One of the questions at the back of the Reflection chapter of Innovate Inside the Box is: What do you feel guilty about as a teacher? Reflect on that and consider how to move forward. Well, upon ‘reflection’ I can honestly say that I feel guilty about all the times I have handed my students … [Read more…]
One of the elements of George Couros‘s Innovator’s Mindset is being a risk taker. I would hazard a guess that most teachers aspire for their students to be risk takers. I know that when I was a math teacher I was constantly frustrated that my students just wanted to get the right anwer and were … [Read more…]
I had carefully planned my 70 minute lesson. The students were to get into pairs and look at each other’s designs for the lunar lander (read: egg drop) project we were working on. This project had become a little derailed over the past week as school had been closed due to Haze and students had … [Read more…]
This year I am supporting our school English as an Additional Language (EAL) department set up E-Portfolios for their students. As we are a Google school the obvious solution is to use Google Sites, and we are now in the process of establishing a workflow that will facilitate the following: The creation of a folder … [Read more…]
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…]
