About

Portable Learner, n. An indi­vid­ual who car­ries their knowl­edge and skills in their mem­ory or in their social net­works, spec. so that it can be employed in all sorts of circumstances.

20,000 feet above Deer Lake, Newfoundland.

Thanks for vis­it­ing my web­site. It’s a per­sonal site that has been around in some form or another (mostly another) since 2002.

I work for Cana­dian Blood Ser­vices, where I man­age a vari­ety of edu­ca­tional activ­i­ties like Trans­fu­sion Med­i­cine and Blood Tech Net.

I spent a few years work­ing in var­i­ous clin­i­cal and research lab­o­ra­to­ries, which trig­gered a life­long fas­ci­na­tion with sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy and com­mu­nity. For­tu­itously, remark­ably, this expe­ri­ence was deemed a suf­fi­cient entree into work­place learn­ing and devel­op­ment. I love this field, and I care deeply about design­ing edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ences that not only increase knowl­edge or capac­ity and ROI, but also fur­ther inquiry, enjoy­ment, and a sense that learn­ing can be per­son­ally rel­e­vant and reward­ing. In 2005, I returned to school to get my Mas­ters in dis­tance edu­ca­tion. I am con­tem­plat­ing a PhD.

I am involved in a few dig­i­tal lit­er­acy projects like The Trans­fu­sion Read­ing List, Design­ing Pro­ce­dures for Learn­ers and Trans­fu­sion Pro­fu­sion. I believe that learn­ing does not hap­pen in iso­la­tion in the class­room, but is rooted in our cul­tural arrange­ments. I main­tain a visual, trans-disciplinary learn­ing design scrap­book to explore the implications.

I once penned a comic strip. I used to be a free­lance writer, but now I blog instead. I also have a few pub­li­ca­tions of the peer review sort. My favourite super­power is shapeshift­ing because I think it offers a extra­or­di­nary life­long learn­ing opportunities.

I am grate­ful to be part of the social media space. Here’s my doppler, Face­book, flickr, Library­Thing, deli­cious, claimID, and Twit­ter. Please come join me!

The back­ground image is flame art, cre­ated by Joen Asmussen, built using Peter Blaskovics java-based Flame painter