Top Secret Drum Corps at the 2006 Edinburgh Military Tattoo

Amazing! The Top Secret Drum Corps from Switzerland performing at the 2006 Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

Province Shapefiles

These are shapes of provinces, suitable for cut out, turning into a puzzle.

Introduction to a School Weblog

Parents and students, read the results of year's blogging by a group of kids in an elementary school.

A couple of important points:

1. All the kids' names are not their real names (they are pseudoynms).
2. All the writing that is visible has been read and approved by the teacher, comments included.
   

Here's the URL
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=5655&l=1160097885

The goals of using a weblog for educational purposes are:

1. Students develop their writing and their ideas for a real audience.
   
2. Students develop their computer skills by using current technology.
   
3. An online, interactive community will develop where ideas are shared appropriately and securely.
4. Higher level thinking takes place as students read and evaluate each other's opinions and make comments.
   

Director's Visit - notes

The notes from the Director's visit are posted at-
http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/directors_place/
diary/resources/viscount_montgomery.pdf

Story Bits- Connecting with Home and School

Thank you to a fellow teacher for this link to story bits- little souvenir items that kids can bring home after story time in the library.
http://teachers.net/4blocks/article33.html

Advisor 6C web site

Here's the link to some web pages for advisor 6C.
Mr. Brown

http://teacherweb.com/ON/
ViscountMontgomery/Advisor6C/index.html

"Security" for kids on the internet

http://www.pctattletale.com/ This content monitor seems to play upon parental fears.

Article: Kids outsmart web filters Take the time to read the VERY LIVELY and WIDE RANGING talkback at the end of the article.

Kilcoo Staff Supervisors "06

smkilcoojune1 067vmstaff
Originally uploaded by Skippy Flickr.

Kilcoo is a wonderful camp experience for our students; and these fellow teachers have been great to work with.

It's worth the effort.

new cursor

Cursor from Vibeke-Cursors.piczo.com.

My Feeds Test

At Crossroads, July 26

green_room
Originally uploaded by Skippy Flickr.

Ron Mainse took a moment with us to take this picture. What a great experience to see the whole "live" production come together!

The Kia

The Kia
Originally uploaded by Skippy Flickr.

The Kia crumpled. We didn't. Thanks to God for his mercies, they are new every morning.
Vehicle was a "Total loss."
Other driver charged with careless driving.

Jason plays at Crossroads Centre

Here's the link to today's 100 Huntley Street program.
I was drumming for Jason Silver. Great experience!
Jason-- awesome job!
http://204.187.63.130/huntley/2006jul/100hs060726c.ram

Incredible List of Library and Literacy Resources

http://www.library.on.ca/links/clearinghouse/index.htm

Youth literacy resources page, OLS

http://www.library.on.ca/links/clearinghouse/collectiondev/youthlit.htm

Four Year Old Djembe Player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiddRw0Lpwc
This is quite the player!

jun26 010

jun26 010
Originally uploaded by Skippy Flickr.

This picture is about 5 minutes after the other one. A minute later the heron dropped down to the pond behind the lattice and ate all the fish.

jun26 002

jun26 002
Originally uploaded by Skippy Flickr.

This great blue heron flew over the house yesterday.
Then, today, it appeared again only this time it landed.
After a few minutes it moved in on the neighbours' pond and feasted on ALL of the fish therein.
Fine dining....

Another career info link

http://www.ilc.org/cfmx/CM/Careers/
This one is hosted by TVO's Independent Learning Centre, ILC

Relax

Relax
Originally uploaded by webinteger.

Postings Day

Lots and lots of Kindergarten teachers needed!

Questions as powerful tools

Lesson design is what makes the difference. We need lots of help in this area...

"...questions may be one of the most powerful technologies invented by humans. Even though they require no batteries and need not be plugged into the wall, they are the tools which help us make up our minds, solve problems and make decisions."

"Ron Hyman from Rutgers reported in 1980 that there were 38 teacher questions for every one student question in the typical American classroom."

The above taken from http://fno.org/sept97/telling.html

"It is when the learning environment changes that student learning changes. When teachers use the tools to engage children in active construction of knowledge, projects that are related to standards for learning; and when instruction, curriculum and assessment are tied neatly together, then learning occurs." http://fno.org/sept97/latimes.html

More extremely useful and sane links

This is a great Canadian site for Career studies. All kinds of interactive quizzes, etc.

http://www.iwb.net.au/ http://www.iwb.net.au/
Australian interactive whiteboard site. I want one.

http://www.fno.org/sept03/pedagogy2.jpg
This illustrates the complex and multilayered elements of pedagogy. Not for the faint of heart or for anyone who feels comfortable in a rut.

http://www.fno.org/workshop.html
Another Australian educator who pulls many ideas together. No gobbledygook.

