Here is a little tribute I shared with my staff at our staff meeting today. I took 3 or 4 of the photos last week, and then yesterday I visited classes and took the rest. It seems that whenever I talk to my staff the conversation is always about the things we need to do better or still need to get done… It’s the nature of teaching that we can always improve our practice.

So, I decided to say ‘Thank You!’ to my teachers for doing all the wonderful things they do. I work in a great place with a great staff, and sometimes we need to stop and appreciate the little things we are doing to make our school great!

Remember to show your appreciation for all the wonderful teachers in your life!

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Here is the link for this video on YouTube, and for those behind a filter, like my staff, here it is in a drop.io folder.

Music: ‘Walking on Sunshine’ by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

“I can do that without technology” -Actually no you can’t!

Here is the Slideshare.

This was the presentation I first created for BLC08, and I wrote about it here.

I’ve finally edited it for the web… a tedious task as I tend to use a lot of slide transitions that do not convert well to individual slides. I shared a few presentation notes on this Slideshare, but not too much. This is a great feature I’ll probably use more in the future.

Here again is the Ustream: This version was done for student teachers at Simon Fraser University. As a video, it has a slow start with student teachers discussing a statement, and sharing ideas until about the 13 minute mark. Also, the slides in this video won’t match perfectly to the Slideshare above as I had to explain some of the slides for the stand-alone slide show, but it would be easy to connect the two presentations.

I’ll be using some of this presentation as the intro to one of my BLC09 presentations:

The P.O.D.s are coming!

What are PODS? They are Personally Owned Devices, and they are already infiltrating our schools. For now they get tucked away in lockers and backpacks, but as the saying goes, “If there is an elephant in the room, introduce it!” Students are bringing small machines with huge potential into our schools. It is time to introduce these tools into our classrooms and also to make sure that we have the knowledge and the infrastructure to use them to their fullest potential.

And I’ll probably link to this post in my PODs presentation. I first discussed PODs here.

It’s nice to finally be able to share this presentation and as always, I’m offering it with a CC license:

Feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated.

I grew up watching Sesame Street and singing along to ‘Who are the people in your neighbourhood‘.

Well the concept of neighbourhood has really changed for me. I showed this movie in Powerpoint format at one of my presentations at BLC08 this summer. Afterwards, I think it was one of 3 people, (Liz Davis, Laura Deisley, or Maria Knee), that asked me how many people from my network did I think were in the presentation? I had no idea? Tonight I thought I’d start the search.

See the video on this blip.tv link or click below for it to open in a new window.

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Click to play in this window

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So, here are some of the people that are in my digital neighbourhood, that as a result found their way into this video. (In order of appearance). (Networked teacher images)• Alec Couros | (Blog Comments)• Liz Davis •Wesley Fryer | (Twirl/Twitter) • Martin Pluss •Konrad Glogowski •Sue [Sujokat] • Helen Otway • Melanie Hughes | (Plurk)• SMeech •Liz Davis •GingerTPLC •Jeff McCord | (Del.icio.us bookmarks) •Kim Cofino • Angela Maiers •Chris Lehmann • Jen [injenuity] • Ken Allan | (Google Reader Friend’s shared items) •Darren Draper •Dean Shareski •Lisa Durff •Liz Davis •Susan C Morgan •Kris Bradburn | (Google Documents) •Alan November •Kris Bradburn | (Connect and Protect) •Dave Sands | (Connecting from suburbs) •Kim Cofino • Derrall Garrison •Darren Draper | (Well rounded teacher images) • Jeff Utecht | (The competition) •Lisa Durff | (Blogging) • Arthus •Kris Bradburn | (Wikis) • Clay Burell • Vicki Davis • Julie Lindsay

That’s 30 people, some appearing more than once. Other than intentionally using items from Alec and Jeff, each one of these ‘sightings’ are incidental… but significant. Beyond these connections I also have Jabiz Raisdana, Dave Matheson (one of just 3 local connections from my district), Sue Waters, Karen Janowski, and Claudia Ceraso commenting on my post introducing the video.

Claudia didn’t just comment on my post, she wrote a response post that has challenged my thinking. When I’m done here I’m going to her blog to respond… to continue the conversation, and the learning. Claudia may live and work in Argentina, but she has influence over me. Geography and physical proximity no longer matter. (Case-in-point: Sue’s comment offers me advice from Austrialia.)

My digital neighbourhood spans the globe! But this is more than an issue of geography, it is also about influence and significance. Some of these connections are ‘loose’, like the local bus driver on Sesame Street, but others have greater meaning to me.

I may never meet some of these people, but they are my teachers, mentors and friends. This is my network, not my neighbourhood… and networks are fundamentally different than groups/(neighbours). It truly is a brave new world-wide-web, and if we aren’t engaging in the opportunities it provides us then we are missing out… and the same could be said for our students.