As we organize our teaching/learning environments, it is important to hold time to learn ourselves – to challenge ourselves to engage with new ideas, to seek out new opportunities in professional learning, and to reflect how they relate with personal beliefs. This is about connecting to what is important. Only then can we bring powerful…
Tag: digital writing
Voice and Choice – Teachers & Students Ring Out
From time to time we continue our focus on sharing practices in SD41 that create community and build connected stories using our blogs. On the Cariboo side of the city, resides Armstrong teacher, Jude Comeau. Her blog called Division 11’s Class Blog-Learning One Byte At A Time, is a hive of connected learning. Her purposes are…
An Audience of One is No Audience At All
“Students need an authentic audience.” You’ve heard this statement before. Given the vast array of opportunities, you would think that this is easy. But any number of bells are ringing in your head and you recognize it’s not that simple. Consider questions like “who will be the target audience – parents, peers, people across the…
Who’s Telling Your Story If You’re Not?
Storytelling is as important today as years past – perhaps more so. There are many competing forces and it is challenging to capture audience’s attention. Questions to consider might be “What is your story? Who is telling your story? How are you telling it? Is it getting to the audience you wish?” Answers will differ…
Dialogue With A Twist
How would you create opportunities for students to practice dialogue? Perhaps it’s talk between two people or two characters in a book or a conversation between you and yourself? MMhh…now that would be interesting. A bit of reflective action produced in video format. And practicing a host of literacy elements to boot. The tool you…
iPad Apps that Enhance your Language Arts Program
Joined by a group of enthusiastic K-12 teachers and principals, we explored a number of apps at our District Pro-D session on February 21st. The feature story was Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin. After listening to the story and the oh-so catchy song, we used a strategy called Milling…
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 #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 #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 #4 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #4: “I hate Google Docs!” stated a student in an advanced writing class. The teacher being stunned by this emphatic state turned my way with a “now what!” look. After probing, it became clear that this writer liked the thesaurus dictionary in MSWord. A quick introduction to online visual dictionaries opened a whole different world not…
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…
How Do You Communicate?
More than any other initiative we’ve been a part, none have reached the level of activity as our wordpress blogging platform. This pilot grew from humble beginnings with the simple goal of “tell your story”. Our question – what would happen if we gave our people an opportunity to open a window into classrooms or…
A Year of Discovery
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 and try to put things into perspective. Our Writers Workshop folks grappled with ideas related not only…
iPad/iPod Apps ShootOut – Multisensory Blitz
District Pro-D arrived on February 22nd. Offered at two sites (Byrne Creek and Taylor Park) complete with video feed of our keynote to Taylor Park, it served as a reminder that connection, collaboration, ideas generation happen when we all come together. With over 110 sessions, it was an electrifying event. No small feat for a…
To Blog Or Not To Blog
Why blog? Your current process of emailing parents or sending written notices home works just fine! Why change you ask. What makes blogging so unique? Blogging accomplishes many goals that cannot be accomplished as well as email, paper notices or student planner comments. Yes, blogging is an easy way to share homework and expectations for projects…
Learning on a Curve – Learning Tech Inquiry Team
So much to learn – that must have been the thinking bubble of each participant in our Learning Tech Inquiry group. It was a day to use the new technologies (laptops, ipads, software) and get a bit more comfortable. This is what we explored: Start with a bit of brainstorming ideas. We used Padlet (previously known…
Communicating – the Art of Presentation
Consider the many times you present an idea, or tell a story. Haiku Deck on the iPad, takes the art of presenting to a whole new level. Take an idea or a message; synthesize it to a few words that represent the deep understandings. Haiku Deck will use the words to locate images from Creative Commons that…
Informed Choices for Writing Workshop
Even though you may love Writers Workshop, the challenge comes in keeping track of all the confer/revision comments for planning purposes. We know that immediate feedback, specific and targeted will support our students’ approximation of great writing. How do you keep your ongoing comments on students? (I used to use post-it notes – hundreds of post-its.)…
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…
Why Write?
Sometimes a picture says it all… While using ComicLife is a powerful tool to create comics, sometimes what’s required is a tool that has its own built in media library. There are many out on the web to choose. The one above is from LearnEnglishKids by the British Council. A range of panels, backgrounds, characters…