For the first time in what feels like a while, I took the almost the entire summer as vacation this year, and came back into school fresh with (albeit unfocused) enthusiasm and energy for September. By design or retro-active justification, I like to come into a new school year without too many preconceived ideas about […]
Read more "Reengage"It’s over, already? This glorious stretch of time when everyone and everything “anyone ever knew” was being photographed, watched over, and sung to sleep by a Canadian hurtling around the planet a dozen times every day, has come to a close. But then, it seems a beginning, too. Alan Levine marks the occasion by wondering: […]
Read more "A few thoughts on the return of Chris Hadfield to Earth"Last week, the TALONS classes presented audio documentaries their small groups had been preparing out of individual threads of personal inquiry into the history of the Canadian Northwest (if you’re just joining us, here is a brief introduction to the project). Personal explorations became reflective and highly professional collaborative radio documentaries that were broadcast – via […]
Read more "Northwest Inquiry Radio Documentaries"Organizing Inquiry Topics These last few weeks, the TALONS have taken their study of Socials 10 west, from the fledgling union of Confederation to Hudson’s Bay, Manitoba, and the resistance that unfolds along the Red River Valley. In seeking out the story of Louis Riel, and how his execution – as well as the subsequent relationship between the government and the Metis, Inuit and other First Nations of the Northwest […]
Read more "Inquiry into the Northwest"I had the great pleasure this morning to speak with TALONS alumni Liam St. Louis, Jonathan Toews, Clayton Dowdell, Megan Edmunds, Zoe Fajber and Iris Hung (along with Verena Roberts & the #ETMOOC crowd via Google Hangout) about the experiments and experiences in Open Learning we’ve embarked on in their four years at Gleneagle. We mostly […]
Read more "TALONS Panel: Open High School Learning"As we have wrapped up our study of Philosophy 12 for the year (to be continued in September if enough people enroll in the for-credit portion of the course), I wanted to document a few initial elements of the class statistics and participation before the analytics widget goes to sleep and isn’t around to be […]
Read more "Looking back on #Philosophy12"It was a pleasure to share this story of openness that came out of #philosophy12 with Alan Levine‘s (aka @cogdog) newest incarnation of True Stories of Openness on the Web: We all start out in our educational careers (meaning when we were in kindergarten) knowing intrinsically the value of sharing. Somewhere between there and graduate school, […]
Read more "Amazing Stories of Openness on the Web"Having been exploring technology in the classroom for a few years now, I’ve seen more than a few passing trends in pedagogical circles come and go: blogs, wikis, podcasts; flipped classes, pe(a)rsonalized learning, Twitter, SharePoint, Edublogs, Youtube. Each has garnered momentary Klout clout in the Pedablogisphere before giving way to the Next Big Thing, a trend D’Arcy […]
Read more "Opening K12 Education"Questions after reading homework from 2011 As part reflection on a statement made during the introductory session of Alec Couros‘ #ETMOOC, and part synthesis of the TALONS introductory blogging and commenting on the American Revolution, I wanted to highlight some of the recent dialogue and discussion going on in the TALONS classroom these last few […]
Read more "Making the Learning Visible: TALONS on the American Revolution"With the TALONS class setting out on its annual In-Depth Study, I wanted to get a little documentation going of my own efforts in learning the banjo. Having recently been given a rented (for three months) banjo from Long & McQuade in Port Coquitlam for Christmas (thanks mom and dad!), I’ve spent the last couple […]
Read more "First Banjournal"