This week’s voicEd Radio show featured Pav Wander and Chey Cheney as guest hosts. They inspired some great conversations and we went well over the hour time limit. If it didn’t all get played live, it is available for playback as a podcast – link below.
Chey and Pav have a rather unique blog. Yes, we’ve looked at a couple of their blog posts in the past but generally, they don’t write the posts themselves.
Instead, they open the blog to anyone who was inspired by their podcasts to share their feelings via a post. As noted on the show and a few times, there is no gatekeeper and so they welcome friendly replies and those from others who challenge them.
In Episode 90 of The Staff Room Podcast, they talked about dealing with the topic of racism and oppression with students. The timing of the podcast was important as it was near the end of the school year and they were reflecting on incidents that had happened in Ontario at the time.
In response to the post, Manuel Garcés Jr. wrote a response. But it was no normal response; in this case he responded with a poem that forces you to slow down to read and interpret its meaning.
Earlier this week, Noa Daniel sent me a link to a YouTube video. Now, we all know and love Noa but my first reaction with any link sent to me – I check it out very carefully to make sure that it’s not a scam. It wasn’t.
Instead, it was a video that was crafted to support her recent book publication.
Around here, it was an instant ear worm.
In the post, Noa shares with us how the video came from an idea to the final product. I was impressed with the connections and how her community came together to make it happen. It’s a great read.
In addition to the story and the video, Noa shares with the community access to a mailing list where ideas for using the book and video will be distributed. If you’re a musician yourself, there’s also a link to the sheet music so that you play it yourself.
As Pav said on the radio show, this blog post reads like it is the liner notes to the song.
How I Approach the First Days and Weeks of School
Yeah, it’s closing in on that time of year. Many people are putting together their plans for the opening of school and Shawna Rothgeb-Bird shares her thoughts and idea for her French Immersion classroom.
I would suspect that everyone will be subjected to rules and criteria for what can happen so these plans may change as September draws closer. It’s an interesting read. As a secondary school teacher, I didn’t have the same type of schedule so I was really interested in the power of her approach to unstructured outdoor play.
I was reminded of this Yogi Berra quote.
“You can observe a lot by just watching.”
Shawna explains what’s she’s observing a watching outside.
- Who already has a social group?
- Who doesn’t seem to have many connections in the class?
- What kinds of activities do they choose?
- Who prefers to hang out with me and chat?
- Who ignores all of the equipment and opts to sit down and read, walk and talk, etc. instead?
In typical Diana Maliszewski fashion, this weekly post from her is complex and touches on a number of issues.
Her commitment to the teacher-librarian community is evident in the learning opportunities that she’s affording educators this summer. She’s involved in two learning events.
- ETFO Academy “SA-04-22 SEEING AND SUPPORTING STUDENT GROWTH: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION”
- Queen’s University Teacher-Librarianship Part 1 AQ
- and she’s agreed to run another late summer one as well
There’s also a section in her about her caring for herself with physical fitness. Like most people, she’s been challenged by the inability to get to her gym and so shares a long story about that. I suspect that she’s writing for many people with the same perspective.
When my wife and I were first going out, it was very common to go into her family’s rec room where her mother would have a quilt on the go. It took up most of the room but it was worth it. The efforts, as it was all done by hand, were terrific. There typically was a solid back and then patchwork on the front gathered from scraps of materials.
As a mathematics nerd, I’d look for patterns in the quilt and often would see them. All of us were gifted with one of these hand made treasures at one point.
If you drive in Kent County, there’s another chance to appreciate the artwork in quilts along the Barn Quilt Trail. It’s an interesting opportunity to drive along and be inspired by these pieces of art.
In this blog post, Terry Whitmell puts another interesting twist to the artistry that goes into quilting. She starts with the mathematics and products a quilt devoted to displaying the mathematics. The post is an interesting read of the process and also includes the use of an Excel worksheet.
The real beauty is that she shares some pictures of the final products. So, if you’re interested in seeing what the Golden Ratio or Fibonacci Sequence looks like as a quilt, click through and see.
SUMMER READING LIST FOR TEACHERS – E054
From the EduGals, Katie Attwell and Rachel Johnson, a podcast and a blog post of books that they’re reading and what they would recommend for other educators to read.
There are some familiar titles in the list and, for me, some new ones.
This is the sort of post to pass along to your school’s community or teacher-librarian to have included in the community’s professional resources.
The 500 – #359 – Honky Chateau – Elton John
I’ve never had the opportunity to see Elton John live in concert. But, my record collection certainly contains his content as well as my CD collection. It just sounds old typing that…
But, this album goes back to 1972. Wow.
It appears in the top 500 list of all time best albums that Marc Hodgkinson found and is now blogging his way through. This really was an awesome listening experience.
Thanks to YouTube, we can enjoy a couple of the songs from that album.
How many times have we seen Rocket Man used as a sound track in other media?
I hope that you can find the time to click through and read all these great blog posts. Then, follow these bloggers on Twitter.
- Chey Cheney – @mrccheney
- Pav Wander – @PavWander
- Noa Daniel – @iamnoadaniel
- Shawna Rothgeb-Bird – @rollforlearning
- Diana Maliszewski – @MzMollyTL
- Terry Whitmell – @TerryWhitmell
- EduGals – @edugals
- Marc Hodgkinson – @Mr_H_Teacher
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