Category: Careers

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

by dougpete, posted in Blogging, Careers, Computers, COVID-19, Education, inspiration, learning, Links, Mathematics, Media, Ontario Edublogs, PLN, Read/Write Web, Teaching, technology, voicEd Radio

There was no voicEd Radio show this week. Those that know, know why.

That didn’t stop the curation of great blog posts from Ontario Edubloggers though. Read on!

How to help older students learn how to read:

I found this interesting as it combines the work of a great thinker (Deborah) and ChatGPT to address this topic. My first thoughts when I read the title was:

  • how could this possibly happen that someone slips through the system and
  • how big is this problem

I found the discussion really interesting and the two of them discussed

  • Explicit instruction
  • Guided reading
  • Reading aloud
  • Independent reading
  • Collaborative reading
  • Vocabulary instruction
  • Assisting with text decoding
  • Promoting a love of reading

The descriptions above really didn’t provide new information for me; your mileage may vary.

The discussion gets deeper with the research from The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. There are some ideas to dig into there.

The post is presented so you don’t really know who is writing it – Deborah or ChatGPT but I liked her approach. Sure, you could sit back and let ChatGPT write the post but I liked her use of the topic and the tool to help her with the writing.

This is one of the best, practical leading by example posts that I’ve seen to date. If she hadn’t been open and honest about it, you’d never know that it was a partnership.

#OneWord2023

A post NOT from Mark as he counts down the top 500 songs. It was a nice and interesting diversion.

In the past, he’s used the one words Revitalize, Mindfulness, Cultivate, Persist, Discomfort, Ameliorate & Appreciate.

This year, he has chosen Vitality and has been very open about how he plans to address it. I got tired and hungry just reading them!

Not only is he open about his plans but he shares a lesson that he uses with students to encourage each of them to find their own one word. We’ve all seen the concept of SMART goals – this is his spin on how to get students to set meaningful goals.

Slice of (21st Century) Life

Lisa’s post hit a little too close to home for me.

I’ve had a number of dear friends and colleagues pass or fall incredibly ill recently. I’ll admit that I got a call from a dear friend notifying me of another dear friend last night while in the park walking the dog. I did not take the news well.

In this post, Lisa shares her story that had her “transported 40 years into the past”. Lisa does give us a personal insight into her thoughts and the process of a virtual funeral. Likewise, I had to attend a virtual funeral of a best friend from high school and room mate from university. Funerals are hard at the best of times but when you do it virtually, I find it even worse. At a regular funeral, there is an opportunity to gather with family and friends. At the end of a virtual funeral, there’s just nothing. It just stops.

She closes philosophically about virtual funerals but it’s just not the same and surely there’s got to be a better way to handle them.

In the meantime, I’m sending you a big hug, Lisa.

The Best way to start the New Year with your class!

I suspect that everyone was expecting the return to face to face teaching as being an opportunity for teachers and students to shed the awfulness of Covid and get back to being their best in a classroom situation.

I’m hearing stories all over the place about how that hasn’t happened.

A couple of years ago, Amy had created this product for sale through her personal store and has updated it for 2022 and the new reality.

If you’re interested in a little support about hoe to “Be Your Best Self Now”, this might just be what you’re looking for.

Top Gun: Maverick and Authentic School Leadership

I had to smile a bit as I write this.

I almost didn’t read to the end of this post because it read like a movie review. But, I’m glad that I did stick because the concept of school leadership does come up!

As I think about it, I can think of some who became school leaders and it was all about them. It seemed that getting that leadership role was the ultimate goal.

Then I think of so many who became school leaders and did it well. People would apply to change schools to have this person for a leader. Or, if they were leading a workshop, their sessions were always full and a waiting list. The others, not so much.

A common theme among educators is that 2023 is a year like no other. Strong leadership is needed everywhere if everyone is going to succeed. If you see yourself as a leader or you aspire to be a leader, this is a beautiful read that will make you feel good and will inspire you to do better.

What an interesting collection this week. I loved reading them all and they all inspired various emotions in me. Please click through and see how you feel.

Then, follow these folks on Twitter.

