort of complacency, platitudes, and diversionary rhetoric so often prevalent in education. “Be aware of when privilege tries to speak everyone’s stories. It’s not true.”  This entire situation is affecting so many people in so many different ways. Yes, we get the stories of how some kids are thriving during remote learning or how some educators have managed to remain closely connected with their students. There are many lessons to be learned through these examples, but they do not account for the majority. In fact, in education, we tend to highlight and celebrate the outliers while conveniently ignoring the most vulnerable, the marginalized. Continue reading this blog post here: http://kennethshelton.net/blog Ken holds an M.A. in Education with a specialization in Educational Technology as well as New Media Design and Production. He has worked as an Educator for over 20 years and most recently taught technology at the Middle School level. As a part of his active involvement within the Educational Technology community, Ken is an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Innovator. Ken has worked extensively at the policy level and was named to the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction's Education Technology Task Force. Ken regularly gives keynotes, presentations, consults, and leads workshops, covering a wide variety of Educational Technology, Equity and Inclusion, Multimedia Literacy, Cultural Relevance, Visual Storytelling, and Instructional Design topics. Ken is the ISTE Digital Equity PLN 2018 Excellence Award winner. Ken has provided and continues to provide consulting support to many companies, State Departments of Education, Ministries of Education, school districts/systems Nationally and Internationally, as well as non-profits such as the California Emerging Technology Fund's School2Home program which is designed to support closing the Achievement Gap and Digital Divide at low-performing California middle schools. Connect with Ken on Twitter, https://twitter.com/k_shelton, and visit his website, http://kennethshelton.net/home.