Who is Shawn McCusker?

Shawn McCusker is an author and Senior Director of Professional Learning at EdTechTeacher. He has 25 years of experience as a teacher and leader in public, private and alternative schools.  Shawn’s book Becoming Active Citizens focuses on creating more meaningful citizen education programs focused on real life experiences where students learn citizenship by BEING citizens. It was recently named a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award.

As a classroom teacher Shawn specialized in Co-taught and Full Inclusion settings that met the needs of diverse learners. His passion for this led him to employ technology in innovative ways. After his work was shared via social media, Shawn began to travel across the US to help schools create differentiated and student centered policies and practices.  His lessons and student products have been featured in the Journal,  Educational Leadership and the Huffington Post. In 2006, he was recognized as a finalist for the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2016 he was named a Top Trailblazing Educator on Twitter by eSchoolNews. 

As a school leader, Shawn has been part of 1:1 programs with both iPads and Chromebooks. That work led him to work with a non-profit who supported schools and teachers in underfunded and underserved communities transitioning to 1:1 programs during the pandemic. 

Shawn is also an experienced writer. In addition to his book, Shawn’s column “The Tech Savvy Classroom” shared techniques for prioritizing digital storytelling, implementing targeted differentiation and promoting the idea that learning should be experiential. While his experiences are diverse they are tied together by a single idea: “If they aren’t really doing it, they aren’t really learning it.”     

He has been a keynote and featured speaker at conferences across the US. 

Did you know that… 

• Shawn loves to travel and has worked with schools in 35 different states across the US.  (Let me know if you are in New Mexico, Hawaii, Alaska, North Dakota or Oregon.  Those are 5 states I still need to visit!) 
• Shawn used his military scholarship to attend college.  Fun fact… he was activated on his wedding day to go and fight the 1993 Mississippi Floods. 
• Shawn loves to hike, but when he can’t get out to the trails, he hikes across golf courses pretending that he knows what he is doing.  
• Shawn solves a Rubik’s cube in less than 3 minutes and kinda by accident learned how to pick locks during the pandemic.  

Certifications

• Google Certified Trainer
• Microsoft Innovative Educator
• Adobe Creative Educator 
• Book Creator Ambassador
• Newsela Certified Educator 
• SeeSaw Pioneer
• Adobe Express
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe InDesign
• Adobe Photoshop
• And a whole bunch of others

Ways That Shawn Can Help!

• Innovative Student Centered Work
• Digital Storytelling
• Experiential Learning
• Augmented and Virtual Reality 
• Project Based Learning 
• Civics Education Best Practice 
• Teaching History With Technology
• Program Recovery- Figuring what to do when your initiative has lost steam or gone off the rails

How Can We Work With Shawn?

Contact me at [email protected] or talk to [email protected]. I’d love to listen to what you need and help you find a path to get it!