Go Slow to Go Far

My family and I went out for our evening exercise routine this evening.  Our three-year-old isn’t feeling the best right now, so he spent most of his time in the stroller, next to his 6-month-old brother.  He’s been feeling under the weather the last couple of days, so he knew he wasn’t going to get his usual time to run and chase his big sister.  Instead, there he sat, in the stroller, hugging his toy fire-engine which he had insisted on bringing on our walk.  He negotiated “his turn” on the way home. He planned to get out of the stroller and push his toy fire engine down the hill.  So cute!

Photo by Wagner_Arts @ flickr

You may think that this was just a trivial event, but it wasn’t. It was an evening of learning – deep learning.  You see, he kept pushing his fire engine too fast, on an angle, and the fire engine just kept toppling over onto its side and crashing into things. My little guy was getting a little frustrated.

His big sister came to the rescue.  Well, not really, she wanted “her turn”.  But, he watched his older, more experienced sister very carefully (she’s 6-years-old – and he looked at her as being much older and wiser).  She lined up his fire engine carefully in the middle of the sidewalk.  When she pushed it down the hill, she gave it just a smooth, gentle push.  And, wow, did that fire engine ever race down that hill.  It remained on all four wheels, never toppled and raced 4 times farther than my son was able to make it go.

My son watched in awe!

When it was his turn, he copied what his sister had done and was rewarded with his fire engine travelling far and staying on all four wheels. He was so proud of himself!

I stood there, watching them both intently.  As I watched, I made a strong connection with what they were doing with what we do as leaders in schools.  Or, rather, what we *should* do as leaders in schools.Continue reading “Go Slow to Go Far”

Personalized Learning – Help Needed

This fall, I will be teaching two classes which are new to me: Health & Career Education for 2 Grade 5 classes and Physical Education for 2 Grade 6 classes.  Looking at the prescribed learning outcomes as laid out by the BC Ministry of Education has made me excited about the prospect of teaching these classes. And since I have never taught these classes before, I am not personally or professionally tied to any particular way of teaching these classes.

After reading the #bced chat archive tonight about Personalized Learning, I have a million thoughts and questions going through my mind about how I can implement a more Personalized Learning Approach with these two classes. One of my goals is to have others see me as a role-model in education. As an administrator, how can I expect others to implement a more “Personalized Learning” model for kids, if I am not willing to take risks in my own learning and try to implement such a model myself?   I must continue to be a learner in order to be successful in leading others through change.

As I continued to think about this model, more questions surfaced. What would the assessment piece look like?  Would it be portfolio-based?  Is this something that is likely to be done with a PE class?   Is this really possible to do with having each class for 100 minutes each week?

I wish I knew how to get started on this journey. I feel at a bit of a loss at the moment.

Can anyone provide me with some insight in how to get started on this process?

Does anyone have any examples of how this type of model has been used in the area of Physical Education and Health & Career Education (Personal Planning)?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Your Words Mean A Lot

Words by trs 125 on flickr

I have been personally reflecting on the importance of words and the choice people make to use certain words.

More importantly, I’ve been thinking about how imperative it is to do what you say you are going to do.  This is important both on a personal level and on a professional level.

While I know words are just that – words, and that actions speak MUCH louder than words, it is so important that when you say you are going to do something, to ensure you actually do it (or at least attempt it).

Also, try to make sure that you do what you say you’re going to do in a timely manner.  Doing something 6 months after you say you are going to do something, isn’t really doing it in a timely manner.  In schools, if you say you are going to do something, and you don’t do it for 6 months, this could have a real impact on student learning.

So often, people say things to people just to tell them what they want to hear. They may do this to “get them off their back” or to avoid the subject or just to make them happy. None of these responses are long-lasting though.  In fact, what happens is the person just ends up becoming more upset and frustrated.

Do these people actually mean the words that they say when they say them? Or, do they actually believe their words when they say them?  If so, then we have a whole other problem.

If you continue to not following through on your words, your words aren’t going to mean anything at all. People will just roll their eyes when you speak because they question your follow-through and your sincerity.

So, in your personal and in your professional life, if you want people to trust you, to honour you, to believe in you, value you, to want to be led by you, to want to follow you, to care about what you say, please do what you say you are going to do OR don’t say you’re going to do it.

Reform Symposium Online Conference – FREE!

Have you signed up for the FREE Reform Symposium Online Conference?

I have!

It takes place Friday, July 29 – Sunday, July 31 and looks AMAZING! There will be something for everyone!  Just think, where else would you get leaders in education presenting for 3 full days – on countless topics?  The days are jammed packed with so much variety and opportunities for learning!

Here is an overview of what has been planned for the Reform Symposium:

Day One (Friday, July 29)

  • Welcome at 7am
  • There are 3 Key Note addresses throughout the day
  • There are a total of 24 workshops offered
  • There is 1 panel discussion in which you can participate.

