When talking about building good relationships we seldom talk about those times when we have to be critical or offer challenging feedback. As a Vice Principal I learned this from my Principal. He always said to me, “If you aren’t willing to go to the hard places, then you aren’t helping your staff or your […]
Tag: feedback
Parents as partners
I firmly believe that “It takes a community to raise a child” and so without cooperation and communication between a school and their parent community, ‘we’ cannot fully support our children and their learning. That said, I often wonder about how we can more meaningfully engage parents in a way that they want to be […]
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The POD’s are Coming! BLC09
The Presentation: The POD’s are Coming View more presentations from David Truss. This is a story I think all educators need to hear. The question I wonder is, ‘Am I telling it in a way that they will listen?’ I told this story at BLC09 last week, and I’ll share some of my experience there […]
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The Rant, I Can’t, The Elephant and the Ant- On SlideShare
“I can do that without technology” -Actually no you can’t! Here is the Slideshare. The Rant, I Can’t, the Elephant, and the Ant View more presentations from David Truss. 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 […]
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Get Off Your Butt
Is your computer being used to teach, to distract, or to promote learning? If you are reading this while you have a class in session, get off your buttocks. If you are e-mailing while you have a class in session, move your rump. If you are planning your next lesson and you have a class […]
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Are You a Catalyst for Change?
It is now a month after BLC08 and a recent comment has stirred up some thoughts that sent me back to a blog draft I wrote months ago. On Defragging my brain after BLC08, Angela Kerns mentioned that of my nine ‘take-aways’, #3 and #4 resonated with her: 3. Face-to-face meetings with your network are […]
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Evaluating a Journey
Have you ever spent hours working on something and then looked at the final product only to wonder where the time and effort went? That’s how I feel about the rubric I have been working on for the Graduation Transitions Program (for which I am the coordinator at our school). Last year, under the old […]
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Wikis in the classroom: a reflection.
Well here it is, my completed Science Alive Wiki. After an incident delayed getting feedback from my students until last Monday, things got extremely busy with preparation for the Renaissance Fair and my Grade 5 Transition Retreats [the subject of a future post]. All this included 3 afternoons out of my classroom at other functions… […]
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Start Your Own Blog
Here is the write-up for the 2 hour Professional Development seminar that I ran today for 9 dedicated teachers who showed up on a sunny Saturday, after a full day of Pro-D on Friday. Start Your Own Blog A practical session that will introduce you to blogging. You will see how others use their blogs […]
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Online Connectivism Conference: Healthy Discord
I have been participating in this on-line conference for the last few days (or rather nights!) This is the introduction to the conference that convinced me to participate: “The evolution of teaching and learning is accelerated with technology. After several decades of duplicating classroom functionality with technology, new opportunities now exist to alter the spaces […]
