McKenzie

=__**Jamie McKenzie**__ =

[|From Now On] Website

**Biography**
Jamie McKenzie’s approach to learning focuses upon his concept of “purposeful wandering.” Formally educated as a educator, McKenzie’s career path has included teaching, principal, and superintendent positions, publication of [|poetry] and [|short stories]; and he currently focuses on writing, [|public speaking], and educational consulting. Having [|published]nearly a dozen books and articles related to “questions and questioning,” the focus of McKenzie’s work relates to the impact that questions and reflecting can have upon our learning experiences and education. Disseminating his information primarily through his [|website].

FNO.org
//From Now On// functions as an educational technology journal for engaged learning and literacy. The central theme of McKenzie's message seems to focus on one of creating a culture based around how teachers and educators can help young learners to build upon their own educational experience by creating and establishing their own understanding and learning, rather than simply relying on the information that others have presented to them. This message is supported through //From Now On//'s online publication of journal [|articles].

Though a wealth of information is presented and available through the //From Now On// website, one has to wonder if McKenzie has taken his message of learning through wandering too literally. Lacking focus, one can find themselves questioning McKenzie's sense of "purpose" while perusing the overabundance of topics presented by means of an equally abundant wealth of resources. McKenzie's message(s) can become lost at times amidst a sea of poetry, professional promotion, and personal accomplishments included in the various links strewn about the website.

Reaction
A prominent message of McKenzie's, and one reiterated in multiple articles and books published by McKenzie, is one of straying from the "cut and paste" culture that we have become. We need to ourselves, and through education of our students, teach my means of finding meaning through our research. We have become reliant on the ability to find extreme abundance of facts and data through resources such as Google, but McKenzie pushes to become more than meager gatherers of information. He wants to learn from and to teach in ways that encourage interaction with said information. He wants of to question the information itself, and then to question that questioning. In this regard, I cannot agree more with McKenzie. I believe that due to the prevalence of technology available to the majority in today's society, more information is available than ever. However, whereas quality research and information was once scarce, our present-day scarcity involves that of quality of information. Now that we have the information, what can we do with it to enrich our learning experience?

Overall, I find many of McKenzie's ideas to be very intriguing. However, I find his presentation of ideas and methods of disseminating information to be very scatterbrained. I feel that his approach to website publishing, as well as writing, could be much more streamlined and concise. ~ACW