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 […]
Tag: technology
Parenting in the digital age
Three weeks ago I did a couple presentations to parents about Parenting In the Digital Age: This FREE workshop is for parents, both the tech savvy and the less technically inclined, who would like to develop family expectations around the use of technology to play, learn and connect. For this presentation I created a wiki: […]
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 […]
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 […]
Choose Your Battle
Choose your position: Are you a gatekeeper, policemen, guard… or teacher? All these jobs are necessary, but which one belongs in schools? Choose your battle: Filters that also filter learning -or- High expectations about appropriate use? Banning POD’s -or- High expectations about appropriate use? Teaching without technology -or- High expectations about appropriate use? Make no mistake, having […]
Broken Presentations and Broken Photocopiers
Yesterday morning I did a keynote presentation for our High School Pro-D day that I called: ‘It’s not about the Technology -(and it’s not a secret)‘. I’ll share this online after I get back from holidays. The night before the presentation I sat and looked at what I had prepared and hated it. I wrote […]
Blogs as Learning Spaces
Sue Waters, a friend who has always stepped up and helped me out with just about every request I have ever made to my PLN, sent me an email a couple nights ago. In it she said: I’ve been asked by some 4th year preservice students to put together a video on the value of […]
Is the tool an obstacle or an opportunity?
[Updated version] By datruss | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon by datruss This has been floating around in my head for a while, but Scott McLeod’s ‘Banning Student Computers’ slide and Sonya’s ‘The New Teacher’ inspired me to finally express it visually. The last time he was in town, Alan […]
Digital Teachers
Sonya Woloshen is a new teacher this year. She is a job-sharing French Immersion teacher at our school 2 days a week, and at another Middle School the other 3 days. Sonya did a short pro-d session this afternoon with some of our teachers. Her session title: “I took the red pill”. She ran through […]
POD’s
No it isn’t about the Technology. It also isn’t about ‘getting knowledge‘. New school meets old school and neither school is where we are at right now. I wish people would stop trying to compare old ways with new ways and started asking, “What can we do with this amazing new tool?” or “How can […]