Category: social justice

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

by dougpete, posted in Blogging, coding, Computational Thinking, Computers, Education, Equity, inquiry, inspiration, learning, makerspace, Mathematics, Media, micro:bit, Ontario Edublogs, PLN, programming, social justice, Teaching, technology, Visualization, voicEd Radio

Sit back and enjoy some writing from great Ontario Edubloggers.

Becoming a Better Person for Others: Faith into Action

I really appreciate when bloggers are so open and transparent. In this case, Rolland shows the best of this. He takes a look at his role as re-engagement teacher and marries it to his understanding of social justice.

In particular, he identifies four things in his role.

  1. Dignity of the Human Person
  2. Call to Family, Community, and Participation
  3. Rights and Responsibilities
  4. Option for the Poor and Vulnerable

With each of these, he analyses making connections to his job and to education. Then, for each he provides a next step for himself. I couldn’t help but think that blogging about it and making it public really makes himself accountable for these changes to his approach.

The word “brave” kept running through my mind as I was reading.

Learning from Each Other — Destreaming Across Ontario: Waterloo District School Board

This is another very brave and open post about learning and planning for action. Alexandra thinks that there are three things that will make destreaming effective.

  1. Smaller class sizes to support students
  2. Equipping teachers and administrators with the correct tools and professional development
  3. task force to “inform the design, implementation and monitoring of de-streaming

Ultimately, any success will result from the practice and acceptance of classroom teachers. After the past two years, it’s going to take a great deal of effort to do the necessary learning and then implementation of new approaches.

Alexandra shares her notes and thoughts from a Google Meet conducted by Jill Hicknell and Jillian Waters and some reading to support their thoughts. A big takeaway is a Google Resource site and a Twitter handle to follow.

Check it out.

New Twitter Communities: Will this better our Twitter experience?

Do you ever have one of those moments where you’re thinking something but you keep it to yourself and it’s only when someone else notes it that you realize you’re not alone?

I had that moment as I read Jennifer’s post. There are times these days when I feel like I should be getting more from my Twitter community than I am. It was somehow comforting to note that she felt the same way.

Lately, I have been a little dissatisfied with my Twitter feed to be honest. Unless someone tags me, I feel like I have been missing out of many of the powerful voices I once had access to. And whereas I felt like my own voice reached many before, I feel like unless I tag people, they rarely see my tweets either.

At about the same time that I started to feel this way, Twitter rolled out the concept of Communities. I took a look and felt it was too much like the Twitter lists that I’ve been curating. But, again, Jennifer takes it a bit further and offers a way that we may fall back in love with Twitter again.

Nicely done, Jennifer.

Self-Reg Havens

The big takeaway for me from Susan’s post was that her concept of a haven isn’t necessarily

 just a location

For the longest time, a safe haven for me was a place to think and I guess I’d always put it in personal terms as a location. With a busy life, often the thinking was done in my car commuting to and from work.

The post is a look at what that haven just might be and Susan takes us to these attributes

  1. Safe
  2. Rooted
  3. Balanced
  4. Capable
  5. Trusted

If nothing else, it will give you lots to think about.

OBSERVATION IS A NEW REFLECTION!

From Wayne’s World…

I think that most of us did our quality observation as student teachers having placement with an experienced teacher. I don’t know about you but it was one of the first times that I thought that maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. Thankfully, I persevered.

It shouldn’t stop there and Setareh talks about observing a colleague in their teaching. I did that a couple of times and I think that you get a new lens when you are in the profession. Setareh talks about observing a very extroverted teacher, knowing that that would be a real challenge and maybe an impossibility.

Still, there are lots of things to learn and we should never stop.

Coding Fireworks!

From the Fair Chance Learning blog, Barb offers a project (along with a solution) for creating a program that will emulate fireworks on a Micro:Bit.

Now, if you’ve already done something like this for Victoria day, you might want to move along.

Or, how about setting off some fireworks to celebrate the end of the school year?

Importance of Context and Concrete Manipulatives From Kindergarten Through Grade 12

Kyle shares a wealth of information here that’s applicable to all grade levels.

