The other day, many teachers from across my school board gathered together to share with other educators how their year long inquiry project went. As I have mentioned in previous posts, mine was about starting our own business as a class and inspiring my students through leadership. I shared with the other educators these successful […]
Learning in a Real Life Context
The Gender Gap in Technology
According to a recent report* by ICTC (the Information and Technology Information Council) Canadian women represent about 50% of the overall workforce but represent only 25% of the technology industry workforce. Of the 100 major tech companies in Canada only 5 have female CEOs and 1 Co-CEO. 26% of the tech companies have no women in senior leadership at […]
Authentic Learning
One question that has been on my mind is how do we ensure that we are honouring diverse learning styles and interests within the constraints of the curriculum? I’ve always thought that when students are excited about what is being taught, they’ll be engaged in the process but I wonder if it might be more […]
Inference Building
Inference: A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning. An important skill to have and to be able to utilize in a variety of situations. How do we help students develop this skill? Recently, a friend reached out and wondered if there was a unique or interesting way to help students both develop […]
Non Fiction vs. Fiction?
The majority of what I read and write daily is non fiction. If I were to attach a statistic to it, I would hazard to say that 95% of what I read and write on a daily basis is non fiction. I like to write poetry and narratives too but I seldom have the time […]
Coding with Microbits
Twice I have attended the Ontario Teachers’ Federation “Pedagogy before Technology” conference in the summer. This year I attended a design workshop that the InkSmith company provided and would never have been able to predict the chain of events that would follow. In the workshop we were grouped with people at our table to come up with […]
The Almighty Meme
My teenage son is obsessed with memes. I remember my friends and I at his age, randomly quoting lines from John Hughes or Monty Python movies which confounded the adults around us but my friends and I would collapse into hysterics. I am now the confounded adult but instead of movies, the quotes are from internet […]