Day Two (Saturday, July 30)

  • Starts at 1am (that’s what happens at worldwide conferences, I guess)!
  • Keynote address is from 1:30-2:30am
  • Workshops begin at 3:00am
  • There are 40 workshops to choose from throughout the day
  • There is an Unconference where you will get the opportunity to chat with colleagues from around the world in Google+ or Skype
  • 3 other Keynotes through the day
  • 1 Panel Discussion
  • Conference ends for the day at 8:15pm

Day Three (Sunday, July 31)

  • Starts at 1am!
  • 4 Keynote addresses throughout the day
  • 1 Panel Discussion
  • An opportunity to participate in Technology Smackdown – where anyone can present their favourite website or technology tool in 2 minutes.
  • Closing Keynote address is 2:00-3:00pm
  • 3:30 -4:00 – Raffle
  • 4:-4:30 – Symposium Closing

In all, there are over 80 presenters participating in the conference, from over 50+ countries! The organizers are expecting over 8,000 educators from around the world.

This really is an amazing Professional Development opportunity!Continue reading “Reform Symposium Online Conference – FREE!”

Leadership Abilities Quiz

I was reading the headlines in a Scoop.it newspaper online today called, Leadership in Distance Education.  It is basically a newspaper that highlights recent blog posts written by people in leadership positions. Some of the headlines of the posts were quite interesting and included titles such as, “Leadership Theories” (OK, maybe that is not that interesting), “100 Serious Twitter Tips for Academics”, “Google+ Grabs 20 Million Users”, “Online Reputation Will Shape Our Lives More” (No kidding! – couldn’t agree more), “Internet Use Affects Memory, Study Finds”, and the list goes on.  There must be 20 different articles posted here.  After reading some of the articles posted in this newspaper, I saw an article that caught my eye.  It was near the very bottom of this newspaper-like website and was titled, “Online Tools for Understanding Your Own Leadership Abilities“.

“O.K., I’ll play”, I thought to myself.

Of course, this is somewhat biased because it is only MY view about my leadership abilities.  To be more accurate, it would be best to have other people who know you well – some who may like you and others who may not – complete the same questionnaire.  But, still, I’m pretty honest with myself about my strengths and weaknesses.  I know which areas are my strengths and which areas I need to focus a bit more attention developing.

I used the tool listed first in the list, called the Mindtools Quiz:   How Good Are Your Leadership Skills.

After answering 18 questions by rating myself on a 5-point scale (ranging from “Not at All”, to “Very Often”, I click on the “Calculate my Score” button. Duh, Duh, Duh…Continue reading “Leadership Abilities Quiz”

Pinning Your Way to Pro-D

Professional Development is really everywhere and anywhere you want to look!  I realized this when a few friends introduced me to Pinterest.  This is a website where you have a number of themed virtual bulletin boards that you fill with items from different websites.  If you like something, you simply “pin” it to your appropriate bulletin board.  Pretty cool, huh?

People have  all sorts of different themes/topics for their personal virtual bulletin boards, including things like, Crafts, Foods that look Delicious, Home Decorating, Fashion, jewellery, etc…  There really is no bulletin board you can’t make and fill with items from around the internet!

As I was searching through other people’s personal bulletin boards (which you can do as soon as you enter the site), I noticed something very interesting and intriguing.  There were a number of people who posted things that were education-related: classroom bulletin boards, organizational ideas for the classroom, Word Wall pictures, and the list went on.  Hmmmmm… VERY cool!  This took Pinterest to a whole other level for me!

I started searching for education-related items/topics in the search option on the main page. I found many things that I “re-pinned” to my own virtual bulletin boards.  It was then that I saw that a number of these “pinned” items had website addresses listed below the picture. Great!  After I went to some of these websites, I realized what a wonderful Professional Development tool this is for educators!

Many of the links found below the “pinned” items took me to various blogs written by teachers.  These teachers were sharing their classrooms, their learning, their ideas, and even their resources they developed!  Teachers are so generous with their time and ideas!  Amazing!

Here is a sample of some of the great teacher blogs I found by searching through Pinterest. You can also find some fabulous blogs by looking at the blogrolls listed on the other blogs you visit!Continue reading “Pinning Your Way to Pro-D”

Prezi! Prezi! Prezi!

Wow!  I finished my first Prezi!  This is a great presentation tool that can be used for any audience.

I designed this prezi for the Grade 5 classes who I will be teaching Health and Career Eduction to in the fall.  It is an introductory prezi that gives the students an overview of Health and Career Education and talks about what our focus will be for each term. I also added some pieces about assessment For, As, and Of their learning.

I found this helpful for me to do because I have not yet taught H&CE for Grade 5 students, so it helped me wrap my head around the topics a bit.