I like his start and confession. We all had it. When we started teaching, we wanted to be copies of the very best teacher that we ever had. If you’re honest, you’ll realize that their classroom often doesn’t resemble the successful rooms we have today. We’ve learned so much about effective teaching and learning and it’s just not the same.

This is a long resource but well worth the read and thinking. We want the best for everyone after all.

Please take some time to enjoy these posts and then follow these bloggers on Twitter.

  • Rolland Chidiac – @rchids
  • Alexandra Woods – @XanWoods
  • Jennifer Casa-Todd – @jcasatodd
  • Susan Hopkins – @susanhopkins5
  • Barb Seaton – @barb_seaton
  • Fair Chance Learning – @FCLEdu
  • Kyle Pearce – @mathletepearce 

This Week in Ontario Edublogs Show

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This Week in Ontario Edublogs

by dougpete, posted in Blogging, COVID-19, Education, Field Trip, inspiration, Interviews, learning, Music, Ontario Edublogs, PLN, Read/Write Web, social justice, Teaching, voicEd Radio

It’s another Friday, a sad one for education and society, but still a chance to get inspired by some writing from Ontario Edubloggers. So, here goes.

Prom Project Hamilton

This is an interesting and wonderful project. Not everyone has the resources to be able to go out and buy something brand new to wear to the school prom. That shouldn’t be a reason for people not to go.

Kelly shares her work for this project gathering lightly used clothes, sorting by size, and making them available to students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford the outfit. Not only does it give them the clothes but it would raise their esteem and allow them to celebrate the end of a school career with classmates.

I had to ask my wife what we did for the prom. Her mother made her a fancy dress. Me, apparently, I wore my church clothes.

This initiative would be nice to see replicated in all school districts.

How do we develop students for democracy?

Paul’s post was my thinker for the week. He reflects on the writing of Westheimer and Kahne (What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy, 2004) where they identify two approaches to developing students. Of course, it’s all theory until you see it in action and then analysed. That’s where this post comes in.

Paul looks inwardly and recalls a field trip to the Dominican Republic and highlights the poverty and yet the attraction of the beaches to tourists.

He also talks about Police Officers coming in to the school to talk to students. At one point, he was a fan of the concept. Now that we’re looking at a contemporary approach to evaluating authorities in the country, he has changed his opinion. He’s not alone – a lot of schools districts are rethinking things as well.

This is a great post that he me thinking and that’s a good thing.

If a student asks for poetry…

I knew the answer before I clicked.

Teacher goes out and buys it.

As teachers, we’ve all done that. The school district support for curriculum only goes so far and the rest is either ignored or researched/funded by teachers. Been there, done that.

That’s not the best part of this post though. Amanda didn’t know this poet and so did some research to bring herself up to speed. Student teaching the teacher. What a golden moment!

Have you ever wondered though – should students have a voice at the purchasing table to help made education richer? It happened in this case.

Day Late, Dollar Short (again)

Lisa weaves a nice story and observation as per usual although as she notes, a day late. But the wait was worth it.

She shares with us an observation about things not being accomplished on time this year. I suspect that so many teachers will have the same observation from their classroom. Lisa shares how she coped with her students with an interesting classroom activity.

I love the part when a student noted how much they’d improved in the work over the course of the year and got to show her progress with the school administration. Success!

And, “nobody cried in art”. Success? ! Maybe the ? goes away when it’s done again.

Lisa wishes this success had happened in November but the key is that it did happen. No matter when, there really is a high when things all come together.

Virtual Presentations

You know that something ain’t right when a teacher makes this statement.

On my bucket list of things to do as an educator, one of my wishes has been to have students attend a live concert.

Understandably, it’s been impossible the past couple of years. Heck, many adults can’t get out to a live concert.

In my high school years, I remember going to Stratford on a field trip to take in a concert and a play. There’s nothing like being there in person.

So, Stephanie, things will get better and you’ll be able to scratch that from your bucket list. Soon, I hope.

