It’s anything but business as usual, my friends. Please stay safe.
Here are some of the latest great reading I’ve done from the blogs of Ontario Edubloggers. Please help me keep the Livebinder up to date. If your blog doesn’t appear there, please consider adding it. If you have a blog there and have abandoned it, let me know so that I can take it down.
From Jennifer Casa-Todd, an interesting post about Podcasting with students. Podcasting isn’t new; as long as there was Audacity and a microphone on a computer, people have been recording themselves talking about things.
There appears to be a renewed interest lately and I’d like to think that we’re celebrating everyone’s voice more than ever. In this case, and it comes as no surprise since it’s from Jennifer, the focus here is about amplifying student voice.
Jennifer shares her experiences here and has collected resources in a Wakelet document for all to enjoy.
You can’t possibly disagree with her reasons for why you’d want to podcast with students. It’s never been as easy to do as it is today.
Teachers, Copyright, and Fair Dealing: Know your rights and know your limits!
I feel kind of bad about this but I missed Fair Dealing Week.
Thanks to Peter Beens though for raising the importance of Fair Dealing when considering classroom resources. He reminds us of the Fair Dealing Decision Tool.
Through navigation, you’re only a click or two away from advice about whether or not you can use a particular resource in your classroom.
More details about Fair Dealing can be found here.
100 Episodes: Looking Back and Learning Forward
One of the truly nice people that I’ve had the pleasure to meet on social media is Ramona Meharg. Our paths have crossed a number of times, in a number of different ways.
Obviously, I’m a fan of her blog but I’m also a fan of her Podcast series “I Wish I Knew Edu“.
Through her podcast, she introduces us to a number of educators who discuss things that they wish they’d known when they got into education. I was honoured to be #3 in her list which now has hit
Congratulations, Ramona. The first 100 are the hardest!
Check out her post for a little history of how she got there.
Getting On Board With Your Children’s Interests
Given that may people will be enjoying their family for three weeks this March, this post from the Umbrella Project couldn’t come at a better time!
There’s a suggestion there that would have been great for last summer. But, hopefully, you can remember some of the activities that children raved about from back then!
We can best support our child’s sense of purpose by noticing their sparks of interest and presenting them with a range of possibilities that align with those intrinsic interests. It’s tempting to think we know what is best for our children, but imposing these ideas on them rarely builds the purpose we were hoping for. Here are some direct tips to help you out:
Unfortunately, the infographic that is alluded to in the post was not accessible by me. But, there is a link to a Facebook page where you’ll find all kinds of great ideas.
And, for students, information about a $500 Scholarship!
In Sheila Stewart’s latest post, she takes on recent changes to the way that Twitter has changed what you see when you log in after having been away for a while.
At the risk of disagreeing with Sheila, I kind of like the approach – at least when I find value in the content that Twitter shares for me.
Part of what appeals to me about social media has always been the ability to break out of whatever bubble I have surrounded myself with. It challenges my assumptions and takes me off in different directions.
On the other hand, there’s the flip side of this. There will be people that I don’t know that end up reading my stuff out of the blue for them. I wonder what they think about it – and by extension, me.
Sheila explores the concept that Twitter’s actions move your content from semi-private to more public. Therein is a reminder that we’ve known for a long time “don’t do stupid things”.
If nothing else, it’s a wakeup call to think about how you use social media and for what. Did you agree to be this open when you signed up or would you consider making all your messages private or locked only for followers like Sheila is thinking?
I know that I addressed the efforts of these two ladies on Monday’s post but I’d like to bring it forward again this Friday in case you missed it. I think it’s a great call to action for all educators during these challenging times. Rather than just sharing the efforts of some company who is providing some activities for home use, consider publishing your own list of activities and resources that are Canadian content and based on expectations from the Ontario Curriculum.
Please note that all activities don’t involved learning how to use Zoom, Skype, Meet or some other online service from scratch. There are amazing things that can be done otherwise.
Deb Weston – Stay Home Activities for Kids
Upon hearing that my students could be at home for up to 3 weeks due to an “extended March Break”, I started putting a list together of “kid” things to do. Once my students discovered I was writing this list, they gave me many more activities to keep kids busy at home.
Aviva Dunsiger – Kindergarten From Home: Here Are My Suggestions. What Are Yours?
Never would I have thought that I would need to write a post like this one, and yet, sometimes the unexpected happens. Every Friday, I start my day by reading Doug Peterson‘s This Week In Ontario Edublogs post. Just like with all of Doug’s blog posts, I know that he writes and schedules this Friday post the day before (often earlier in the day, I think). When he chose to include John Allan’s post, he wouldn’t have known that by Thursday evening we would all find out that Ontario schools would be closed for an additional two weeks following the March Break.
Please click through and enjoy all of these terrific posts.
Then, follow the authors on Twitter.
- Jennifer Casa-Todd – @JCasaTodd
- Peter Beens – @pbeens
- Ramona Meharg – @RamonaMeharg
- The Umbrella Project – @umbrellapjct
- Sheila Stewart – @SheilaSpeaking
- Deb Weston – @DrDWestonPhD
- Aviva Dunsiger – @avivaloca
This post appeared on:
https://dougpete.wordpress.com
If you read it anywhere else, it’s not the original.
doug --- off the record 