  • Deborah McCallum @Bigideasinedu
  • Mark Hodgkinson – @Mr_H_Teacher
  • Lisa Corbett – @LisaCorbett0261
  • Amy Bowker – @amyebowker
  • Anthony Perrotta – @aperrottatweets

This is a regular Friday post on doug — off the record. You can check them all out here.

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This Week in Ontario Edublogs

by dougpete, posted in Blogging, Careers, Computers, Education, Humour, inquiry, inspiration, learning, Media, Ontario Edublogs, PLN, podcasting, Read/Write Web, social media, Teaching, technology, voicEd Radio

This has just been an amazing week for the weather. Yes, it’s sweatshirt and toque in the morning but later on, it’s been t-shirt time. You can’t beat that.

Today is Remembrance Day. Please recognize.

Full-Serve Gas Stations And UDL: How Might The Two Connect?

I’ll be honest; I didn’t see the connection. I had a back and forth with Aviva about this and she updated her thinking in the post. During the voicEd Radio show, Stephen moved me a little closer to understanding the connection but I still don’t entirely see it.

But that’s not the big point of this post to me.

Regular readers know that Sunday mornings, this blog features a post called “Whatever happened to …“. For me, it’s a fun post that doesn’t require a whole lot of research and just my thoughts about a topic. I’ve written 337 posts with that title.

Aviva wrote her own “Whatever happened to …” post and it dealt with the shortage of Full-Serve Gas Stations in her world and did a great job. I think it’s much deeper than my fluffy ones are. I thought about around here and we have two self-serves in the town proper and one north of town and another south although it might technically be in Essex.

I can remember when self-serve was a real novelty and you got to save 3 or 4 cents per litre and, these days, that’s a good and welcome thing. Who wouldn’t want to with every fillup?

It turns out that one of those is Aviva – and with her new job, she’s doing more driving than ever. In the post, she reveals something about herself and the reason why she wants to and needs to use full-serve. It’s an interesting read and makes me wonder how many others are in the same boat as Aviva?

October Multiple Choice for English Teachers

For me, this amplified another skill that Amanda has – the ability to write humour and satire. I did laugh out loud at a couple of the questions (particularly option 4 for the questions…)

Here’s one….

  • How often do you eat lunch?
    • Daily. With my students. I supervise a club every day. Interactions with students are paramount.
    • Every day. With my colleagues.
    • I mean, I eat…
    • I keep forgetting to pack a lunch. Yesterday I gave a student some money when he took a “bathroom break” and he brought me a McDonald’s hamburger and some fries.

This was such a wonderful break from all the serious stuff that is happening these days.

Do yourself a favour and take her quiz. You might end up laughing real tears like I did!

New Approaches to Old Favourites

Have you ever wanted to see Diana in a French Maid outfit? Then, this is the post for you.

It started innocently and professionally…

In Grade 2 Social Studies, one of the expectations is “compare ways in which some traditions have been celebrated over multiple generations in their family and identify some of the main reasons for changes in these traditions”. Lately, this expectation has gotten easier to teach, as COVID has forced many changes.

Then, we turn to pumpkin carving. But, finally dressing for Hallowe’en.

Now, many teachers will dress for Hallowe’en – we were encouraged not to at my school because it was supposed to be just another academic day. Many teachers did anyway and I eventually did dig out my cowboy boots and farm gear. How sad is it that I still had it?

But, you wear the costume and you do it for the kids.

Operative word here is “the costume”.

Diana had a number of costume changes during her day. Who does that? Well, Diana, of course. She’s one in a million and one of the absolutely most wonderful connections that I’ve made on social media that has turned into a connection in real life.

Emperor penguins choose to be endangered

Doug was on fire at the keyboard this week. I counted three blog posts from him that made me smile. As Stephen noted on the show, it takes a very special talent to write satire. Maybe we should lock Doug and Amanda up in a room with a computer and not allow them out until they produce something.

According to Doug’s reporting, there was a failed attempt to write an all-penguin version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and the penguins did not take it well and agreed to be added to the world’s endangered list.

Who thinks of stuff like that? Certainly not me; just glad that Doug’s around to keep it fresh.

