Supporting Reconciliation in Saskatchewan Schools

Over the past year, I have had the privilege of working with my colleagues at the Ministry of Education to conceptualize an online resource for educators to assist them in teaching about the legacy of residential schools in Canada. This project was developed as part of the Government of Saskatchewan's response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls To Action.

After consulting with educators and Elders, our team determined that there were already many resources that were available for learning about residential schools. Although new resources are still required, we wanted to help save educators time by bringing those resources into one area online that was easy for everyone to access. In the end, we decided to house our site on Blackboard and developed an online organization called Supporting Reconciliation in Saskatchewan Schools.

The purpose of this online organization is was to support educational professionals to work together to expand their understanding of truth and reconciliation as well as the legacy of residential schools. We decided that this site would house tools and learning resources that would help to facilitate truth and reconciliation conversations amongst school staff. By using our provincial LMS, we could also provide a collaborative online space for educational professionals to engage in province-wide discussions and to work on joint-initiatives that support reconciliation. We also wanted to start collecting provincial stories on reconciliation and created a section to highlight Saskatchewan-made resources and projects to help inspire others to act.

Here is a walk-through of the site:

I hope that this site will help teachers and communities start the important conversation about reconciliation. This will be a long journey that we all must embark on together. The intent is to have this site grow and evolve overtime so I hope you will be willing to join the organization and begin to contribute to the discussion.

Apple Learning Tour 2012 - Engage students. Explore apps, interactive books, and Multi‑Touch textbooks

Today, I had the opportunity to spend a day at the Apple Learning Tour 2012 in Regina.

The first workshop I attended was all about apps and multi-touch textbooks. The description of the morning session was:

Engage students. Explore apps, interactive books, and Multi‑Touch textbooks.

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Discover amazing interactive iBooks. Immerse yourself in the world’s largest online catalog of free education content in iTunes U. And experience some of the thousands of education apps for iPad. Learn how to create your own interactive Multi-Touch books with Mac and iBooks Author. Discover how a course is built with iTunes U Course Manager using interactive learning materials. Then see how it all comes together with an overview of ownership and deployment models for content.

The second session I attended was all about creating my own course for the iPad using iTunes U. The description of the afternoon session was:

Learn by doing. Create courses with iTunes U Course Manager.1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
In this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to build a course by exploring all the capabilities iTunes U Course Manager has to offer. Experience the ease of pulling together content such as audio, video, iBooks textbooks, and over 500,000 resources in iTunes U into an organized syllabus. Make available all the assignments, quizzes, and materials for your students or anyone who’s interested in the topic — whether in your class or anywhere in the world.

Resources that teachers might want to check out can be found on the Apple website for education: Resources

My notes from the session:

Demonstration of products:

• Apple TV to turn your projector into a sharing screen where students can use airplay to share what they are working on from wherever they are working in the classroom.
• Exploration of accessibility features on an iPad such as speaking, guided access, mono audio to make the device meet the needs of students and their different learning requirements.

Apps we explored on iPad and Mac:

• Explain Everything: (iPad) Allows students to record a voice over, edit photos, write text. Project idea is to give the students a slide deck (or have them create a slide deck) and each record their understanding of a concept or explanation in 60 seconds or less. Interesting demonstrating of learning idea.
• Doceri: (iPad) Allows you to use an interactive whiteboard similar to Explain Everything recommended by another participant.
• Book Creator: (iPad) Allows you to create your own book with photos, text, voice over and drawings. Students could even create their own book for their demonstration of learning.
• iBook Author (Mac) We then spent some time exploring how to create books on iBooks Author which is a Mac app that allows you to create your own book using video, links and interactive features. For more detailed instructions, I encourage you to visit the education resource section of the Apple website as it has instructions to help you create your own iBooks. Apple Education Resources
• CloudOn: (iPad) (Thanks to Jim Swan for this one) Awesome app that allows you to use the Office Suite of products to create and use documents but save them to your Google Drive or Dropbox. 

iBooks we explored:

• Life on Earth (Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University)- Saw features like including video and interactive maps and materials. Also saw how highlight parts of the text and allow students to create their own study notes and cards based on their highlighted information. There are also accessibility features that allow the student to have content read to them.

iTunesU:

You can create your own account (using Safari browser on Mac or PC) in the iTunesU. Once your school or division signs up, then you can be linked to an institution, which I understand has extra features or benefits. Using their course management system, you can design your own courses to be delivered through the iTunesU app. More resources and instructions are included in the Apple Education Resources

Presentation to Key Women Educators

Here is the online version of my slidedeck for my presentation to Key Women Educators in Regina, SK, on February 8, 2012 about the use of technology to engage in lifelong learning for both students and educators.

