book.and.bloom

For my final project I will be developing my virtual assembly plans for the remainder of the school year. I have already started on this journey since January and every month I try to build on the previous month’s success while pushing my comfort zone and learning new skills along the way. My audience for my final project is split into three groups. All will benefit but in different ways: https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/teacher-cartoon Staff: One of my audiences is the staff. Since COVID has robbed us of the ability to gather together I find it challenging to try to showcase a different technique or digital tool. In fact, I find it difficult to even know who needs support or where their comfort levels are at all with the new skills we have been expected to acquire at unprecedented speeds. I have attempted some informal “check-in” conversations to see how things are going, but often I hear a response such as “Thanks, I’d love to learn about that in the future, but I just can...

For my final project I had a few ideas that would result in a digital product and would support the learners at my school. My primary idea was to host a digital book fair with the aid of Scholastics Canada. They have excellent kits available and I thought I could upload some promotional videos unto YouTube to be shared with the parent community (and to explain the necessary steps for making a purchase and attributing it to our school). Armed with this plan, I stepped into the principal’s office and was immediately informed that regrettably all fundraising activities for this year have been discouraged. With COVID affecting families in different ways the school division wanted to ensure that they were not adding to the families’ financial burdens by requesting funds for anything this year. It is a sentiment that I can appreciate, but it meant that I had to rethink my final project plan. The second idea came to me during the same discussion with my principal once I had officially given u...

I very much appreciated learning from other people’s experiences and suggestions in their blogs. For today’s response and blog post, I have included the resources and ideas that most resonated with me. They are not from one specific topic but are all ideas that I hope one day to implement in my school context. Thank you to my virtual classmates for inspiring me with these creative ways to challenge my teacher-librarian practice and to provide support to my colleagues as they acquire new technological skills for classroom application.   1)   Chevron McPhee Blog : Adjusting Our Pedagogy & ICT Skills: On-going Professional Development  In her blog post, Chevron McPhee shared a link from the Alberta Teacher's Association which listed a number of different professional development activities. I found this website to be very useful and a great reminder of how diverse our options for engagement in our own learning can be. The list was detailed, clearly explained each activi...

I believe mobile devices (and a reliable internet connection) hold a lot of potential for learning no matter where you find yourself in the world. As Richardson explained in his ebook   Why School i n his chapter Rethink Assessment , classrooms are often the only place in their lives where students are told not to use technology. This double standard is a disservice to students as the real-world work situations in which the school system is supposedly preparing them for does not have this same attitude towards technology. Ironically, even as a teacher, when I don’t know something in class, I take out my cellphone and look up the answer! Mobile devices are already prevalent in my classroom but I am lucky to live in a neighbourhood with a high socio-economic status and a school division and parent council who generously purchase technology. We often make use of technology as part of our teaching practice in some of these ways: 1)      Kahoot : This site is a great...