Also, check out these other posts from his creative mind and keyboard.

Extinction not all that bad who knew

Bug out

Late breaking related news: Tim Hortons brand soup base recalled for containing insects (Thanks, Doug, for this late breaking news…)

The Power of Parenting: Stepping back to connect with your strong-willed child

This week’s podcast featured an interview with Allison Livingston on Lynn’s podcast.

As a former principal, Lynn would be perfectly placed to have this particular conversation. As a parent of three, I wondered what parent wouldn’t think that they had dealt with strong-willed children.

I found it an interesting conversation that would be of interest to educators and parents everywhere. I felt a little sorry that it ended; I’m sure the two of them could have carried that conversation on much longer than the 30 minutes they did.

It’s packed with all kinds of tips and observations and Lynn is good enough to include a transcript of the conversation so that you can enjoy it at a different level. I enjoy conversations but also like to replay the message at time and I find a transcript is more helpful than trying to move the scrubber bar.

Can Art Make a Difference?

I think that most people would respond to this question with a resounding yes.

Colleen is generously devoting the product of her amazing painting skills as a fundraiser for Health Care in Nipigon and Thunder Bay.

This generous offering is in remembrance of a friend that Colleen lost this year. Complete details are in the post.

smashing pumpkin spiced thinking – school edition

Well, Will, I happen to like pumpkin pie. I don’t know if that follows from the title of the post. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of most other things that happen to be pumpkin spiced just because they can.

Will uses the pumpkin analogy to take us into a discussion of following the crowd. Like Will, in my first year, I wanted to follow what I thought was the tried and true way of teaching things.

The problem, for me anyway, was the excitement of being the teacher did not equate to the excitement that I had learning as a student. Of course, in the computer programming classroom, the state of technology and its power had changed. As a student, I learned one way. As a classroom teacher, I had to teach to students who learned roughly 6 x 25 different way.

I really enjoyed reading about how Will reminisced about how his teaching practice changed when he realized that he had to move on and grow in the profession. I like to think I did; I like to think that all teachers do, albeit at different rates and in different ways.

If you’re looking for a bit of inspiration to spur you along professionally, then you need to click through and read this wonderful post.

It’s another Friday where we can celebrate some wonderful writing from Ontario Educators. Do yourself a professional favour and click through to enjoy.

Then, as Will would say, add value to your PLN and follow these folks on Twitter.

  • Aviva Dunsiger – @avivaloca
  • Amanda Potts – @Ahpotts
  • Diana Maliszewski – @MzMollyTL
  • Doug McDowall – @dougzone2_1
  • Lynn McLaughlin – @lynnmcla
  • Colleen Rose – @ColleenKR
  • Will Gourley – @WillGourley

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

by dougpete, posted in Blogging, Careers, Computers, COVID-19, Education, inquiry, inspiration, learning, Media, Media Literacy, Ontario Edublogs, Read/Write Web, social media, Teaching, voicEd Radio

Happy Friday! If you’re looking for some great blog posts, you’ve come to the right place. Ontario Edubloggers are the best!

Media Literacy: I’m Still Stuck on Selfies

A long, long time ago I had a superintendent who was a big Apple fanboy and he’d attended a conference where the speaker held up an iPod Classic and pronounced that the future was going to be like this device. You could store every song you’d ever want to listen to in it and do amazing things. I did get one of these devices as a result of that speaker and it was nice for music but not much else. I still have it. There were a lot of futuristic speakers who talked about this and subsequent devices being the future of education and that students would be able to access all the information in the world on it.

It was actually one of the times that these futurists were potentially right. Students do have these devices and can do amazing things like teaching their teacher

“They’ve tried to get me to dance with only my hands, showed me how to take pictures while still on a locked screen, save videos on platforms I thought were only for taking pictures in the moment, use prior content and layer it with music, then different music, and then different pictures.“

But, do they really use it to the best advantage?

Matthew has some fun at his own expense sharing a story about his attempts to address media literacy with students who were more interested in knowing if he has a Facebook account.

How would you handle the scenario that he describes? Let’s face it; we’re all trailing somebody when it comes to technology. But, if you can learn from them, that’s got to be a good thing, right?