In the meantime, traditional places offer virtual experiences and Stephanie outlines some of them. To that, I’d add https://www.stahome.org/2016. Not a concert but a good example of a good organization doing good.

I’m Getting Used To This

We’ve established expectations this year just like how we established expectations in past years. We stand up for the national anthem, ask for permission before leaving the classroom, stay quiet while taking tests. I’m used to that. Again. And that’s where I think my problem truly is.

I’ve mentioned this before. With all the COVID teaching, maybe there would be a great deal of thought about it and education would come out better as a result. Did we have it perfect in the past. Was there no room for improvement?

Matthew notes that what so many have wanted – “a return to normal” just doesn’t feel right to him.

If the school system isn’t making massive changes, then maybe the answer lies in those little steps. Close the classroom door and change what needs to be changed there.

An Interview with Shyama Sunderaswara

When I started this blog oh so many years ago, I had no idea what I would do. I think I was probably considerably more geeky back then and wrote about computer things. Over the years, I’d done some experimentation and one that I’ve come to love, although it’s a lot more work than a regular post, is to interview what I call “interesting people”. All the interviews can be directly found here.

I had the chance to interview Shyama and it came back powerfully. She pulls no punches about being a Planning Time Teacher, or her use of the phrase “all lives matter”, or her vision of getting Ontario educators together. It’s one of the longer interviews that I’ve done but I think well worth the read.

Hopefully, this weekend you can find the time to click through and read all these posts.

Then, follow these people on Twitter.

  • Paul McGuire – @mcguirp
  • Amanda Potts – @Ahpotts 
  • Lisa Corbett – @LisaCorbett0261
  • Matthew Morris – @callmemrmorris
  • Shyama Sunderaswara – @ssunderaswara

This voicEd Radio show can be found here.

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

by dougpete, posted in Blogging, COVID-19, Education, inspiration, learning, Mathematics, Media, Media Literacy, Ontario Edublogs, OTR, PLN, Read/Write Web, social justice, social media, Teaching, voicEd Radio

There was no show this past week but I’m looking forward to rejoining Stephen next week on Wednesday at 8:45 live. In the meantime, that didn’t stop me from reading some pretty decent blog posts. I’m sharing them below.

Even cooler is this Friday #TWIOE post. It’s the 500th post that I’ve written with this title. If you believe in milestones, then this is one for me. You can read the previous 499 from here.

Disrespectful

I can’t begin to be authentically empathic with the people who live in Ottawa and had to live through the protests and all that went into the events that the rest of us witnessed through the evening news. Try as I might, my only exposure were the short news clips that we’d get on the news and the “continuing coverage”.

This is clearly an angry post from Amanda. As I worked my way through it, I got angrier and angrier myself.

After reading Amanda’s post, I’m closer to understanding. This isn’t a short or easy post to read if you have any kind of conscience. Her thoughts start with forgetting to wear a mask and returning to get one lest she be confused with a protester.

This is an incredibly powerful post and did more to share the thoughts of people who had to live through this than the 15 second sound bites that came through on the news. You had to feel for Amanda and I just can’t imagine being in the same position. With her post, I think I can certainly understand better.

And I love the quote on her face mask.

Unleashed and Trapped

Staying on the theme of first person reflections about the events in Ottawa is this post from Heather. It was great to see her back at the keyboard; it’s been far too long. I’m sorry that the topic had to be this.

In a conversation with another teacher, the event was put into terms that all teachers could understand.

A fellow teacher said that it is like having a school full of every angry, acting-out grade 8 student you have ever met. Can you imagine a teacher letting a group of bullies take over a class, intimidate and insult fellow students, re-arrange and barricade the class, block the windows and do whatever the hell they want? 

Of course, not. I’ve never taught Grade 8 but I do remember Grade 9 students in the first weeks of secondary school. As a teacher, you set your rules and your expectations for students. You know that if there are major issues, you have a department head, vice-principal, and principal standing behind you.

But what are your thoughts if you’re not supported? What happens when the rules and laws are not supported? Classroom reality seems a little petty compared to what Heather describes.

