And it’s a very special Friday in Ontario….
Enjoy these offerings from Ontario Edubloggers.
Tim King’s recent post is one that’s all too familiar to educators. It’s about professional development that he received for a student hard of hearing in his classroom. It’s only about a month into the second semester though.
And, in the technology classroom with its potentially dangerous tools, it’s really important to be able to ensure that all students know about the safety issues.
we are working hands on with 400° soldering irons, sharp edges and live electricity
It seems to me that this professional development should have been made available in this case before the class started to ensure that all students understand and are aware of how to be safe in that environment.
Speaking of environment, one piece of the advice for was
In the PD it was also suggested that we have acoustically effective rooms by covering walls and floors with soft surfaces that don’t create hard, echoey soundscapes
How do you do that in just about any classroom, never mind a shop area?
With cuts bleeding the system, what else will be affected?
Proofreader or Instructional Leader?
If creating report cards for a class is a tough job, imagine reading an entire school’s worth in the principal’s chair. We know that, for any job, a second set of eyes is always helpful.
Sue Bruyns argues that it’s more than just looking for spelling mistakes.
In this post, she indicates all of the other things that she looks for as she checks out the messages that will be going home to parents. As important as spelling is, for her the message about the school and its place in social circles is equally as important.
I think this is a good post for all administrators to read; I’m sure that many will find themselves nodding affirmation as they go through it. Others might add a few new things to their check lists.
For those creating report cards, it’s a reminder of how important that message can be and might give you some ideas of your own for the future.
I did crack a smile when Sue shared her strategy for dealing with those who were unfortunate enough to be named toward the end of the alphabet… how about those of us mid-way, Sue?
We all know the answer to that – great things happen.
It’s always interesting to see what motivates these great things. In this post from Rola Tibshirani, it was curiosity about a dead bird.
Which led them to Facebook and Twitter which led them to the Ottawa Valley Wild Bird Care which led them to Patty McLaughlin which led them to that expert visiting their classroom which led to a inquiry/passion based research project guided by design thinking.
It’s a wonderful post describing how educational dominoes tipped over to make it happen.
Have a read; it might inspire you to think differently about creativity and to keep your eyes open for the next bit of classroom inspiration.
New books: take an eReading March break!
Just in time for March Break, the Professional Library from the Toronto District School Board offers some professional titles for “over the break” reading.
This is great for the educators in the TDSB.
Going into any library can be an intimidating experience and we’re so fortunate to have teacher-librarians to stay on top of the latest and greatest titles for us.
Even if you’re not with the TDSB, and you’re looking for some reading over the break, stay away from the newspapers (they’re just so depressing), read this blog, and check out what your own district offers. And, if they don’t have the titles listed here, perhaps a friendly suggestion would be in order.
The release of the new food guide raised a few eyebrows around here. Disclosure – I married the farmer’s daughter and that farmer was a dairy farmer. We were both surprised at the recommendation that water should be your first choice; it always had been milk.
Anyway, Stepan Pruchnicky uses the new guide as inspiration for better eating among students. He addresses a couple of concerns
- eating healthy is a more expensive option
- many of the new guide’s recommendations require some kitchen skills
and offers some suggestions. They’re nicely thought through.
With respect to the above, I could see
- more interest in creating school community gardens
- connections with associated secondary schools which often offer hospitality and food services programs and have rooms devoted to this – field trip!
What would you suggest?
Spending time with professional teachers
While looking for thoughts from people that attended the ACSE Conference, I ran into this post from Emmanuelle Deaton from Hatch Coding, a vendor in that field.
I enjoyed her quick overview of the conference and her name dropping indicated that she did make some good connections there. It would have been a great opportunity for her to participate by giving a lightning round presentation.
I thought this comment from Emmanuelle interesting.
I also noted with interest that, like us at Hatch Coding, most teachers at ACSE are all “coded” out. That is to say, that the co-opting of the term “coding” by anyone with a toy robot and the co-opting of the term “curriculum” by anyone with anything to sell in STEAM is having a deleterious impact on pedagogy.
People are indeed doing some great things with their robots but it’s still found in pockets of excellence or pockets of experimentation. Where it fits into the big scheme of things hasn’t been totally fleshed out and the inconsistency can be frustrating.
Still, there are people making big bucks with fly by keynote speeches talking of the value of coding in various forms.
The Hatch Coding blog doesn’t allow for comments on posts but there is an email link if you have strong feelings and want to share them.
Design Thinking and 3D printing challenges
Jen Apgar told me once that she didn’t blog. It’s too bad because I thought that she did a nice job with this post in the Elementary Special Interest Group for ECOO on TeachOntario.
She attended a Skills Challenge for students in the Junior years.
With the support of InkSmith the students had learned how to go through a design thinking process, were given the choice of 4 different users to solve for (3 humans and 1 dog) and then designed their first prototype on a web based version of Tinkercad. Then on the day of the challenge then received their printed prototype, and tested and made modifications and they were then given an additional problem that would require them to iterate again.
It sounded like an interesting event. I wonder – are these types of skills developed everywhere?
I’ll apologize here; it’s been my goal to share blog posts that are in the free and open. This one is behind a login/password on the TeachOntario site which is available for free to all Ontario educators. If you do go through the efforts to log in, you might as well join the Special Internet Group and look for other content there.
It’s been another week of great writing and reading from inspirational Ontario educators. I hope that you can find time to check out the original posts before you go south, skiing, or just sink into the couch and relax next week.
Before you do, make sure you’re inspired enough to follow these educators on Twitter.
This post was originally posted to:
https://dougpete.wordpress.com
If you found it anywhere else, it’s not original.
doug -- off the record 
Please share your thoughts here. I’d enjoy reading them.