It’s been yet another great week looking at the efforts of Ontario Edubloggers. Here’s some inspiring reading to let you appreciate things.
Will This Be On My Report Card?
Throw that question in the same category as “Does this count?” and you’ll have a peek inside the student mind. I’m sure that we all asked the same question when we were in school so it’s not something new.
Karaline Vlahopoulos shares her thoughts on this and includes a student interaction.
“Miss Karaline, I need to practice writing more. I’m bad at it”.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, because Miss Karaline, I got a 62% in spelling, so that means I’m a bad writer”.
Who hasn’t that conversation?
For Karaline, this takes her on a tour of the pressure put on students and Mental Health. It will get you thinking.
Jennifer Casa-Todd offers some suggestions in this post about Digital Citizenship. As she notes, thankfully, we’ve got past the concept of scaring Digital Citizenship principles into students.
So, what are the alternatives?
Jennifer has written the book Social LEADia which contains many ideas and this post supplements the materials in her book with links to resources and other ideas. (link the Twitter and Blog listings of students and the revised ISTE Digital Citizen standards and more)
When I read the title of Sue Dunlop’s post, I was hoping that it didn’t deal with those goofy surveys that you see online so frequently. “What is your Viking name?” …
This past year, I’ve completed the Implicit Bias Test , the Quiet Revolution Personality Test (introvert or extrovert?) and most recently, the Strengths Test and the 4Di questionnaire.
And she didn’t. You can click through and get a sense of what these surveys are about. I like her rationale about trying to find out the inner Sue and what skills that she has that can contribute towards teamwork.
I had a superintendent once who had us do a couple of these types of surveys and we followed up with a discussion about the results (without getting too personal). His goal was to try to put together the best team possible as well.
Reflections on #TheMathPod with Cathy Fosnot: The Meaning of Context
voicEd Radio is back with more discussions about the teaching of mathematics with Cathy Fosnot. The recent show talked about the importance of providing context with activities.
Deborah McCallum took the time to blog about her reflections from the show.
I suspect that we’re going to hear so much about the “back to basics” approach as well as some of the newer approaches as Ontario revisits things like curriculum and testing.
Deborah hones in on what I think is the most important idea worth understanding for everyone. That is the sequencing of the rich tasks that students undertake.
This is a good post and those who are following the MathPod would be well advised to give it a read. And, ideally, write a post or two of their own.
Media Monsters: Harvey, Boycotts, Intersectionality and Slacktivism
Wow, where do you go after a blog post title like that?
That’s not all that Diana Maliszewski addresses either. She manages to also include jury duty, Marshall McLuhan, her AQ course, and #WomenBoycottTwitter
As I said, she addresses all of these at a personal and societal level. I’m impressed with her for taking them all on.
One person may not seem to be able to solve all of these things but let’s not forget Margaret Mead’s message.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
At the end, Diana seems to question herself and I’m sorry to read that. I don’t think anyone, anywhere should question a decision that they’ve made of solid personal principle. I’m impressed that she stood for what she believes.
Helen DeWaard is “a Creative Commons teacher.” I thought that to be an interesting opening statement and anxiously read on to get a sense of where she was coming from.
She does describe the journey. Attribution is an interesting and important topic. We lived and died by it as university students. I would suggest that it was easier then. We didn’t have the quick and easy access to copy/paste facilities to be able to do all that we can today. It’s an important topic and one that should be addressed any time that students are asked to create works.
My answer has always been that the first action should be to have students create their own but there are times when you have to go beyond that. Helen talks about “fair use” and I would have liked her to discuss “fair dealing” as it applies to Ontario teachers.
She does have some questions. Here are my answers.
How do you attribute the works of others that you include in your own creative works?
I prefer to use a free to use service like morguefile.com but when that doesn’t work, I’ll use a service that creates an attribution to use. The irony of copying/pasting that isn’t lost on me.
How do you license your creative work to let others know how they can use or share these artifacts?
On my “About” page, you’ll find this.
Inclusive Classrooms: A Must Do
There’s an interesting introduction to this post and its rationale from Jessica Gladu.
Her words:
Teachers “are expected to deal with more diverse student populations than ever before” (Bennett 1). In preparation for this, a requirement of our B.Ed. is to complete a class called “Inclusive Classrooms”. This two part class focuses on the education of students with exceptionalities and prioritizes strategies that allow for the inclusion of students with exceptionalities in the classroom. This class is an excellent source of information that helps teacher candidates become inclusive classroom teachers.
I hope that the ultimate message isn’t that you can address this in a two part class. The realities are that, as Jessica notes, there is no such thing as a “regular classroom”. Heck, students are so dynamic that even a classroom dynamic one day can be completely different the next day. Understanding the diversity is a daily concern. Embracing it is the hallmark of a successful teacher.
You got it. It’s been another wonderful week of insightful posts from Ontario Educators. Please click through and check out all these posts and drop off a comment or two.
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Every Wednesday morning at 9:15 on voicEd Radio, Stephen Hurley and I talk about some of the great posts that appear from Ontario Edubloggers. The shows are also archived and you can revisit them here.
doug -- off the record 
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