On the Importance of Civics Classes

When I saw the title to Marie’s post, I thought that it might be a continuation on the Ottawa theme. I suppose it could and you’ve got to believe what the topics of discussion would have been in Civics classes lately.

The post will stand the test of time as she focuses instead on the importance of the course and how it’s taught by those who do so. I thought that she did a really nice job of addressing that.

The comment to her post was interesting from a teacher who taught the course but was surprised to realize how little students know about Current Events. There’s a call to action for every Civic teacher. I remember my son who loved the course because it was a chance to talk with others or event debate the events of the day. His classroom had their own subscription to the local newspaper. I’ve never regretted having the kids watch the evening news ever since.

BUT the difference is that what happens in political arena affects your life no matter who you are. There’s a much bigger payoff for everyone if we all have this information solidified.

Marie’s quote brought a smile as there was a time when he thought he might get into politics! Certainly, the Ottawa event had to be motivation for every Civics class in the province.

Consequently, doing Civics right has never been so important. Thanks, Marie, for this insightful post.

There’s Math in Our Woods

Of course there is!

Rob’s post took my back to high school and snowmobiling out to a friend’s house in the county to visit and then go out for lunch. When I met his mom at the door, she told me that he was out at the sugar shack. (This isn’t the same but I couldn’t resist.)

Anyway, I’d never been to a real sugar shack before so it was an eye opening experience for me. I got a complete lesson in handling sap, boiling, stirring (and stirring and stirring and stirring) and didn’t realize it at the time but a whack of mathematics!

Rob shares his anticipation for getting out to the woods and the same experience. It kicked off with a Twitter chat moderated by Jonathan So.

Researcher’s Journal – Looking for a question

What are current history teaching methodologies used by history teachers and taught to teacher candidates? How are historical thinking concepts beginning to enter the school system?

Paul’s back to doing some of his thinking out loud and in a blog post.

Big questions are something that we always encourage in students. I think we think that it just comes naturally to those who are or should be inquisitive. Paul’s post kind of scuttles that train of thought or at least lets us know that it’s not coming easily to him.

His quote above and the thoughts from a couple of the posts above have got me thinking that the discussion of teaching methodologies for History and Civics classes couldn’t be more relevant. Between Ottawa and what we’re seeing now in Ukraine amplifies the importance of getting it right – relevant, fact-checking, seeing alternative viewpoints, …

I can’t get over how great and timely his question is. There should be all kinds of extremely worthwhile research falling from it.

Learning about Self Love

Amy notes that it feels weird talking about “self love”. Imagine trying to write my thoughts about her thoughts on the topic just by reading the title. Of course, I had to dig through it.

She doesn’t address the topic superficially. She goes deep, provides resources, and shares her thoughts about her own personal routines. There’s a bit of a crossover between “Self Love” and “Self Care” although she is clear that they’re not necessarily the same thing in her mind.

She doesn’t think that she practices “Self Love” but I suspect that she does more than what she would admit. But, she does ask a couple of good probing questions.

What advice would you give me to learn about loving myself? How do you love yourself?

I think these are two excellent questions. I can’t help but think that those who are in the teaching profession just don’t have enough time at the end of the day to take care of themselves. For me, it was always a case of being totally exhausted to the point that I’d often get sick as the bugs got the better of me. To make things worse, I was always taking summer courses to upgrade my qualifications and there just wasn’t time left for myself.

My best advice to her was given to me by my superintendent who, I didn’t realize at the time, was watching me manage my job and spent a morning with me talking about the taking care thing. His advice has always stuck with me – when you’re scheduling things, schedule personal time first and then let everything else fall around it. It made a huge difference to me.

“A good teacher is like …” … do you agree?

Laura’s taking an AQ course and had to finish that sentence and an internet search revealed this image that I think every teacher has seen.

Thanks, Starecat.com

We all feel that way at some point.

I thought that it was so appropriate that I read Laura’s post right after I’d read Amy’s. That image says so much.

I firmly believe that the education system will eat you alive if you let it. And, maybe some people are OK with that. I thought I was until that conversation with my superintendent that I talked about in response to Amy’s post.