And, Matthew, I’ve been in situations like you described so many times. Enjoy the fact that you’re not arrogant enough to say that they’re wrong and that you are the only one with the correct answer. Keep on learning.

The Audacity

If you ever get the chance to hang out with Colleen, you need to do it. I had the good fortune to do so years ago when I was involved with the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario. You can have an engaging conversation with her about anything and secretly marvel when she doodles something marvellous like the time she caught me taking notes at a conference. I’ll always treasure this sketch of me. It’s my Twitter profile picture and I value her friendship so much that I doubt that I’ll ever change it.

She makes no apologies for being so artistic but takes to this post to talk about the audacity lesson she had while listening to a podcast. Nerdy me thought that she was going to talk about the software Audacity when I read the title.

In the post, she pretty much dissed me (I love it when I read the content of a post and make it personal) because I haven’t had the audacity to take on so many challenges and do something about them.

I think about something that I’ve done within the past six months. I sat on it for over a year before I decided to do it one day. The results? Well, they weren’t what I had expected and that was a little disappointing but I have comfort in knowing that I did it. It took a while before I pulled the trigger but pull I did.

Would I have done it sooner if she’d blogged and challenged me sooner? What other challenges will I take on? More importantly, what sorts of things do you have the audacity to do? Read Colleen’s post and get inspired to do it.

On Being a Bad Person

This is a long, perhaps difficult for you to read, post. I know that it was for me.

I like to think of things in black and white. That way, there are easy answers. Probably, in my mind, I would have thought that good and bad people would be easy to understand.

That is until I read Marie’s post where she addresses three things

The first was perhaps the easiest to see because very few people would ever be in the position of rescuing a drowning child. It’s one of those hypothetical things that are easy to embrace. So, it would be easy to see good and bad from reading the post. Marie messes with your mind though by giving a number of scenarios that might play out. Work your way through the scenarios and see if you have any easy answers.

The second is personal and I give her credit for sharing it but I would prefer not to comment.

The third deals with society’s treatment of Covid.

Covid is taking far more lives than drunk drivers and sober drivers,

We have no problems with cracking down on drunk drivers because it’s the absolutely right thing to do. Why is Covid different?

I’m still on the edge when it comes to Covid. We voted in the advance polls and stood in line between 45 minutes and an hour, with our masks on. We were absolutely in the minority. We could have taken those with masks on and easily got into a minivan.

If you’re like me, you won’t be able to read this blog post just once and then move on.

Creating Read-Aloud Calendars

I love this concept.

As the father of three kids, I can recall them bringing home monthly calendars that had been duplicated over and over again to the point where it became embarrassing to have them on the fridge when company came over.

As a workshop leader, I can remember showing people how to use KidPix or Microsoft Publisher to make cleaner, clearer, and importantly unique calendars

In this post, Jen, inspired by Elizabeth Lyons, uses Canva to create “read-aloud calendars”.

Now, these aren’t your normal classroom calendars – as Jen points out, it goes far further than that and addresses a literacy concern that she has and is using Elizabeth’s idea as inspiration for her own.

I’d suggest taking a look at this and seeing if it fits into your monthly routine.

Nicely done, ladies.

This Is Leadership – EP4: Gilles Séguin

On his Leadership podcast, Joel interviews Gilles Séguin, apparently a friend and they’re renewing that friendship while talking about leadership.

I found Gilles’ observation on leadership and the hit that it’s taken during Covid very interesting. Who can argue that we look out for others less now than before?

He does share his thoughts about paying it forward and what we all can do. There are some great thoughts here and the bicycle story was awesome.

They turned the discussion toward students leaving high school and the challenges that they face. From my notes …

  • Challenges for students leaving high school 
    • Not everyone starts in the same place
    • Most people are oriented to results and not process
    • Not prepared academically or in life – we’ve made it easy for this generation – not doing them any favours by not making them do chores etc.
    • Buffalo run toward a storm to get through it quickly
    • Pillars – control your day, mindset, and process

I did do some personal fact-checking about buffalo running to a storm and couldn’t find anything definitive but it certainly generated a lot of discussion and that’s a good thing.

