How did my school go from almost ZERO twitter connections, to being part of a CIS Ontario-wide movement to connect on Twitter with other schools across disciplines and grades? What started as zero twitter chatter within my school, grew quickly to over 15 teachers, either starting new with Twitter or repositioning their Tweets to connect…
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I was thrilled to be the keynote speaker at FIRST Lego League‘s Kick off event – hosted by my school at Bayview Glen – this past Saturday. The project mission this year is to: “create something that will help people learn better.” FIRST Lego League is accomplishing this already by its very strucutre – it…
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These past two weeks have been a prime time for Educonferences – there was a great one at St. Clements in Toronto, The Klingenstein Summer program in Lawrenceville, and of course the ISTE 2014. But I was at none of them…or was I? I have colleagues who attended each of these conferences, and we were…
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One of my big take-aways from this year’s Cohort 21 experience is the overall momentum and capacity for shifting our practice that was generated within the members this year. When Justin and I first began this journey, we had talked about how important it was to us, personally, that we pursue excellence in our classrooms…
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As the month of August continues to march forward, the dawn of a new school year lies ahead. This year, one of my personal goals is to really push the envelope with digital literacy. So, naturally, I’ve been doing some 21st century research: looking at YouTube, visiting blogs, and looking at infographics. I’ve stumbled upon…
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In preparing for my final professional development presentation, I stumbled upon “Vizify” where you can create a personal, professional visual resume that aggragates your social media to create a beautiful representation of your work online. It’s a great tool to see what you talk about and when you talk about them. It’s also…
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After a long February and very well deserved March Break for all of us at Cohort 21, I have been thinking about some of the great posts that I’ve been reading. In particular, Jesse Denison, Celeste Kirsh, Derek Doucet, Jen Bibby and Ruth McArthur; they have published some thoughtful reflections, but also reflections that have…
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For a few years now, I have been following Joe Bower on Twitter. He is a great thinker and advocate for responsible and positive change in education. He is a thoughtful blogger, and he got me thinking of my discussions with many during the last Cohort 21 F2F session about personalization of learning. Amongst others,…
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Yesterday’s Cohort 21 F2F session provided a lot of time for putting faces to names, for putting names to schools, and ideas to be flushed out more completely. A few things struck me: 1) When the cohort held the unconference session in the afternoon (examining the role of technology in collecting data for and of…
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Susan Davis writing for “Getting Smart” begins her blog post on “Teaching Authentic Writing in a Socially Mediated World” with this idea: “…I don’t know where to start. You see, I’ve completely bought into the idea that what we teach our students should be authentic, that is, tangible and real in ways that are meaningful and purposeful for…
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