Taking care of one’s self doesn’t make you weak or less efficient. I firmly believe that it makes you better and stronger.

There’s my answer, Laura. Thanks for asking the question.

I’m glad that I’ve committed myself to writing about Ontario Education blogs. I find them inspirational and I’m always pumped and recharged when I schedule the post for Friday mornings at 5:00am. I hope that you can take the time to click through and read all these fabulous posts.

Then, follow these folks on Twitter for more.

  • Amanda Potts – @Ahpotts 
  • Heather Swail – @hbswail
  • Marie Snyder – @MarieSnyder27
  • Rob Ridley – @RangerRidley
  • Paul McGuire – @mcguirp
  • Amy Bowker – @amyebowker 
  • Laura Wheeler – @wheeler_laura 

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

by dougpete, posted in Blogging, coding, Computers, COVID-19, Education, inquiry, inspiration, learning, Ontario Edublogs, OTR, PLN, Read/Write Web, social justice, Teaching

Title double-checked. Everyone was too kind or didn’t notice but I mis-typed the title of this weekly post last week to “The Week in Ontario Edublogs”. I didn’t realize it until I did my Sunday summary post and, by that time, it was too late to correct. Because of WordPress’ naming convention, I’ve now done that four times. So, add 4 to the URL of this post if you’re interested in the number of times I’ve written this regular Friday feature.

However you look at it, it’s a chance to showcase some incredible writing from Ontario Edubloggers. As always, if you know of a blog from Ontario or you’re writing one and it needs to be added to the list, just let me know. Please.

What’s in a Name?

This isn’t a new blog post but rather a transcript of an interlude from Pav Wander from a year ago. It’s still as relevant as ever.

Every teacher deals with this. You get your class lists in advance of school and are ready to welcome these bodies to your classroom. I would go over those in advance and there always seemed to be some that look like they might be a challenge. I would practice reading them out loud to my wife for feedback. Here in Essex County, it seems like you can’t win at times. My Grade 10 French class didn’t prepare for the pronunciations that some French names had adopted.

I think I had a relatively easy name to pronounce and can recall only one time with a mis-pronunciation from a University prof who called me “Petterson”. It was a bit funny but I let it slide since, due the nature of university, it might be the only time he ever uttered my name. I still remember, though, how my head snapped to attention because it was pronounced incorrectly? A little thing? No, it isn’t. It’s my name.

In this post, Pav gives us a much different and very personal story that actually reveals why she goes by Pav as opposed to her formally given name.

Reading it, also brought back a couple more memories for me.

The first was a friend of mine who is in sales and his advice was wise – a person’s name is so personal and may be the most valuable thing that a person owns. He recommended always knowing names even if you forget other things since a person’s name is the most important thing they’ll ever own. You’ll be excused for forgetting other things as long as you get the name right.

The second is another friend of mine who reinforces that notion for me. He never, ever has said “Happy Birthday” that I know of. It’s always “Happy Naming Day”. His take goes beyond the notion of “Name Day” and makes assumptions about when you actually acquire your name. Still…

In high school, one of my friends called me a different name. I wasn’t “Doug” but became “Andy” (my dad’s name) and so many of my other friends followed. So, I guess it was a nickname that kind of stuck. A few years ago, we had a high school reunion some 30-40 years later. They still remembered me as “Andy”.

So, imagine this little girl growing up with a name that seemingly everyone mispronounces. From her past, Pav gives us a personal history, a lesson in language, and the rationale for why she changed her name to what it is today. It’s actually a little emotional – I’ve always thought of the issue from the perspective of a teacher looking over class lists but reading a reflection of a little girl who constantly had her name “butchered” was eye opening and quick frankly, more than just a little sad. Obviously, she’s a very strong woman and did something about it but it’s still not right that it had to come to that.

Bananas for Baton

Man, I love this post from Diana Maliszewski. You can always count on her to come up with an idea, a concept, a thought, an inspiration that is unique and pays back so much educationally.

Everyone in education is challenged by the new set of rules dropped on them. Yes, they’re there for the safety of everyone.

I think most people feel a connection to The Boy in the Bubble these days.

