There have been quite a few discussions around assessment the last few weeks. I have enjoyed being active in many of them as I continue to question the system and my own practice. There are a few differing perspectives about marks and their relevancy but on the whole nobody seems to really care about them […]
I had some great conversation this week around assessment and what the heck that looks like anymore. There is much confusion but seems to be some agreement that the days of large quantities of marks are passed and that testing should not be the be all and end all. As a matter of fact – between #TTOG (Teachers […]
We had our first snowfall here last week in southern Ontario. It was nothing like Buffalo, but enough to make driving problematic. Fortunately, our infamous snowplow folks had the school’s parking lot shovelled by the time staff were arriving so parking wasn’t an issue – kudos to you! However, something looked funny out back. Like really […]
I always argue that we are 14 years into the 21st century so why do we still use that term when describing teachers, students, technology and tools. A great argument as far as I am concerned. Then someone brought to my attention that every grade 8 in our building was born in 2000 or 2001. […]
Today we are learning to: identify and extend patterns use algebra to describe pattern rules represent relationships using a table of values Let me introduce our Minecraft project. I cannot take credit for this. Thanks to my grade 8 student Isaac, we have developed a pretty cool “game”. Using Minecraft students are creating and extending […]
BYOD is cool in my books. The problem arises when we focus solely on the app or device. That is to say I used to live by the best app first, then the curriculum. I’ve grown over the years and realize the curriculum task determines the app – or apps to use – and not […]
What a week. With the exception of a few hours on Friday, I haven’t been home since Tuesday morning. Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t a complaint. My head is spinning though with excitement and inspiration. #bit14 was awesome, like always. Rumours had the total audience at around 1550 teachers from all over the country. […]
Which better describes you as an educator? The Sex Pistols or The Clash. What I mean to ask is, are you a “punk” leader? Do you follow all of the rules and regulations outlined by the powers beyond? Do you still make decisions based on fear? Do you punish the entire group because you found […]
Curriculum, data, marks, feedback or the learning process? I am a firm believer in PBL – Problem or Project Based Learning. It’s a beautiful world down in kindergarten. Students full of joy, full of curiosity. And then it fades. We have conducted a gazillion surveys to students that all say the same – I begin […]
It’s an exciting week! Niagara Falls is about to get bombarded by over a thousand progressive educators who are excited to share their expertise and wisdom with the group. If you have never been before, this conference is a game-changer. It’s like an edcamp on steroids. One of those events where you feel like you […]
While there are a multitude of augmented reality apps, the list below involves those in which students can create and interact with real world and digital world content. Layar – https://www.layar.com/ Subjects: All Way better than QR codes – with Layar, any image can be enhanced with digital content. Easily place links, videos, slideshows and […]
I first heard of Kahoot from @MmeM27 who teaches French at our school. She was using it to teach French vocabulary in a very engaging manner. I noticed she had placed face images as questions and the students had to determine the appropriate emotion. Impressive. I immediately saw a connection to my math program. Our […]
One of the benefits of an LMS like Google Classroom is that is tracks student progress on your behalf. Yesterday I put this to the test in a little experiment to see if my students were checking our Google Classroom without being prompted. What is interesting about this situation is the assignment I posted was […]
I read a short article this weekend about the possibility of schools letting teachers operate the direction based on consensus of staff. Not just about classroom decisions, but budgets and even hiring. It’s a unique idea and there is a video here from PBS: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/09/what-if-teachers-were-charged-with-setting-school-direction/ I thought about this for a while this weekend. Although […]
First of all – I don’t much care for the term “coding”, especially when it comes to linking blocks on a tablet so I am going to use the term loosely here and in quotes. There is a ton of critical thinking and problem solving but is it really “coding”? Nothing gets compiled. I suppose […]
Remember Fight Club? Remember the rules of Fight Club? The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club We don’t really have a school wide set of rules. This can be problematic for some staff who need the boundaries made clear, but students don’t seem to mind. They have taken […]
This has been a recurring topic of conversation at school this year. Why do we ask students to remove hats when they enter the school? It’s a constant battle as many teachers attempt to enforce the rule as guards at the door. Far too often I hear “hats please” instead of “good morning!” when students […]
We knew this feature would be a hit. When creating sketches you now have the ability to upload from your computer or camera roll to the canvas. This way you can share more with your students! When you click ‘New Sketch’ you will be asked whether you wish to create with a blank background or […]
For more lessons, activities and ideas, grab a copy of my book, Code Breaker, on Amazon here! If you would like to see my video tutorials using Scratch, click here to access my YouTube channel. Primary: BotLogic Turtle BeeBot Kindergarten coding Espresso Tynker Blockly Kodable Primo Daisy the Dinosaur How to train your robot Program […]
Myria Mallete is a colleague of mine. She is a fantastic teacher who makes worldly connections to her FSL classroom and finds ways to incorporate technology other people never seem to understand. She is a change maker, whether she realizes it or not. My grade 8 homeroom looks forward to French class on a daily […]
“It’s OK to be where you are, it’s not OK to stay there” Yesterday was our second EdCampSWO event and it was quite the success. We decided to run our event in parallel with EdCampLondon and use Google Hangout to share sessions. We had close to 300 people in attendance between both locations! Doug Peterson […]
For quite sometime I have been tinkering and toying with the idea of adding a shared whiteboard to scrawlar. Until recently, scrawlar was a web word processor for teachers and students to share word docs. It was created to allow classrooms who share devices an option for typing, editing, collaborating and sharing by pushing student […]
My PLN is growing everyday with teachers from all over the world. In no particular order, I want to share some “local” twitter accounts worth following – teachers within the province of Ontario. I don’t want to offend anyone I missed so my formula for this list is based on who I have tweeted with […]
For all the kids who grow up in a small town and think they don’t stand a chance. You do. I was once that kid.