Following the voicEd Radio show on Wednesday, here’s the full blog post version of some of the great things I’ve been reading from Ontario Edubloggers lately.
There has been much written and shared about the announcements from Toronto about changes to education in Ontario. In this post, Brenda Sherry shares her resume of involvement in education over the past 31 years. She has seen and been a leader in education at so many levels and speaks out, sharing her feelings over the announcements.
More than her experiences, she encourages listening to student voice…
Our way of being in Ontario schools is to welcome THEIR voices and to deal with the realities of THEIR world, no matter how uncomfortable the issues or the terminology might seem to the adults around them. And their world is NOT 1998. They are coming out to us AT SCHOOL about bullying, their gender and sexuality, violence, mental health concerns, and social and economic inequities, and we are here to support them.
It’s a well written and passionate post that all Ontario educators would be advise to read and share within their networks.
Brenda isn’t just another hack sitting behind a keyboard. She knows of which she speaks. While I haven’t known her for all 31 years, I’ve known her for a long time. She knows how people learn and is one of the brains behind Bring IT, Together’s Minds on Media.
Shopping at Sephora: Stressor or So Much Fun?
Like Lisa Cranston, I have two daughters and I know that the two of them are certainly not the same. In this case, Lisa describes the persona of her two and ties it into buying eye shadow for herself.
I had to smile as she painted the story of shopping and texting for their advice. I could just see it happening. I guess the end of the story is that she was successful in her purchase.
Beyond Lisa’s story though, there’s a really important message for educators.
Sense of Number versus Number sense
Our new government is calling for a “back to basics” and let’s get rid of “discovery math” but all of this is rhetoric by politicians who don’t understand how students development a sense of number.
Among the announcements from Toronto is a change in how mathematics might be taught. Jonathan So takes on this change and adds a personal touch in her daughter’s challenges with mathematics.
I feel that he correctly identifies that success in mathematics lies in an amalgam of approaches. As every teacher knows, if you aren’t successful the first time around, you drop back and take a different approach. And, you don’t give up until you’re successful.
Jonathan’s post includes a number of links to some great resources; he’s become a strong voice for the learning of mathematics so you just know that they will be good. Bookmark them now for the summer.
Jonathan – I can offer you one look into the future as a teacher raising kids. There will come a day when you’ll get told after you spot public mistakes in language, mathematics, science, etc. …
Daaaaad — you’re such a teacher
It’s a nice badge to have. Wear it well!
Is It Time For All Of Us To Stand Up?
Inspired by a Twitter message from Andrew Campbell, Aviva Dunsiger shares some of her thoughts about the sex education part of the Health and Physical Education curriculum document controversy.
The big takeaway here is curiosity which is often at the heart of sex education. When is the time to address the topics? In typical Aviva fashion, she has many questions and they’re easy to find since she highlights them in a different colour.
Her post serves as a reminder that curiousity starts early. Remember that she’s a kindergarten teacher.
Mark these as “conversations from the field”.
I don’t want to make the widesweeping statement that those making policy haven’t been in schools in years. They may well have been. But, listening to those that will be affected is crucial. Kids really are different today.
My parents didn’t teach me about digital literacy
Mine didn’t either.
It’s nice to get in on the ground floor of any initiative and this is the first blog post of (I hope) many from Gerry Smith. As he correctly notes…
This falls from a reflection of being a 1:1 school with 700 students. Does this mean that our traditional way of thinking about media and print literacy has changed? He provides research evidence that supports this.
I wonder though … I think many teacher-librarians would argue that their practice is on understanding the content rather than the change in media.
On the other hand, there’s Marshall McLuhan.
Where do you stand? Show some blog loving to Gerry and check in.
Village Impact Trip (July 2018)
Joe Archer is 11 days away (at his writing) of what he’s calling the “trip of a lifetime” to Africa. He’s going to be using a OneNote notebook to keeptrack of things.
This looks to be very interesting from the initial description and I’ll be following along with the learning that he shares.
It looks like things may be documented via his blog and in the notebook.
On Your Mark, Get Set… Unwind!
How do you put holidays into words? Sue Dunlop does her part in this post.
She talks about three things.
- Time outside
- Reading paper books
- A change in location
It’s pretty hard to disagree with anything on her list. Oddly, she didn’t include bike riding! (See one of her previous posts).
Enjoy your time off, Sue.
And, I hope that everyone is enjoying their time off.
Make sure that you’re following these great bloggers on Twitter.
Please click through and read these blog posts and enjoy. If you’re taking a summer course that involves creating your own blog, please add the link to it in the Ontario Collection of Edubloggers. I’d love to have you there.
doug --- off the record 
Doug, thanks for the amazing opportunity to discuss some of these posts before you actually wrote about them here. I love seeing what you chose to write about the ones we discussed, as well as seeing what you wrote about the other two. Thanks, as always, for connecting Ontario Edubloggers each week through your blog! I wonder how much these connections inspire further writing. It’s great to see and hear some many different voices in education.
Aviva
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