Diana was inspired by a real life passion and qualification that I had no inkling that she possessed – she’s a certified Baton Coach and through her community connections ends up with a class set of batons for her students and physical education. She was quite surprised that it was adopted so well by her class.

And, it’s not one or two batons as I ranted about earlier this week. She’s got a class set and these things don’t come cheaply.

Of course, there are more rules and that’s to be expected but I just have this delightful vision of a class in the gymnasium doing some twirling and enjoying it.

Only in Mrs. Maliszewski’s class!

Given the Gift of Choice, the Voice Soars

Given all the things that are ongoing with school administrators including the rolling of a die to see if schools are closed or open after the Easter Weekend, you’d think that class visits to see student work and presentations might not be anywhere near the top of the list for principals.

But then, you probably haven’t met Sue Bruyns!

Her description of her activity in the classroom is typically COVID. She deliberately avoided a group as she circulated a class because of the “very crowded” group around them but the teacher made sure that her promise that she “skipped, until later” was kept.

The result? You need to read Sue’s post to get the full experience. I can understand her reaction. The projects were about the journey of American slaves and how they ended up in London.

I thoroughly enjoyed this inspirational story from Sue. We need more of these to remind us that there are good things happening in our world.

Sue’s post reminded me of this article from TVO. The date reminds us of so many things…

The story of Ontario’s last segregated Black school

Developing a Sense of Exploration, Wonder, Curiosity and Adventure in your Classrooms

Peter Cameron shares with us a post with no real answers. It’s a copy of a post that he sent to the National Geographic Education Certification Community particularly focusing on the words…

“exploration”, “wonder”, “curiosity” and “adventure”

All of those are good words and, if you’re a follower of Peter, you know that he exhibits this in his class, shares to his social media, and I’ve helped amplify his voice by posting here or talking about the ideas on my voicEd Radio show.

Now, as a computer science teacher, my curriculum applicability doesn’t run the range of an elementary school classroom but I like to think I did a great deal addressing “curiosity”. At the time, I had a subscription to Games magazine and when I was finished with my monthly issue, I’d put the copy in the cupboard in my classroom. They were available for students to pull and work their way through and the type of student that ends up taking computer science likes a good puzzle to solve.

Even better, if they sit down and write a computer program as a solution, you have to be impressed. Or, they’ll look at someone else’s code and just wonder “how did they do that”.

A conversation with Melanie

Thunder Bay’s biggest Melanie fan has to be Sheila Stewart and she writes about the interview conducted by Stephen Hurley on voicEd Radio with the artist. He uses the entire hour for a discussion with Melanie.

You can listen to the show here:

Look What They’ve Done To My Song ft. Melanie Safka

It’s a nice recognition to the effort that Stephen went to host the interview. Of course, this calls for a song or two.

Growing as an Artist

It was a real treat to see Colleen Rose back in action on her blog. I think we’ve all felt the strain of winter amplified by the fact that we have to stay home almost all the time.

With spring on the horizon, I think we’re looking forward to getting a number of things back into gear again. Colleen is constantly keeping her eyes open to the world around here and also beyond.

It’s the beyond that she features in this post and is the reality for so many artists these days – online exhibitions which only makes sense from a logistical point of view. The voice in the back of my head sees this as a way for traditional exhibitions to maybe grow and feature the work of even more artists than in the past.

The other part of her post brings in some technology as she goes online to connect and learn with others. Again, I can’t help but be impressed that good folks are doing that to connect and help each other.

Sure, it was always possible but did it really happen? Has our current reality opened opportunities that might now have happened otherwise? It’s always a feel good story when wonderful people I know get a chance to connect with other wonderful people.

Congratulations, Colleen.

Wrong again

Will Gourley probably never will be hired as a textbook salesperson based upon this quote in his most recent post…

I am choosing to avoid the prescribed resources from text book companies that have grown largely culturally irrelevant and unresponsive

All of this emerges from a discussion he has in this post about anti-racism and ways that he’s addressing it personally in addition to everything else that educators have to address in these times.

our roles have now expanded to include daily counselling on issues of mental health, experts at PPE, and classroom sanitizers extraordinaire. We have also become distance learning specialists, multi-modal lesson trailblazers, fearless conversationalists about issues of race and racism, and criticial thinkers on how to overcome and dismantle systemic racism and bias.

