This Week in Ontario Edublogs

It’s been a while since I’ve taken the opportunity to highlight some of the great content that Ontario bloggers are creating.  It’s not that I’ve given up reading the blogs – I still enjoy them daily – but I took the time to do some other Ontario things.

The list of Ontario blogs that I know about is available here through this Livebinder, which by the way is a great way to read them all.  All of the links take you to the blog embedded in the Livebinder so you don’t get lost.  In addition to the list of bloggers, there are also two list of Ontario Twitter users that you may find helpful.  List 1 has 499 people and List 2 has 38 and growing.  Recently, I’ve been spotting a number of new names and I’ve been adding them to the lists as I find them.  So, don’t let anyone tell you that nobody uses Twitter!  If you’re an Ontario educator and want your blog listed or your Twitter name added to the lists, just go here and complete the form.

Here’s a bit of what I had the pleasure to read this week.

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How to Share a Dropbox Folder in an iPad Classroom

If you’ve heard about Dropbox but are in need of a little inspiration and a tutorial to get you started, head over to Kyle Pearce’s blog.  He’s written a combination tutorial/editorial about how to use it and, at the same time, why you should be using it.  He’s done a great job with text, screen captures, and embedded movies to give a complete guide.

If I could offer another read, I recently wrote a post called Deja Drop.  It extends a previous post I had made about using Dropbox as a hand-in folder and offers ideas about how to use it with an iPad now that iOS6 has been released.

I totally agree with Kyle – there are so many advantages to using Cloud storage and you can’t beat the feature set of Dropbox.

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An Teaching Out Loud Exclusive: I’m A Big Boy Now!

There are three great ingredients to look for when reading a blog.

1. Good news
2. Cryptic messages
3. Humour

Stephen Hurley’s recent post had them all.

In Ontario, there seems to be a scorecard passed around educators to let you know when someone is approaching the 85 factor.  Stephen rationalizes some of his personal thoughts in a post that includes all the successful ingredients.

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Between a rock and a hard place

I’m really bad at reading blogs and not commenting immediately.  For that, I apologize to all whose blogs I have enjoyed but neglected to leave a post.  But Tim King’s recent post struck a nerve with me.  How many times is the computer science teacher weighed down with the responsibility of being the go-to person in the school when something computerish breaks?  I know that it happened to me many times and I think that’s why I found my head nodding as I read Tim’s post.  My scenario was like this – I was in the middle of dealing with a student’s problem and a colleague came between the student and me mid-conversation, looked me straight in the eye and complained “My printer doesn’t work”.

In the rush to have everyone class computer savvy, students and teachers are at times, pushed into the deep end in implementation without learning to float first.  Thank goodness for the computer science teacher.  I’ll just go bug him.

And yet, we still do it.  Are computer science teachers just that noble?

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Minds on Math – Learning as a Community

In September, I had the chance to interview Shannon Smith when she was just a Newby in her role as principal.  One of the things that we discussed was her use of social media and how would it extend to her new school and its community.  She promised that she would be very transparent with parents, staff, and students.

Can it work when the day-to-day workload kick in?

Shannon’s school recently had a professional learning day and they were “all-in” for mathematics.  It would have been easy for her to have blogged “We did math stuff”.  Instead, she shared a complete set of details about what happened on that day.

I really like it.

If I’m a parent in that community, I know that the staff is dedicated and now I know what might be happening in my child’s math class.  It’s a great read and if any other principal is wondering what sharing with the community could be (other than when the next hot dog day is…), this is a perfect model.

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The Trustee Dilemma

Trustees are people too.  In theory, they make the decisions that set governance and policy with school districts.  As you know, many things have been thrust upon local school districts by the Ministry of Education this fall.  The one voice that we seldom hear when it comes to this situation is that of the individual trustee.

We hear from teachers, we hear from the federations, we hear from the government, we hear from the school district, we certainly hear from newspaper reporters, and of course from the public that reply to their opinions.

But what about the lonely trustee sitting around the table at board meetings?

Robert Hunking took the time to share his thoughts about what’s happening in Ontario now.  For a completely different perspective, you should take the time to read this post.

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This was a fun post to write.  I get a rush reading the great things that Ontario Educators write about.  Please check out the above and all the great things happening and made available through the LiveBinder.

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