I always enjoy listening to inspirational speakers and so thoroughly enjoyed this podcast from beginning to end. At times, it felt like being in a keynote address at a conference. You just might feel that too.

What’s Now?

I’ve known Aviva long enough to remember the last time she had a big career move. It was all over Twitter – should she change her Twitter handle (she did) – will her knees hold up getting down on the floor and the ground with the littles, etc.

Well, she’s made another move and outlines it in this post. I remember a gentleman who was thrust into our Department that called people that moved into different positions “climbers” and it sounds like she had to deal with the same sort of questions.

  • Was I looking to become a principal?
  • Did I want to become a consultant?
  • Would I ever go back to the classroom?
  • Did I want a change of grades?

Those really aren’t fair questions but it goes with the process, I guess.

I get the sense through reading this and my interactions with her that this wasn’t an easy decision to make. Let’s face it; it’s never easy in education and probably any other profession. We all wish her luck.

Do you remember what her former Twitter handle was?

New Job? No Problem

How about this for timely commentary from the TESLOntario blog.

Like Aviva, Heather has assumed a new position. She didn’t mention if she got the questions about the motive for moving in the post but I’ll bet there is some overlap.

Instead, she’s laying out a plan for herself that is wise for anyone who moves to a new position.

  • Occupy a learner position 
  • Connect with your colleagues 
  • Bridge knowledge gaps

I know that we all wish her the best in her new position.

The best advice I ever got that still sticks with me – find out the name of the head secretary at any school that you visit and introduce yourself including their name in the conversation. It opens so many doors when the person who really runs the school is on your side.

I hope that you’ll agree that there is a whole lot of great reading (listening) again this week. Please find some time to appreciate it.

Then, connect with these folks on Twitter.

  • Matthew Morris – @callmemrmorris
  • Colleen Rose – @ColleenKR
  • Marie Snyder – @MarieSnyder27
  • Jen Aston – @mmejaston
  • Joel McLean – @jprofNB
  • Aviva Dunsiger – @avivaloca
  • Heather Donnelly on the TESL Blog – @TESLOntario

This Week in Ontario Edublogs on voicEd Radio

0:00 Stephen and Doug chat
0:10 Matthew Morris – Media Literacy: I’m Still Stuck on Selfies
0:20 Colleen Rose – The Audacity
0:30 Marie Snyder – On Being a Bad Person
0:40 Jen Aston – Creating Read-Aloud Calendars
0:50 Joel McLean – This Is Leadership – EP4: Gilles Séguin

First jobs

by dougpete, posted in Careers

“You’re only job is to be a student”

These were the words from my Mom that still echo today and Dad supported it. It would be the answer I’d get every time I wanted to get a job after school when I was in high school. Getting good marks and going to university was the mantra for their parenting. Given how we look at things these days and our present financial reality, it does seem dated.

I didn’t know what I’d do for a job; we lived in a small community so maybe packing groceries or something? Who knows? I didn’t have a plan. Now, I wasn’t destitute. There were periodic opportunities to babysit or catch turkeys but there was nothing steady or predictable. Except for my marks – they were pretty good!

This past Saturday, I went to a triple-header football event. Mic Mac Park,. with its two football fields, where the grandkids normally play was closed because Windsor was doing drive-through voting so we were to be re-routed to St. Clair College. That fell through because the football field had been transformed into a baseball diamond for a championship so we ended up at Tecumseh Vista School with its beautiful single field and limited parking. So, instead of playing 2-2-2, it was 1-1-1-1-1-1 for the games. We were in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th games. I brought a lawn chair and set it up for the duration.

It was about 10 degrees and windy. By the end of the first game, it was cold so I grabbed one of the football players to go with me to Tim Horton’s for a coffee. I don’t know Tecumseh well but I know that there’s just about one of everything at Manning Road and County Road 22. So did everyone else apparently with the long traffic line, so we parked and walked in to get our coffee. Right behind us, there was a young lady who had incredibly nice dreadlocks dyed alternatively red and purple. I probably wouldn’t have noticed her otherwise. She was holding a folder which seemed different for it not being a school day, but hey. I didn’t notice much else except the counter on the wall ticking away for each customer at the drive-through window and remember thinking that someone does a time and motion study as a job and the results impact performance at the store.