My hope is that this presentation will be engaging for the students and will keep them focused and get them excited about what they will be learning in Health & Career Ed.  Do you think I accomplished this goal?  Take a look (still trying to figure out how to embed – sorry):
H&CE5 on Prezi

http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf

 

  • Number your pathway before moving the items.  If you want to make an item really small and place it inside a letter, for instance, this will make this task much easier.
  • When I make another prezi, I will number my prezi as I go.  It got confusing going back to put everything in order. I even ended up missing a couple of things. Drat!  Did you notice?
  • I would focus more on the pictures from the beginning, like I did near the end of my prezi – actually numbering them as their own individual number.  I did not do this at the beginning of the prezi, and could not seem to change it because the pictures were too small.
  • When you have finished numbering a section, watch it to see if you added everything you wanted to the path. It is easier to do this as you go, instead of trying to “fit” something else in later.

Overall, I found this to be fun and rewarding to have a polished piece of work when I finished.

What do you think?

More Tech Resources

In the past couple of weeks, I have done a lot of exploring and learning online.  I am amazed by what I find and what is now on the internet.  I can’t believe I have seemingly been missing out on so much. As a way to document my own learning, and, hopefully, inspire some new learning amongst other educators, I am going to demonstrate some of the tech tools I have learned about recently.

These are a fabulous resources you can use in your classroom, at meetings, or at home (with your own children).

The first  tool I’d like to share is a brainstorming tool, Bubbl.us.  I used it to brainstorm some things about my new school: Bear Creek Elementary. Take a look:

As you can see, my new school is a diverse, complex school. It’s going to be a busy, exciting place, indeed!

I liked Bubbl.us, however there were a couple of things I would have liked to have been able to do with it (and maybe you can, and I just didn’t play around with it enough).  I wanted to be able to change the font. While you could change the colour scheme, you could not seem to choose one bubble to be a specific colour, while all the others were the same. If you change the colour on one, all the colours changed on all your bubbles. I also would have liked the ability to center the words in the bubbles.  That may just be me though – I like things symmetrical. 🙂

It is a simple brainstorming tool that would be easy for children to use. They could use it to brainstorm words for a topic of study, do a character map, a story map of a story or chapter, make a timeline, etc…  The uses are endless really.Continue reading “More Tech Resources”

Resources to Check Out!

There are so many cool tools online for educators and parents. These tools are great for integrating technology into your classroom/home.  I am going to talk a bit here about a few of the tools I’ve learned about and explored.  All of these tools are new to me within the past week.  Yah, I feel like I’ve been living under a rock for a while with respect to technology.

First of all, you must check out StoryBird!  This is an online writing tool in which children/adults can choose pictures from a variety of different themes and artists. They illustrations really are phenomenal!  Once an artist/theme is chosen, it is simple to make a book of your own.  The pictures are just dragged onto the different pages to make the stories. You can choose to place the photo on half of the page, with your writing on the other half, or you can also choose to have an illustration take up an entire 2-page spread.  Once you have dropped the picture where you want it, you simply start typing.  When you want to add a new page, you just click Add New Page.  It’s really easy!  When you are all done, you can publish your story.  You can publish it online, but you can also choose to download your book for a small fee.  You can also have your book published into a book for you as well.

My 6-year-old daughter and I made this StoryBird this morning. I do not know how to embed it, unfortunately, but you can check it out here.  Yes, it is about a Snowy Day and it is the middle of summer. What can I say, she’s 6!

Next, my daughter and I also checked out Storyline Online this morning. It is very cool!  There are many different books found on this site – all read by different actors/actresses. Very neat!  My daughter loves the book, A Bad Case of the Stripes, and loved it even more when read by someone other than myself.

Both of these resources would be great to use at home and in the classroom!

Check the out and let me know what you think!

Containing Myself

I am so excited about my new learning.  I have read so many articles/blogs, explored different websites and webtools.  I know I have a lot more to learn, but I am excited about what I have been learning and finding so far.

It’s great to learn new things and find new resources, but, to really make meaning of what you are reading, finding, trying, at least for me, I like to share it with others.  During this sharing, I can really have great discussions with people. It is exciting to open people’s minds and have them join in the excitement.  It is truly infectious. That all sounds so great, doesn’t it?

Not so fast…

This afternoon, I was talking to my husband about some of the exciting things I’ve found and have been exposed to through Twitter (one of the best Professional Development tools, if I have not yet mentioned it here).  Well, my husband is NOT an educator. He doesn’t understand my excitement and doesn’t share my enthusiasm for my new finds.  His words, actually, include things like, “I don’t get the point of it.”, “A huge waste of time.”, “Those things are all just a way to muddy the water and take away from people’s focus of their job at hand.”  Ummmm…. okay. Conversation over.Continue reading “Containing Myself”