Part 1 I drew a rough draft of the image above in a leadership meeting with Tom Grant. Tom shared this quote on his blog, shortly after the meeting. “I can think of nothing so conspicuously missing in the effort to improve our schools as the continuous engagement of teachers and principals in constructing visions […]
Category: reflection
Digital Literacy, toothpaste and the Inquiry Hub
In February I got to help write a course called Applications of Digital Literacy. As Jill, from Staff development, and I sat down to get things started, we discussed the fact that really we were developing a course that would hopefully be redundant in 5 years… because students by then would be coming out of […]
My 6th Blogiversary
I write for me, I share with you, and the world seems a little smaller. Just like last year, here is my blog’s year in review: The posts I’ve written and a quote from each. I hope that you will find something that appeals to you. (Mouse-over the links to find out a bit more about each […]
The COW is dead… Long live the POW?
This year has been quite transformational for me. I started the year Questioning Everything… especially the idea that we need to teach less and learn more. I’ve challenged late penalties, homework, and even AUP’s. I’ve talked about things becoming more open and distributed and I’ve even written an Open Manifesto. I’ve cautioned about flipping classes, […]
Drinking from a fire hose
The Setting I’ve been very unplugged for a few months. First I was busy with my move from China back to BC, Canada. Then I was truly unplugged on a trip to England and France, then I started work immediately upon return. I love my job as Vice Principal of Open Learning with the Learning Innovations […]
Perspective
Moped We are on vacation in Thailand. Four days ago I hopped on a moped to take a practice spin before talking my girls for a ride. My first mistake was staying too close to the edge of a bend in the road… which led to driving over some gravel on the road… which led […]
Homework
I question the value of most homework. Example: A math teacher teaches a concept to 30 students, then assigns 40 questions in the text. Here is a typical breakdown of student experiences… Group A+: These 3 students knew the concept before it was even taught, not a single of the 40 questions are remotely helpful […]
My 5th blogiversary
…The wizard cleared his throat. “In a hundred years or so, everyone now alive in the whole earth will be dead – is this not so?” The pompous man was relieved. He could follow that. He nodded sagely. “It would therefore be possible for the human race to run its affairs quite differently, in a […]
An Authentic Audience Matters
Bringing Science Alive! Total visitors since 15 Mar 2007: 100,190. In the last 4 years, a little Science Wiki that I created with a couple Grade 8 classes has been viewed over 100,000 times. Wow! Here is what I tried to do with the wiki: Let’s bring Science Alive! What do you want to […]
Question EVERYTHING!
Bruce Wellman said in a recent comment, “Mental models organized by an entrenched image of what teaching is will stay firmly in place until we move the conversation to an intense focus on learning… At this point, we appear to have a 19th century curriculum, 20th century buildings and organizations and 21st century students facing […]