The use of technology to engage in lifelong learning

View more presentations from Joanna Sanders

Here's a great e-book for educators to check out when wanting to learn more about how to use technology in the classroom. A great place to start if you are just beginning to integrate technology or a great refresher for those who are more advanced.

Thank you to all of the contributors who made this book possible and to Steven Anderson for hosting it on his blog: Web 2.0 Classroom.


Super Book Of Web Tools For Educators -

RSA Animates Changing Education Paradigms

I wish I could animate my lessons like this. A great message from Sir Ken Robinson illustrated by RSA Animate.

Some Reading and Viewing to add to your To Do List

I have had these tabs open in my Firefox for awhile (actually since the summer - yikes!) and have been meaning to post them on my blog for others to check out. Here are some interesting blogs and videos to check out when you have a spare moment. If you have others to share, please do!! Post your links in my comments.

8 Must Read Ed Tech Posts from SimpleK12:

• Elizabeth talks about Jing, PLN's, Classroom Blogs, Firefox, Evernote, Empowering Students, Learning Styles and Online Communities. What more could you want?? Take a minute to check out her list.

Top 10 TED Videos for Educators (via Parentella):

• I love TED videos. I could watch them all day if I had the time. Here are a few any educator can appreciate. Maybe you will be inspired too. This list was generated by the blog Parentella. If you have other suggestions or ideas for a Top 10 TED video list for educators, please comment. Maybe we can make our own list!

7 Videos all Educators should watch (via Free Tech for Teachers):

• Some of these videos I've posted about before but I had to include this in my list of things to watch when you have time. Richard Byrne has done a great job compiling videos that I've seen in different venues or on different blogs around the web. Here they all are in a handy collection. Do you have one you would like to add to the mix?

Twitter for Educators

There is a lot of chatter and sharing on Twitter right now about how to use this social media in education. I have noticed a number of lists of ways to use it in the classroom being shared on Twitter so I thought that I would share a few of them here with my readers. Some links and ideas are better than others but you may find some of these ideas useful:

• Twittercure - Kathy Schrock's Presentation at ISTE 2010 on Twitter
• The Ultimate Twitter Guidebook For Teachers - a blog post found on EduDemic
• 50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom - a link sent to me by Samantha Miller
• Twitter for Learning - 55 Great eLearning Articles - by Tony Karrer at eLearning Technology

What is Twitter? - Animated Explanations

KI2 Online conference 2009 - Getting Started Keynote - The Wizard of Apps

I didn't have time this morning to attend the live session of the K12 Online conference. Fortunately, you can watch the presentations online when it is convenient for you.

The keynote this morning was very well done. It was presented by Joyce Kasman Valenza and was entitled "The Wizard of Apps". This presentation featured "a sing-a-long" portion where high school drama students sang songs about the importance of web 2.0 applications to the tune of songs from the Wizard of Oz. The presentation itself is full of great Web 2.0 apps available for teachers to use in their classroom and Joyce does a great job explaining how these apps have been used in an educational setting.

The presentation can be seen here:


The slides can be found here:

Wizard of Apps

View more presentations from joycevalenza.

For more information and links mentioned in this presentation, visit: newtoolsworkshop.wikispaces.com

For more information on the K12 Online Conference 2009, visit: http://k12onlineconference.org/

What Teachers Do After School

I found this video really cute. It is perfect for this weeks Friday Funny. Enjoy!

iPod Touch in the Classroom

I love my iPod Touch and always find it fascinating how many applications there are for it. I wish I could have some for my classroom because of the number of applications that are available for eduational purposes.

Earlier this week, I was jealous to hear that the University of Saskatchewan was offering a course in creating an "app" for Smart phones. Now why couldn't I take a cool course like that when I was in University? Even if it wasn't for money making purposes, I think it would be interesting to design applications to enhance your lessons to use on your class set of iPod Touches. You can listen to the story on the CBC Saskatchewan's Morning Edition Podcast that aired on September 14th here.

While reading my Twitter Feed today, I came across this video about the use of the iPod Touch in a classroom in England on the Learn 4 Life blog. I had to share because I found it quite interesting.



Maybe one of my future projects will be to invest in some iPod touches for my classroom. I think that with the number of applications that they have available now for the iPod Touch, it would be an interesting investment in student learning, especially given the new approach we are using in our school right now based on cooperative, inquiry based learning.

I'm looking for other educators who are using iPod touches in their classrooms. How do you use them and why do you find them useful to enhance students' learning? If you have any experiences or insights to share, I would love to hear from you.

Creating On-line Jigsaw puzzles with pictures

I have been working on material for the beginning of the school year and decided to create a "Where did Mme Bobiash go this summer?" activity so students can guess where I travelled based on the landmarks I am photographed with in the puzzle. This is a pretty neat tool that I will be using with my SMART Board in September. The website I used was Jigsaw Planet. Have fun making your own puzzles!