As we were about to leave, I noticed a Kentucky Fried Chicken store and decided to up my bid for grandfather of the year. “Do you guys like KFC?| “Heck yeah!”

So, we drove over and went in. In a couple of seconds, the young lady appeared again. I said to her “are you following us?” and got a nice smile. This time, in the small store, we were waiting for our order and I noticed her step to the counter after us and say “I’d like to drop off an application”. Ah, that explains the folder.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

We didn’t intentionally eavesdrop but they were right beside us. The guy at the counter was pretty good about it.

  • “I’m not the manager but I’ll take some more information,” he said as he looked at the mostly blank sheet of paper resume/application. He’d obviously been prepped on how to handle a walk-in applicant
  • “You don’t have any experience” and she replied confidently, “This would be my first job”
  • “When are you available?” and she replied, “4 until 11 during the week and anytime on weekends.” My Mom would have gasped. I was impressed thinking that she must have looked at the hours posted on the window as she came in

Our order came and we missed the rest of the conversation which was actually comforting because it was a little creepy being that close to them conducting business.

Driving back, I had one of those “you’re such a teacher” moments as I quizzed the football player.

  • “Do you have a resume?” – no
  • “Where would you go to apply for a job?” – I dunno
  • “When are you going to look for a job?” – I dunno, maybe next summer

Thankfully, he was not old enough to seriously look for a job yet but I couldn’t let the moment pass.

As I drove back to the game(s), I also thought about that young lady and kids in general.

  • She had the gumption to walk in and apply for a job unannounced. I’m not sure that I could have done that at her age or maybe even at my current age. I was impressed
  • She wanted money and this was the way to get some
  • With the economy being what it is these days, could a family even afford to let their child just be a student?
  • There are so many traditional approaches to applying for a job that just seem so outdated and yet it will be those who went the traditional route that will do the hiring
  • How do you get things together for that first resume and first job application?
  • How do you prepare for that first job interview when you’ve never done this before – I know that we did mock interviews in the Grade 9 Business class but do kids even take Business anymore? Hopefully, in the Careers course
  • I’m sure that there were a lot of applications in that folder and she was trying to hit all the places in the hopes of getting a job – here was a young lady with motivation and not waiting for the world to come to her – I made sure the football player noticed

It’s funny how that little moment got all kinds of things rolling around in my mind. It also made me realize that so many things are so different for job seekers now. There are so many jobs supposedly open and not enough people to fill them. Just based on her initiative and determination walking from store to store, I sincerely hope that she fits whatever someone is looking for.

I know that McDonald’s takes great pride in being successful in that first job for students. Read the story and you’ll see all kinds of positive takeaways. I hope that all businesses feel the same way.

It undoubtedly reads better on a resume than catching turkeys.

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

by dougpete, posted in Blogging, Careers, Computers, Education, Field Trip, inspiration, learning, Links, Media Literacy, Ontario Edublogs, PLN, Read/Write Web, social media, software, Teaching, technology, voicEd Radio

Will Gourley was kind enough to join Stephen and me for Wednesday’s show. I think we could have talked all morning about various things inspired by the writing in these great blog posts.

track and field

As we try to do when we have a guest host, we pulled in a post from Will. The nice thing about going live is the ability to put people on the spot and I did, asking Will why his titles are always in lower case. And, we got an answer to that and about his own abandoned blog.

I enjoyed reading his take on Track and Field day. Typically, it’s held in the Spring of the year when it’s great to be outside and hopefully not raining.

In his post, Will made reference to Track and Field being a great idea for distance learning. He started with the concept in the post and then expanded on it during the show. While I’ve never run any marathons, I’ve swam in some and certainly walk marathons with the dog every day but had never made the connection like he did. I can now tell you that I totally agree with him; I’d just never put it that way.

The good news is that Will plans to continue writing and sharing his thoughts on the Heart and Art Blog going into the fall.

In Search of Work

There are jobs available everywhere. Diana’s done her research and includes a link to the post which is an interesting read.

