I was thrilled to present my first-ever webinar this weekend to the excellent Classroom 2.0 Live series, where I talked about teaching TALONS, and what I’ve learned about using digital storytelling and web2.0 tools to support our unique learning environment. In addition to the above video, a LiveBinder collection of the links shared within the […]
Read more "Classroom 2.0 Live Presentation"A very interesting talk given by Tobey Steeves Friday afternoon at the BCSSTA Conference in Vancouver that is well worth your time to explore both in the slides above, and the corresponding ‘pencast’ embedded below that captures the session’s audio, and my notes about the discussion of public education’s role in a democracy, and how […]
Read more "21st Century Learning: Entrepreneurial Citizenship vs. Democracy"One of the interesting aspects of the #Occupy movement for me is the General Assembly driving the decision-making and ideology of the groups gathering in cities around the world. Modeled on non-violent means of protest as old as civil disobedience itself, the General Assembly operates on an egalitarian process of generating consensus that I can’t […]
Read more "Consensus in the Classroom"Grade tens in the Talons program when we began our blogging experiment, Saskia and Ariana would be seniors at our school this year. Would be, of course, had they not each accepted scholarships and student-exchange opportunities in Belgium, and on Vancouver Island. Luckily for those of us living and working back in the local Talons’ neighbourhood, […]
Read more "Twin Talons alumni Blog Abroad"With a new fall, the current incarnation of the Talons class sets out on one of the pillars of the program, encountering a person deemed Eminent in the annals of history: someone who has changed things and left the world indelibly marked with their unique gifts. The importance to gifted learners of such projects is […]
Read more "Eminent Person Study: Looking Back, Looking Forward"Having spent already more than five days this September immersed in the outdoors with separate TALONS groups on Fall Retreats in Howe Sound and Sasquatch Provincial Park, I have been thinking lately of the importance that learning in the outdoors plays in a 21st century education. Opportunities for relevant, authentic learning experiences in the outdoors […]
Read more "Why Learning Outside Matters"Linked from the TALONS Blogging page on this site. As a personal professional development and learning tool, I began this blog during the spring of 2009 as a means of connecting to the web and the world in the most personalized manner possible. After experimenting with Twitter, Delicious, and an English Department blog at work, […]
Read more "TALONS Class Blogging 2011 – 2012"Though almost two months old, Liam’s English 11 Final Project – any substantial meditation and communication of a unique theme of the learner’s choice – is a compelling contribution of ‘student-voice’ in the conversation of education reform. Liam’s skills of research and storytelling, as well as argument and presentation are particularly on display throughout, as […]
Read more "Liam’s English Final as documentary film: On Education"As TALONS facilitators, Ms. Mulder and I try not to make teacher-centered lectures and lessons too often the focus of our daily use of class time, preferring instead to use our common time and space for shared communication and collaborative problem solving based around many aspects of the class’ current learning. Especially in the spring […]
Read more "Talons' "Focus Time""In brainstorming a way to synthesize the myriad tangents and threads being pursued in our recent study of rebellion and revolution in Egypt, as well as 1860s Manitoba, I wound up writing what began as a challenge to myself, and the Talons, to boil down the human affinity for stories of power, rebellion and freedom, […]
Read more "Tell this story."