Here's the first one I made. It is pretty easy with only 16 pieces. You can make them as easy or as difficult as you want!

A School Transformation in Hamilton Ontario

I was browsing the ISTE website and came across an inspirational story. I decided that I had to share this digital story (video) made by Lawfield Elementary School in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada who had to reconstruct their school after a tornado. A news story was published on TheSpec.com about this school's design. It was designed with a Universal Design Vision. Here is the description they submitted to the ISTE website:

"After our community school was hit by a Tornado, the staff and students had to relocate for two years while a new school was being built. In March of 2008, this school, Lawfield, was constructed with a Universally Designed Vision. By
reallocating resources and using recycled furniture, principal William Demille made a commitment to transform this new school into a universally designed environment with Speaker systems in every classroom, Smartboards, document cameras and much more. The staff and students will always feel a sense of connection after experiencing such turmoil and change. The transformation has just begun."

Here is their video. I hope to make one about our school next year after we have gone through "Structural Innovation". I find a lot of what they are talking about similar to what we will be doing at our school next year.

New School Structure

I've had to take a break from blogging over the past month or so due to my involvement in my school's restructuring for next year. Our school board has undergone a renewal process and launched the opportunity for schools to propose a new innovative school structure that involves teacher collaboration, project and inquiry based learning opportunities for students, flexible time tabling, mixed groupings and a focus on literacy and numeracy skills. Our school decided to take the board up on its challenge and submitted a proposal. In the end, we are one of ten elementary schools and four high schools to be chosen. We are very excited about next year.

I'm most excited to be moving into a classroom with a SMART Board. I will be moving into a larger classroom that will have room for students to work on project-based learning opportunities in the afternoon. I will also get to use the SMART Board for my literacy and numeracy blocks in the morning.

The structure we proposed is outlined in a Power Point presentation I created to present to our staff and parent council. I have posted it to Slide Share to include it in this post. I have also included the draft of the handout we produced to distribute at our Board's Annual General Meeting last week. I don't have a digital version of the final draft.

WW SIWG Presentation

View more presentations from bobiashj.

WWAGM Brochure

View more documents from bobiashj.

As we embark on this new structural innovation, I would love to hear from others regarding our plan. Have you implemented similar plans in your school or division? How have you used SMART Boards in your classroom? Do you have other ideas or suggestions after reviewing our plan?

La Géométrie - Grade 6 Math iMovie Projects

My Grade 6 French Immersion Math class spent the past two weeks researching definitions, writing scripts, taking photos and making movies all about geometry. Everyone did a fantastic job. The best part is that all the students in the class can now easily define, identify, create and find examples of different triangles, shapes and other geometric terms. Here are the top three iMovies for your enjoyment. (narrated in French):

La géométrie est intéressante
par Meghan et Molly

Le monde géométrique

par Jordan et Serena

La géométrie: le filme!

par Aaron et Kyle

Fun with Wordle

Another web 2.0 app that I find intriguing is from Wordle. This webiste lets you represent your writing in a visual sense by organizing the words you use in a piece of writing or post to a website into a word cloud with the emphasis on the words you use the most.

Like my previous blog post where I analyzed my writing using typealyzer, I wanted to see what one month of writing looks like. Here is my blog in a visual sense. (Thanks to fellow educational blogger, Neil Stephenson for giving me the idea! Neil did the same thing after blogging for a month.)

I like that the biggest word in my Wordle is "students" and that if you read across the Wordle, it says "students learning things". I think that this is another website I will definitely be using with my students in the future.

Redesigning The Way We Teach

Our school board is in the middle of a renewal process and has asked its schools to rethink how it delivers curriculum in its buildings. It is encouraging administrators and educators to think out of the box and redesign the way we teach in order to increase literacy and numeracy achievement amongst its students. It is encouraging us to break away from traditional models of education (ex. the one teacher-one classroom model) and it is looking for new models to educate the 21st century learner.

For me, I think that this is a very exciting idea. Our province is currently implementing new curriculum that requires educators to use enganging questions to teach learning outcomes. The redesigned curriculum is perfect for embarking on a project based inquiry learning approach to our instruction. Using technology as a tool, we need to redesign how we collaborate as educators and how we facilitate learning in our classrooms.

I'm looking for ideas and examples from others on how other schools use team teaching models to educate using project based learning and collaboration amongst teachers and students to deliver curriculum. I have come across two models: the Calgary Science School (Grades 4-9) and the Philadephia Science Learning Academy (Grades 9-12). These schools use collaborative teaching and inquiry learning to deliver their curriculum. There must be other examples out there. Please share!

Image: Question!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/-bast-/349497988/