Education

For Students

From Backpack to Briefcase:
How to Thrive in the Hyperspeed Workforce Without Losing Your Mind

When Tod presents this 60- to 90-minute keynote presentation, you can hear a pin drop. Students about to leave college/university face an uncertain future — a job market that demands an “always-on” mindset, an unstable economy, and challenges working with many different generations.


A student’s reaction, after listening to Tod’s presentation

In this compelling presentation, Tod walks students through his own courageous story of going from being a busy multi-million dollar CEO of a publicly traded technology company to fighting for his life battling an addiction and depression — illnesses which began during those dot com days. Healthy and strong today, Tod’s message is inspiring, emotional, and serves as a warning to keep the important things in life front and center.

“Your story about entering a fast-paced business and suffering stress and depression as a result was incredibly moving for me, a student who had, until shortly before that conference, bought into the idea that working myself to death would make me successful. Your talk made me cry. OK, I balled. It was embarrassing. But I really treasured the wisdom you shared with us, and still think about your story every so often. You’re an effective speaker, and a gutsy storyteller. I should have told you then, but — thanks.”
– Deanne Beattie

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For School Administrators

The Problem With Rock Tumblers:
Why Our Education System is in Urgent Crisis (and How to Fix It)

The “system” means well, but it’s slowly asphyxiating the future of education. In this provocative keynote address, Tod Maffin identifies the primary ways the education system is taking the “rough stones” of learners and tries to grind and polish their way to education — while actually scraping away the culture and uniqueness the learners bring. Maffin’s five steps to repairing this damage will get your conference delegates talking days after the address.

More about The Problem With Rock Tumblers…

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For Educators

Teaching the Facebook Generation:
Connect with Your Gen-Y/Millennial Students Better and Teach More Effectively

Teaching Generation YHow do you help Generation Y learn when they have nearly zero attention span, expect that you’ll be at least as tech-savvy as they are, and have high demands for heavy curriculum customization? Tod Maffin will show you incredibly effective ways to help today’s students learn.

Among the things you’ll learn in this fast-paced and entertaining 90 minute keynote presentation:

  • Exploit learners’ low attention span with TurboLessons
  • Engage your students’ curiosity by using Curriculum Mashups
  • Transition from being a teacher to being a guide
  • What do to when a student “friends” you on a social networking site
  • The case for permitting encouraging the use of Facebook and Twitter in the classroom

More about Teaching the Facebook Generation….

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Learning in a Digital World:
How Technology is Changing the Way Students Learn

In a world where two thirds of kids spend more time in front of a computer than a television set, are we unknowingly re-shaping the learning patterns of children?

Is living in a remote control world helping or hindering education? What key things has our networked world already taught young people behind our back, and how kids are coping with learning in the hypermedia environment we’ve handed them. In this thought-provoking, fast-paced 45-minute presentation, Tod will dive into the latest neurological research around cognitive development — and, using dozens of short videos and custom images, make it simple to understand. You’ll fly through the brain’s learning centres and discover how the high-tech world and media multitasking is changing actual brain structures at the cellular level.

More about Learning in a Digital World….

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The Clicks Behind Your Back:
Social Networking in the Classroom

Passing notes and cheat­ing on tests have gone high-tech. And unless you’re armed with the lat­est infor­ma­tion about how your stu­dents are using social media, you may find your­self with a lot of catch­ing up to do.

In this provoca­tive and enter­tain­ing keynote pre­sen­ta­tion, Tod Maffin explains how teach­ers and school admin­is­tra­tors can har­ness the tools of today’s social net­work­ing web sites to pro­mote deeper learning. You’ll hear edu­ca­tional tech­nol­ogy thought-leaders via video­cam, and dis­cover how the very mul­ti­me­dia tech­nol­ogy that sur­rounds our stu­dents daily is slowly and sys­tem­at­i­cally harm­ing their abil­ity to learn. (60–90 min).

More about The Clicks Behind Your Back…

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What They Say:

Verbatim comments from session evaluation forms, Calgary Teachers’ Convention, February 2008:

  • “Provocative, stimulating, new information — wow. Excellent!”
  • “Applicable to my current teaching situation.”
  • “Excellent seminar — for parents and teachers alike — one all teachers should have attended!”
  • “Brilliant, engaging, stimulating!”
  • “Entertaining, informatice, engaging, humourous, and most of all personal!”
  • “Does he do full-day sessions? Could we bring Tod in next year on a common PD day? Get him back!”

A sampling of Tod’s education clients in just the last 18 months:

  • VHA Leadership Conference, Philadelphia
  • B.C. Public School Employers Association
  • Simon Fraser University
  • Association of Administrators of English Schools of Quebec
  • The Virtual School Society
  • E-Learning Consortium, Florida
  • Conference Board of Canada
  • B.C. Teachers’ Federation
  • Calgary City Teachers’ Convention Association (10,000+ attendees!)
  • …and more!

Media Coverage