Andrew Shauver

The Digital Backpack: Your Resource for Online Learning

This episode was originally published on February 3, 2015, when the podcast was called "MyBlend Stories."

Andrew Shauver began his teaching career in 2006. After going through the struggles of a first-year math teacher, he sought to create opportunities for his students that focused more on value and less on one-size, fit-all tasks. Before blended learning was a buzzword, he was developing online environments that gave students greater control over place, pace, path and time.

In his career as a teacher with Webberville Community Schools and Pennfield Schools, he continued to seek out designs that increased the accessibility of learning.

There was a theme that flowed through our conversation, one of open learning and collaboration. The unpredictability of how learning objects will be used in a digital space is interesting to both of us. We discussed how we see this in the blogosphere, in social media, and in classrooms. This learning ethos is built upon learning in the open, contributing ideas with the expectation that they will be useful to others’ learning. But another key aspect of this ethos is that learners engage with the ideas in their own personal ways.

I visited Andrew on the Ingham ISD campus to record our conversation. In November of 2014, he signed on with the ISD as an Instructional Technology Specialist, tasked with assisting teachers and schools throughout the county in their educational technology endeavors.

We explore his approach to leading teachers in this capacity, Ingham ISD’s vision for developing a county-wide framework for blended learning as well as a teacher learning network to foster collaborative idea building throughout the county.

This is his story.