Book review: Learning with ‘e’s

On my shelf (virtual and real) are a series of books that I know I just don’t have time to read. I’ve recently started to use Shelfari to organise my real and virtual book shelf, where I can easily refer to books I’ve read, I am reading, or want/plan to read.

Indeed (if this embed works) here they are: 

• The Really Useful #EdTechBook by David Hopkins
• It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by danah boyd
• Learning with ‘E’s: Educational Theory and Practice in the… by Steve Wheeler

However, from this list is Steve Wheeler’s latest/newest book Learning with ‘e’s. This is one book I am reading, enthusiastically. Taken from his blog, and enhanced with further reflection and writing, the book covers many aspects of current thinking and how we can plan for a better system of education and learning. Steve says:

“I believe that for educators everywhere, the challenge is to take devices that have the potential for great distraction and boldly appropriate them as tools that can inspire learners, focus their minds, and engage them in learning.”

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Steve on a few occasions over the last 5 or 6 years now as well many many tweets and RTs, and having the honour of sharing a taxi from Dundee to Edinburgh in 2011 with Donald Clark (… that was a taxi ride with a difference!). The book is an insight into his world of exploration and reflection, and well worth the cover price. My review, publicly displayed on Amazon, is:

“As someone who regularly reads and comments on Steve’s Learning With ‘E’s blog this book has more than lived up to my expectations. An explorer in more ways than one, Steve opens the readers mind to concepts and approaches to education, to learning, and to the state of our own fixation with technology, and lends us his caring hand to guide us through the quagmire that is the ‘future of technology in education’. Well structured and very articulate, Steve does not disappoint his readers, and opens our minds to more questions than we have answers to … but it is these questions we need to be asking if we are to improve our schools and universities.”

No, his eyes are not really that piercingly blue. Nearly, but not quite.