Ksan, British Columbia One of the surprises of last year’s socials units was the TALONS class‘ foray into publishing with Wikibooks. After more than a year spent within the confines of our district’s SharePoint Wikis and discussion boards, Wikibooks offered our first opportunity to publish and participate in a global dialogue of meaning, history, and […]
Read more "WikiBooks Publishing Project"The class’ blog feed swelled this weekend with a range of posts (and comments) on everything from our city buses, to the recent Olympics, to novel study reflections and in-depth updates. At a concert Friday night and skiing Saturday, it wasn’t until Sunday (after a late breakfast over which a friend and I (correctly) picked […]
Read more "A Rash of Ravishing Student Blog Posts"As the TALONS Novel Study has progressed, I have waited for the discussion of six diverse novels – listed here – to begin to overlap into a meaningful discourse of the nature and the value of literature. Yesterday in class I asked a question posed by Clare and, to some extent, Kiko, on their blogs […]
Read more "Talons debate the "Good" Books"Writing Essays View more presentations from Andrew B. Watt. One of the teachers I seem to visit with the most regularity doesn’t work at my school. He doesn’t even live in Vancouver, or British Columbia, or Canada. But I read about what goes on in Mr. Watt’s classroom through his blog – which I have […]
Read more "Andrew B. Watt's Essay Encouragement"As the TALONS class sets out on a novel study that will see them reading a range of five different novels in small groups, much of their “work” in flushing out the themes, symbols and technical aspects of the stories will be happening on their blogs, a process I am not alone in harbouring excitement […]
Read more "Novel Study Blog Post Topics"This week the Talons English class will be embarking on a novel study in a manner different from what we have explored in the past. Previously, the group of 28 students – completing requirements for English 9, 10 and 11 at the honours level – has undertaken the study of a single book that has […]
Read more "Novel Study Preview"After a few days of waiting to see what all the fuss was about, I finally saw Google’s Superbowl commercial. I had read Ira’s account of the narrative based in a series of Google searches, and was intrigued by the charm of the commercial is in its brisk, simple rendering of narrative through the universal […]
Read more "Parisian Love"As a means to delve creatively into the cultural geography in Western Canada, our socials ten students will be undertaking the creation of public service announcements on issues relating to the present states of plants and animals across several different biomes. Having practiced digital storytelling skills in writing, performing and editing a brief time-line of […]
Read more "Cultural Geography Public Service Announcements"The other night my teaching partner and I, along with two of our students, gave a brief presentation to our local School Board Trustees outlining the basic tenants of our Autonomous Learner Model-inspired two-year gifted students program. At the conclusion of our small talk, our superintendent offered praise to our learners’ poise and confidence in […]
Read more "Think Different (Or: Do as we say, not as we do.)"The advent of “the book itself [being] in the throes of a technological transformation, and book readers undergoing a major demographic shift” is often exalted as a revolution leaving no nostalgia for the dying bastions of literature and print that our local newspaper and independent booksellers represent. And while I most often share this excitement […]
Read more "Vancouver Loses its Last Duthie Books"