Connecting a ‘just right’ opportunity to engage in independent deeper thinking and a resource that allows that to happen is a challenge. When the two meet, it’s almost magical, especially when it can include students who struggle with reading and writing. For these, time is spent mostly on the mechanics of reading/writing, leaving little cognitive energy for…
Tag: classroom connections
Summer Thoughts
As we go into the summer, a huge ‘thank you’ goes to teachers, students and parents. To the students, you’ve practiced focus and attention and this is no easy feat. It takes hard work to build and exercise an efficient brain. To our parents, you ensured your children had a good night’s sleep and a…
New Beginnings
A huge welcome to our new sites – South Slope, Marlborough, Buckingham, Burnaby South Access Program and Moscrop Access Program. A great time of learning with all teams and we continue to have more gatherings in the near future to continue the conversation of supporting our students. The days of January have been whizzing by,…
App #10 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #10: Partner a beautiful image that you’ve drawn or photographed with interactivity and you’ve got Thinglink. These rich interactives provide another way to curate and organize information. I’ve written about this before using the SAMR Model as an example (developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D) and also here where I was participating in CLMOOC. Thinglink offers interaction tools that tag photos or images…
App #9 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #9: In our effort to highlight the SAMR Model of integration of technology, we’ve been considering what activities might fit into Redefinition (technology that allows creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable). What activities might have significant impact to student outcomes? The “tell your story” concept remains one of the powerful ways we have to teach others, to increase audience,…
App #8 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #8: Image editors are the tools that help your ordinary images dance off pages. IrfanView is a free program (on your school computers) that does a variety of basics like compression. I love the “batch conversion” feature when I need a ton of images resized for the web. (click here for instructions) When I need to add…
App #7 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #7: How do you present information from research projects? Usually we default to PowerPoint. Another option is Haiku Deck for all platforms. I wrote about this app for the iPad before (click here). The presentation software offers a beautiful, yet simplistic way to to share information. Each slide offers options for layout, format (bullet points), images (including…
App #6 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #6: QR Codes (or Quick Response codes) are everywhere – in magazines, on professional cards, on billboards, websites, newsletters all because those little squares can be packed with information. You can even find them at the grocery store gracing the fruit section (giving you additional details of the grower). Teachers have used them to create…
App #5 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #5: Many of us have our students write stories and then illustrate the text. While the artists in the bunch do flips and cartwheels (and I’ve had those students), what happens to those who struggle with drawing the simplest shapes. You know what I mean… somehow my tree just doesn’t quite look like a…
App #3 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #3: What happens when you bring together an ipad, an app, words, thoughts, and sound? Why Book Creator of course. This app for the ipad is a thing of beauty when it comes to creating ebooks. Images can be drawn or photographed and inserted along with text. As well, audio can enhance both the background environment and…
App #2 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #2: We all collect lists of websites to use in our classes or professional learning. Many of you use online tools such as Diigo (my favourite) or Delicious to organize these for easy retrieval. Another one along this line is Symbaloo or to be precise, Edu.Symbaloo. (I’ve written about this before.) This site takes bookmarks and creates imaged tiles for…
Reading the Impossible
Many of you have asked me if there is support for those who struggle with reading digital content especially when it is written above instructional reading levels. Every time a class attempts research out on the web, students are faced with information they cannot comfortably read. For the brain to have enough neuronal resources to…
Discovery and Relationships
It’s June and I’m really not sure what happened to this year. The ten months prior have whizzed by and here we are again. I wanted to take this moment to share some reflections of the year. Our Fast ForWord teams saw a boost and challenge in the delivery of this Tier 3 intervention program. The move…
Hot Off the Presses – January News
It’s blustery and nippy outside. What better time than to dig into our latest newsletter of the year! Filled with hot items, as well as keep you up-to-date with the latest workshops and learning sessions. And who can resist those little tips and tricks that make teaching life both easier and interesting. CLICK HERE for your…
Happy New Year – September 2012
Welcome back. This is a very exciting year with the transition to our new online platform. This has allowed us some flexible options in how we deliver the program, how we support more students, and how we engage in deeper conversations about our students’ learning journey. In anticipation of the process, this blog has been…