I can’t help but think that the anti-racism stance is even more important than ever and textbooks can be excused for not seeing what’s happening in our world – just turn on the 6:00 news at night and there’s yet another sad story to report. Is it time that the traditional paper textbook is just discarded and publishers move to online so they can keep pace and stay relevant?

In the meantime, Will’s description I suspect describes life for so many well meaning educators right now trying to do the very best in a world that just seems to be out to get you at every turn.

Of course, I’m writing this on the Thursday before the Friday that it’s published. I’ve double-checked the title and am humbled after reading all of these blogs posts yet again. I hope that you can find time to click through and read them all.

Then, follow these educators on Twitter.

  • Pav Wander – @PavWander
  • Diana Maliszewski – @MzMollyTL
  • Sue Bruyns – @sbruyns
  • Peter Cameron – @petectweets
  • Sheila Stewart – @SheilaSpeaking
  • Colleen Rose – @ColleenKR
  • Will Gourley – @WillGourley

Computer Science Education Week

by dougpete, posted in coding, computer science, Computers, Education, Hour of Code, inspiration, micro:bit, programming, social justice

An annual event, this year’s Computer Science Education Week is December 7-13. It’s an opportunity to work with students to either introduce or push them further in studies dealing with Computer Science Education.

As we know, it’s been a strange year and so it may not be possible to order those kits of micro:bits or robots or even get down on the floor to do the traditional programming activities that might be done at this time of the year.

That’s OK. We all get that. However there may be other opportunities. First of all, the big question is “Why Computer Science?” and the answer has never been so seemingly obvious. My go to resource is Douglas Rushkoff’s Program or Be Programmed. I first heard Mr. Rushkoff at a CSTA Conference in New York City. I’d like to say that he changed my life but I’d always been of that philosophy and could never understand why the Grade 10 Computer Studies course, at a minimum, wasn’t required for graduation.

What student today doesn’t pack a powerful computer in the form of a smartphone in their pocket? At the very least, they should be able to program that device and make it to their bidding.

At his website, Rushkoff even includes a study guide to accompany his book.

Here are a few more resources to supplement and help the cause.

Curriculum

Just recently, Peter McAsh alerted me to a resource created by Amanda Deneau showing the connections to the Ontario Curriculum.

ECOO Resource

A couple of years ago when I was president of the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario, Peter Skillen was good enough to create a resource we called #ECOOcodes. It’s not currently linked to any of the menus but you can access it directly here. From Peter’s blog, there was an insightful post about why the topic should be addressed “now“.

#CSEdWeek

The CSTA (Computer Science Teachers Association) along with a group of other associations have developed a website to support teachers for the week. The focus is on Social Justice and opens with a panel discussion on Monday night. In addition to all the resources shared, there is a collection of downloadable posters.

Canada Learning Code

This is full of ideas and resources to support Learning Code and more. They recognize the varieties of ways that students, teachers, and family are connected and learning in these times and have you covered. Their highlight is Digital Citizenship but poke around for more. Registration is required to access some of the resources.

Hour of Code

It may well be that the Hour of Code may be one of the resources that leap to mind when you think of Computer Science Education Week. The content here continues to grow and has so much covered.

CODE to LEARN at home

A Canadian resource, they have been very active with online webinars and philosophy about programming with a wide scope with a little something for everyone. There are some really unique ideas here.

Scratch

Maybe the granddaddy of them all for programming at all ages is the Scratch resource from MIT. It just continues to grow and is rich with all that is available to and created by the Scratch coding community.

BBC micro:bit

If you’re fortunate enough to have access to the micro:bit for your class and students, there are some really amazing interactive opportunities and inspiration for programming.

I think it’s quite obvious that the collection above is certainly not all-inclusive. If you can think of a resource that should/could be shared with a wider audience, please do so in the comments.