Cohort members,
It has been a month since our last Face 2 Face Session and so much has happened locally as well as globally. The Olympics came and went and many of us have been through our winter whirlwind of exams, reports and parent teacher interviews. Online our community has been busy. The Cohort blogs have seen a flurry of activity and posts and twitter has been buzzing with conversation. Can you believe the March break is around the corner!!
Don’t forget: The Final Face 2 Face – Friday April 25th @ RSGC
Book your coverage today.
We are planning a day that involves some high quality discussion, sharing of your journey and relevant findings,
as well as some libations and celebrations
Cohort member post exposure and promotion the CIS Ontario site.
We are excited to announce that we have been working with the CIS Ontario web team to increase the audience and reach of your posts. Every independant school teacher knows that the most popular pages of the CIS Ontario site are “Job Search” and “Professional Development”. As such we have added an RSS feed embed here, here and here to put your posts and ideas in front of more eyes. It is our hope that teachers who visit the site will also be intrigued by your ideas and visit your blogs. That means that “Post titles” are now more important than ever 🙂 ………………… “There is life on MaRS!”
To Do: February = Feedback
Throughout February the Cohort team has tried to respond to as many posts as possible and push your ideas and thinking forward. If you haven’t posted in a while don’t worry and don’t stress. Try and fire off a quick one in the next few weeks to let us know where you are at and how we can help.
To round off the month we are going to engage your schools curriculum leaders and invite them to read and explore your ideas. There are two reason for this. The first is to make sure that they can see the good work that you are doing. The second is to encourage them to participate in the conversation and help your professional growth. We will be inviting them to “comment” and help push your thinking forward.
Guest Blog Posts & Upcoming Google-Hangouts:
If you haven’t had an opportunity to read and comment on the recent guest blogs, it would be great to drive some discussion and conversation for Anthony and Janelle. They have spent some time crafting these for us, and it’s important for us to discuss their prompts.
Anthony Chuter will be our Google Hangout guest after the March Break, so please be sure to keep your eye out for that opportunity.
Action in the Cohort Community:
There has been some exciting action in our community on Google+ and on Twitter. We are experiencing an increased level of interest and audience to what it is that we are doing. Most notably, we have members taking part in the Memarden pilot, and exploring a supporting role with WorldVuze.
Countdown to April 25th – Action Plan Question & AnswersAs we close in on April and our final face to face session many of you will have questions about what that they will look and feel like. Our goal from the start has been to create a learning community that was authentic and meaningful to your own professional growth. To that end the Cohort 21 experience is all about the journey and the final face 2 face session is just another stop on that journey. We will send more specific guidelines in late March but for the keeners here are some things to keep in mind.
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Keep in Mind… 1) You don’t need to come to any formal conclusions 2) You don’t need to create any formal findings about your teaching 3) You DO need to reflect on your action plan in a final blog post. 4) You DO need to create a presentation to summarize your work throughout the year that can be digitally presented on the website and share it with us by Friday, April 22nd. **** We will send out further sharing instructions closer to the date*** |
Who is Reading Us?
As we already mentioned, there have been some great posts driving traffic to our site, and subsequently to your blogs. Here is a snapshot of the most recent activity on Cohort21 and your blogs.
Notice the far right column – it is the number of times people have viewed your post; notice the middle column – it the number of unique visitors to your post. As our community continues to grow, we are trying to drive more discussions to your blog. You can help by reading, adding comments, and tweeting out the posts to your peers, colleagues and your own growing network of educators.
Have a great March Break!
The Cohort 21 Team
