Failure can be very unproductive. It can stem from a lack of effort, resources, support, knowledge, and reflection. Failure can also be an amazing tool for learning, and perhaps one that every student should experience before graduation. Stephen Whiffin, who conceptualized the Inquiry Hub, suggested that every student should have ‘My Epic Failure’ as […]
Tag: flickr
New Perspective
At this time of year, I’m often absorbed in reading about the year that was and the year ahead. Goals, predictions, and nostalgic reviews are read, tweeted and shared in many places like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and here on this blog. However, this year I headed into the Chistmas break feeling rather unplugged, and […]
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a meaningful shift
Before: There was a built in validity (not necessarily accuracy) in opening up and reading the information in an encyclopedia. And now: Can the same be said of a web search? Whose job is it to check validity and accuracy now? Before: We watched along as our teachers played dry, (usually humourless) documentaries as we […]
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Be Creative – Grad Speech 2011
Here is my speech to my Grade 9 Graduates this year: Last year I was much briefer, but for this speech I wanted to highlight student work and really show students and parents how our laptop program makes the educational experience different. The applause at the beginning was after my ‘Thank You’s’ to everyone for […]
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The complete guide to building a digital footprint
1. Pick a site that YOU WANT TO join. 2. Sign-up. 3. Take the time to seek out interesting people. 4. Friend them, follow them, add them to your network, join their network, favorite what you like, read them, talk to them, and link to them. 5. Share thoughtfully, openly, generously, bravely and in a […]
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An expectation of openness
On a recent post about empowering students, Gary Kern asked me a question in his comment: What are your thoughts on the structures and changes needed for teachers, especially at the older grades, to be able to foster higher levels of participation in their learning? What we really need are structures that both develop (and […]
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Leadership in the digital age
This was sent to me by a good friend and mentor, (and a leader in his district). It refers to news about my school moving to a BYO Laptop program. The humour in it is that he lives in Canada and I’m in China… beyond that it speaks volumes about how important school level leadership […]
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Bring Your Own Laptop to School
Background In the past two weeks I’ve moved from a school with just 3 projectors in a 4 floor, (no wireless), school to a school with: • Projectors in every classroom (that we will be using next school year). • Netbooks for every teacher. • Wireless in key rooms and common areas. AND… • Beginning […]
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Product You
I won’t bore you with the stats, we all know that we are bombarded with advertising everywhere we look. We also know that we are being targeted better and better by advertisers wanting to part us from our money. When I was on Yahoo Mail, I was always targeted by my last name: Truss… So, […]
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Olympic and Blogging Fever
For me it is a little bit difficult to think about the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics right now… I’m in a car outside of Hanoi, Vietnam heading to Ha Long Bay for an overnight boat cruise. The car ride is about 3.5 hours long and so I thought I’d use this time to plug a […]