Sure, there are jobs everywhere but employers are looking for applicants with experience. Therein lies the crunch. Once you have the experience for your resume things are easier.

Diana takes us on a discussion of her employment life and it is rich. From odd and unrelated jobs as a student to a teacher in search of full-time employment to a teacher who is fully employed, it’s all there.

She’s looking for a job for her youngest; if she lived around here, I could get her one in a heartbeat but the commute would be pretty rough from where she lives. If you can help a person out, she’s all ears.

Speaking of ears, nobody wears a set of ears like Diana.

The Cross-Curriculum Power of the Shapegram

Marc is usually good for some posts about “The 500” and there are a couple recent ones to check out:

The 500 – #308 – Songs For Swingin’ Lovers – Frank Sinatra
The 500 – #309 – Willy And The Poor Boys – Creedence Clearwater Revival

But, that’s not the point of this post. Marc introduces us to the way that he uses Shapegrams in his classroom with success. There are a number of links to student work at the bottom of the post to see how it’s done in his classs.

Particularly these days, every post seems to have a graphic to enhance the writing. You can’t even create an Instagram post without one. Having grade appropriate ones are important.

Reading this post reminded me of my time on OSAPAC and our licensing of the Canadian Clipart Collection. Where is OSAPAC these days? This sounds like a worthy piece of software to be evaluated.

…Referencing Matters…

This is a post that is far too short. It’s depressing to read and I suspect that there is more behind it than Rabia shares.

She’s learning from her PhD about the importance of citing sources. I learned far earlier than that; I’m thinking Grade 7 where we got a zero, no questions asked if we didn’t quote our references and importantly, do it correctly.

Her observation:

“Too often Black, Indigenous, racialized and other marginalized people’s work is used and not referenced properly.”

It’s not just the formal writing and Rabia talks about it as part of general conversation. At the bottom of this post, she gives a number of sentence starters that are worth reading and use.

I’m paraphrasing my Grade 7 teacher here but I still understand her intention “if the resource is good enough to use, it’s good enough to use properly.”

Je n’ai pas le temps

This is a post that should be part of your summer inspiration. Over the past couple of years, professional development (I prefer the term professional learning) has been hard to find, hard to attend happily, and even harder to implement with classes through online meetings or later with social distancing rules.

Though it’s not the big message from the post, you need to find some way to get over the malaise that we’ve all fallen into.

Joel’s post is a strong message for the need to learn at the best of times and he addresses what you can do if you’re in the spot of not attending because you don’t have the time. You need to find the time and now that there’s a quasi-return-to-normal, you need to find some way to make it happen personally.

Ten Resources to Learn About Queer and Trans History in Canada

There isn’t much commentary that I can add to this except to bookmark this resource. There may come a time, maybe not today or tomorrow, but at some point, you need to have a quality resource.

This isn’t just a random collection of things that Google offers up; Krista offers workshops on “gender and queer identities” so she knows of what she speaks.

The New Dawn

I got a request from Peter on Sunday afternoon after I had written a scheduled a post for Monday already. He wanted to write a guest blog piece and have me host it. How could I say no? I didn’t even know the topic but I knew that a request like this would be for a good reason.

And it was.

He used the opportunity to write about an original piece of artwork that he had purchased from Colleen Rose and wanted it posted. Of course, I agreed. It didn’t go all that easily. Google Docs and some of the formatting that he used didn’t copy/paste well into WordPress. Then started the revisions – he wanted a picture of my painting and then we went back and forth wordsmithing things. It wasn’t until about 2 in the morning that I finished it on my end and it went live at 5am. It’s a great post about a wonderful person and talented artist. Kudos to Peter for writing it.

A rose between two thorns, thanks Colleen Rose

As always, read these great posts and then follow the authors on Twitter.

  • Will Gourley – @WillGourley
  • Diana Maliszewski – @MzMollyTL
  • Marc Hodgkinson – @Mr_H_Teacher
  • Rabia Khokhar – @Rabia_Khokhar1
  • Joel McLean – @jprofNB
  • Krista McCracken – @kristamccracken
  • Peter McAsh – @pmcash