A few weeks ago, I wrote: I would also be interested in establishing a school learning community that values face-to-face dialogue, debate, and experiential, first-hand learning for students and teachers alike. If we are to ask that our students are committed to the present moment of their current learning, why shouldn’t we expect the same […]
Read more "A Week without Technology"In watching the attached video, you can hear the lunch bell ring at the end of period two about a minute (or so) into the song. Kyle, who we can assume left Ms. Jung’s foods classroom as the bell was ringing, makes it to his place behind the drum kit sometime later (arrival time will […]
Read more "Music and a math problem"It seemed a natural extension of the type of learning we put to use in class every day: research and communication, collaboration and presentation. In encountering the context of the American Revolution, and interpreting not only the Founding Fathers’ possible intentions in creating the Declaration of Independance as a political document, but also a […]
Read more "Talons’ Showcase of Learning: American Revolution"How many other subjects are deserving of this same heat, though: Just because paper was invented before computers, doesn’t mean that you get more to the basics of a subject by using paper instead of a computer in teaching math.
Read more "The Silver Bullet in Teaching Mathematics: Computers"Busking captured by cellphone. As even the devil might need an advocate from time to time, I thought I’d offer a few points in support of delaying the rounding up of the school’s cell phones and putting the kids who use them in camps where they might better concentrate. An unfortunate wordplay that evokes a […]
Read more "Essay as Blogpost: Cellphones in the Classroom"Sitting down to recast an updated listing of the RSS feeds, Twitter favourites, and podcasts I make a habit of perusing on a daily weekly monthly basis, I would be remiss to not isolate one of these sources of infotainment above the others — the unparallelled public radio institution that in all honesty, I cannot […]
Read more "This American Life"I told one of my friends’ parents about TED about a year and a half ago, and have since heard him tell various groups of people that “if you participate in no other mental exercise during the course of a week, spend twenty minutes to watch these things called TED Talks…” Regardless of whether or […]
Read more "Five TED Talks I watched during Spring Break"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.)"