I am reading Innovate Inside the Box right now and loving it. I couldn’t wait for a paper copy to arrive so I went high tech and downloaded it to my Kindle, but decided to go old school with my notes. My workflow is to read a chapter and take notes on the Kindle, and … [Read more…]
I have spent quite a bit of time in the past week helping teachers set up their Google Classrooms and in the process have: (a) discovered some good resources and, (b) started to understand which tips & tricks are the most useful to share. Tips and tricks first: Spend less time in the Stream … [Read more…]
It has always struck me as unrealistic to pat ourselves on the back for saving paper because we are using computers instead. There is clearly an environmental cost to having and using computers, but it is a hidden cost so trying to quantify it is difficult. There is of course the E-Waste problem, but that … [Read more…]
The first story Ken Shelton tells in his DitchSummit Day 1 video really resonated with me. He describes the common classroom scenario where students are asked to raise their hands as part of a class discussion, and students who do not raise their hands are (often in report card comments) labeled as poor communicators. This … [Read more…]
I am sitting in domestic departures in Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport outside Kuala Lumpur, waiting for my flight home to Penang. This marks my 3rd month in Malaysia and the 2nd professional development workshop full of incredibly talented and dedicated teachers. This time it was the Kuala Lumpur Google Summit hosted by ISKL. It was an … [Read more…]
This year I was involved in shifting my school's reporting process in grades 6 to 8 from a percentage based system to the IB MYP system which assigns a score of 1-7 based on progress measured against subject specific criterion. It's been quite a journey and has included numerous parent information sessions, a complete rethink … [Read more…]
I wrote the following post after our last reporting period, but never published it. Just found it again and thought it was worth sharing as another reporting period is approaching … Yesterday my daughter got her grade 3 report card. As an educator it was a really eye opening experience to witness her reaction. … [Read more…]
As an MYP Coordinator working to implement the MYP Next Chapter changes at my school I find one of the conversations I have the most often involves a perceived conflict between the need to teach ‘stuff’, and the extra time it takes to build a framework around the ‘stuff’. All too often the reply I … [Read more…]
Not finishing MOOCs is starting to become a habit with me. I tend to start strong and then falter in the last leg of the race. This time it was the Scratch Creative Computing Online Workshop. Life just got in the way. Still I made it to week 4 (of a six week course) and … [Read more…]
Despite it’s US-centric message I enjoyed this Sir Ken Robinson TED talk. My favourite quotes: “There are three principles on which human life flourishes and they are contradicted by the culture of education under which most teachers have to to labour and most students have to endure: Human beings are naturally diverse Humans are naturally … [Read more…]
