This Week in Ontario Edublogs

I always enjoy writing this weekly post.  There are some amazing posts and thinking going on with Ontario Educators.  It’s a way to give a tip of the hat and encourage all folks to do some new reading.

Hey Mr. Business, Are You Kragleing the Curriculum?

James Cowper went and saw the Lego movie.  Normally, that wouldn’t be an interesting blog read except for the connections that James made to his job as principal at Eastwood Public School.

He makes some interesting observations that may be obvious to some people and yet unthinkable by others.  If you’re a principal or school leader in any capacity, it’s worth a read and ponder.  If not, or especially if it strikes a chord with you, the link is worth sharing with others.

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Another EdCamp, Another A+

David Fife drove up the 401 to Cambridge to take part in edCampWR.  His experiences with the day were shared in the blog post.  I like the choice of sessions that he attended; I don’t imagine that my choices would be much different.  Coming through loudly and clearly was that edCampWR was another success, yes, but the real focus in his post was about people and the connections that he established/re-established there.

I suspect that the real reason that he was there was to steal ideas for edCampLondon to be held later this spring, if spring arrives.

The one thing he’s got to really steal though is Kim Gill’s mom to bake some treats for the day!

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All in a Flap – Students Creating Flappy Bird Clones Using TouchDevelop #CSK8 by @mraspinall

Brian Aspinall’s class went for the gusto creating their own Flappy Bird Clone applications using TouchDevelop.  It was another class that got into programming in this powerful environment.  It’s great to see kids programming with such enthusiasm.  This post is actually a collection of Twitter messages sent out under Brian’s name.  The messages could have been created by Brian or they could have been sent by the students – it actually doesn’t matter.  There’s a great deal of student voice in them.

For example…

I like the way that the messages went beyond the trivial “This is cool” and showed some pretty deep observations about what the students were actually doing.

Brian wraps the article with a summary written in computer science teacher voice which shows just how deeply they delved into this activity.

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Organizing for Inquiry Learning

Louise Robitaille and Peter Douglas maintain this web resource to support and share ideas about inquiry in the classroom.  I was looking at their list of applications for the iPad and iPod and how they were using them when I was drawn to a recent blog post.

The post talks about how they organize their classrooms for inquiry.  It’s a good read if you’re looking for ways to do a little rearrangement.

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Thanks, everyone, for some inspiring reading.  Please take a moment to visit and share these excellent posts at the links given.  You can check out the complete list of Ontario Edublogs at the Livebinder located here.

If you’re an Ontario Edublogger and not listed, please complete the form and you will be.