Welcome back, Pilgrim...

Excellent Technology and Pedagogy web resource:
http://store.yahoo.com/fnopress/

Recent Tasks in the IT room

• finally figured out how to rip a DVD (it just ain't that easy, people)
• pondering the process of what to do with raw video footage of student activities. It's one thing to have the tools in your IT tool box, but another thing entirely to know what to do with them! Video editing and production is a world of knowledge that encompasses visual, dramatic, musical, sound engineering and technical knowledge all into ONE. I feel so much like a beginner, kind of like learning to hold a hammer and hit the nail for the first time....
  

Music Is For Everyone

I love to hear kids sing. We had a great time at the Kodaly Society of Ontario conference in Waterloo at Laurier U. Seeing one of the pros in action with a well tuned children's choir of about 75 voices was great. Watching someone teach well is an incredible learning experience. I need more of these opportunities.

Gotta get me a big interactive white board. Dedicated notebook PC and sound system. Put all the listening samples in MP3s on the notebook and just touch the screen to play a sample, then touch the screen to bring a staff up or any number of visuals I've created. Then, make the whole thing portable and go from one class to another and have FUN MAKING GOOD MUSIC.

Golly, after seeing what is possible (I'm very forgetful) I'm thinking that I want to just teach music to the primary kids, and start a primary - junior choir at school, just to hear them sing and have a ball of fun. What am I waiting for? This is soo do-able.

Not to mention, getting a bunch of boys together and singing some rollicking folk songs..... just the guys, though.

Stay tuned..

Designing my unit

I asked my students to start thinking about their answers to this question: What types of music making do you find the most meaningful and motivating?

I suggested to my grade 8s that in the next several weeks I would be giving them opportunities to begin making music that allows them to follow their own interests in different ways. For example, a few friends could work together to make music of their own and share it with others...

Well, there has been some feedback on this. One student has been very favourable of the idea of working with a few friends.

Great tasks are hard fun.

• They are challenging and multifaceted.
• They require students to use technology to play with ideas and build things.
• They require sustained amounts of uninterrupted time (be prepared for a good task to take days or even weeks for students to finish).
• They require students to stretch their thinking.

http://www.myio.org/IO/Modules/Projects/dsp_map_technology_to_task.asp?io_projectid=5114 This is the hyperlink to http://myio.org

Great tasks develop what Deborah Meier calls strong "habits of mind." Here are the kinds of thinking Meier thinks meaningful tasks should promote.

• Questions of evidence or how do we know what we know?In a really good task, students will encounter issues of proof, reasoning, argument and persuasion. They have to make conscious decisions about what will count as evidence or knowledge. They need to make judgments about the reliability and validity of information and consider what important sources and ideas they may have overlooked.
• The question of viewpoint or who's speaking?In a good task, different viewpoints are not a problem to be solved or a difficulty to be overcome. They are an essential component of understanding. Great tasks can help students understand that the privilege of perspective is an essential component of power. Such tasks might help them discover voices and points of view that have been systematically silenced. In a great task, there should be more than one possible answer or path.
• The search for connections and patterns. This might involve asking, "What causes what?" Or it might cause students to question how one thing is related to another – especially when the relationship might not be obvious.
• Supposition or how might things have been different?Here, great tasks allow students to manipulate variables, create different scenarios or ask, "What if?" in powerful ways.
• And, finally, why any of it matters or who cares?

The Pursuit of Deeper Understanding

This is my new career objective as a teacher: "The pursuit of deeper understanding."

It is the sure cure for apathy and purposeless, lifeless lessons planning.

When is the last time I as a teacher wrestled with the meaning of any subject matter to my own life? What means the most to me at work as a teacher? Isn't it what I do with my students in my classroom? Shouldn't my biggest struggle and angst as a teacher be the ongoing challenge to create meaningful, inspiring learning opportunities for our students? Shouldn't the opportunities afforded by digital media and the internet throw us into a tizzy of interaction and discussion about how to wrap our subjects around these "things"? And, shouldn't the greatest joy and satisfaction come out of grappling my way to a solution--something that actually works!

So, I sat down with my friend and mentor, LM, and we dialogued about my next term's plans. It felt good and validating to bounce ideas off him, to see some stick and some get pushed aside. Even as I spoke many ideas out loud for the first time, I realized whether they were important ones or not. We need to interact over our plans! It helps so much.

Then, today I stumbled across an old Time article about "Canadians Making a Difference." One article mentioned the Galileo Educational Network. I looked it up, and it took me to an affiliated web site: http://www.myio.org/ Intelligence On line