Knock, Knock...

Who's There?
…………ManACE TIN NIGHT!

When @amckiel emailed and asked me to present at ManAce's  (Manitoba Association of Computing Educators) TIN (Technology Information Night). I thought what a great opportunity to showcase what I'm doing at my school!l At Lakewood I've been transforming our "old school P.A announcements" to our vivacious LAKEWOOD LIVE daily newscasts!

I've always attended tech-education PDs and conferences in the past and made it a personal and professional goal to eventually be able to give a presentation on something that I was truly passionate about, within the realm of technology.

Tonight I was honoured to showcase all the wonderful things Lakewood Live has done for our school.  These daily news reports involve our students delivering announcements in an exciting and engaging way. Parents and the school community can access these videos via YouTube (through a private blog address). LAKEWOOD LIVE LINKS
Lakewood Live allows for children to develop student voice, leadership and academic skills while connecting to the Lakewood community (students, staff and parents). When I first got started, I felt a little unsure if my "early years" project would be applicable to a roomful of high school teachers. As the presentation went on, I saw some head nods and laughs from the crowd from our energetic grade 4/5 presenters. My hopes were that maybe this idea/project would spark another idea that would make it applicable / suitable for them to use in the middle years / high school years format.


Tonight I was also inspired by our other two presenters, @msmclauchlan and @Henderson204.

@msmclauchlan (Tara) talked about her inspiring journey of having her high school students create "Bucket Lists" and acting on them. It had me thinking about how to take her idea and transfer it to an elementary level approach. How awesome to have my 7 and 8 year olds think about what they want to accomplish…and most importantly act on it. My favourite quote that I took from her tonight…

" If you put something out into the world…..you need to stand behind it" 

(@msmclauchlan) 

At 7 and 8 years old, I can't ask them to think about what they want to do before they "kick the bucket." But what I CAN DO is ask them what do they want to accomplish in short segments. 

What do they want to accomplish by the end of the week? Act of kindness? reading a certain book? 
What do they want to accomplish by the end of the month? New skill in the gym?
What do they want to accomplish by the end of the school year? 

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this idea and LOVE what Tara is doing to ignite creativity and passion within her students! 

Up next, @Henderson204!
Matt is a passionate history high school history teacher - brownie points --- I majored in history in University. Matt talked about having students create their own social networks. He talked about the cautions of social media and the message behind who are you "selling yourself to" when you join social media platforms. I looked at SM a little differently tonight. Matt brought some great hot topics to the table in regards to SM. He uses wordpress to blog and through wordpress, creates his own social network for his students to comment and connect through when working on digital projects. SM in the classroom can be quite the controversial topic for teachers, administrators and parents.

SM can do many great things. I blog and use Twitter with my grade 2/3s. We talk about the ethical and responsible use of technology and social media on a daily basis. My students have had the opportunities to interact with classrooms all over Canada, the US, Japan, China, England and Germany. It's been quite the exciting journey and we're only at the end of February!

Overall, I took away more than what I think I gave! I hoped to share one school's journey on modernizing daily announcements that incorporated student voice, leadership and community involvement. What I got from TIN tonight was another 2 or 3 ideas to bring back with me and start cooking with!

TIN was a great opportunity to not only grab some great ideas from other educators, but also check off a personal and professional item on my own "bucket list" (talking to a group of people about something that I am truly passionate about).

Passionate because each time I hit that record button, there are 228 smiles that light up and become connected to their school community in an exciting and engaging way!

N

Creating a Culture of Kindness…. OR….. Was It Already There?

Today I was expecting the same old "Valentines Craziness" with my class of Monsters! (No, really we're the Room 14 Monsters) They truly are an absolutely FABULOUS CLASS that I am so lucky to have! This morning driving to work, I began dreading the expected sugar rush running through their veins and knew it was going to be one of those "3 cups of coffees before lunch" days!

As we kicked off our morning with the kids having their 100 Day Cereal Breakfast together, a little mellow playlist on Songza running through the speakers, I puttered about the room cleaning up a bit…..then I found myself really listening to the conversations these guys were having.  Sometimes as teachers we spend so much talking at them or with them, that we forget to listen to our students. And I don't mean listen in the sense that we listen to their needs and wants - but TRULY listen in the way they relate to each other. There's the usual "hellos, good mornings and how are you's" that we all hear in our classrooms each day. But, this morning as I listened in on the conversations, I found they ran a little deeper… I heard a few kids ask each other how their night was. Did they sleep well? How their Taekwondo lesson was last night. These kids were truly relating to each other on a different level. It wasn't just the relating, ongoings and conversations of a bunch of kids who just "go to school together" and have their "school-related" small-talk. It was them taking a true interest in each others lives.
Now.. was this part of my "great plan" of creating this strong classroom culture? Or… was it that it was the internal "good" and kindness of these 7 and 8 year olds that just made them … GREAT. KIND. CARING. THOUGHTFUL.

I'm pretty notorious for spending the first 2 months of school focussed strictly on creating classroom community. That is one thing I have always said that as a teacher I wanted first before I even looked at the curriculum. I truly wanted my kids to feel connected, to know that when they walk through that classroom door, we are one big (monster) family. I wanted what every other teacher out there wants…. for them to feel safe, loved and feel like they matter!

As the day went on, it was time to hand out valentine cards, lollipops, candy hearts and packages of Fun Dip (eek!). When all my students returned to their desks to open up and go through their valentines, all of a sudden the volume went from 0 to 100 in 20 seconds! … but in an amazing way.

As students were going through their cards, they were shouting out "thank you" to each individual person. They opened up each valentine, read the inside, looked around the room to make eye contact with that person and belted out a HUGE, LOUD "Thank You"….personalizing each one! "Thank you, *Sarah! I love Monster High!"  "Thank you, *Cody - these monster pencils are great!" "Thank you for the cookie, *Sam! They look delicious!"…. even for a child who did not have valentine cards to hand out (I printed some extra off for him earlier in the day) - even though the kids had seen he had gotten them from me - they still thanked him and made him feel like he wasn't any different----- "Hey Mathew*, I love that your valentines are pink!" shouted one student to him. . .. and so on and so on!

I looked around the room and thought to myself "….without direction, without prompting, not a single adult intervention - these kids were truly.. kind. They were caring, empathetic, understanding, all of the above!

So I still wonder…..Was I looking at the product of a teacher's continuous dedication and focus  to create a tight-knitt classroom community … or ……was it truly coming from deep inside of them? In the end I decided……….. the question doesn't need an answer…. just enjoy the moments as they happen.


Happy Valentine's Day!
N

Inspired To Jump!

Well maybe that wasn't the "best" way to catch your attention! Don't worry, I'm not jumping off a bridge or a cliff! …..but I am jumping…. into blogging! Blogging (for professional growth) HAS been on my mind for a while now. It's not the logistics or "how-to's" of blogging that was stopping me from starting. I keep a class blog with my students and blog about twice a week. This wasn't the problem.

It came down to purpose. What was the purpose (who cares? whose actually going to read it?). It was also making the time - how much time do I dedicate spewing text onto something that I wasn't sure was purposeful! So time went on… and no blog.

Then I joined my first #mbedchat last Wednesday. I loved the experience of being able to connect with other educators that had the same passion of technology, social media, connectedness, and collaboration! Tonight I participated in my second #mbedchat (pecan praline coffee in hand) waiting to tweet, share and learn from many other like-minded educators! @ZBettess and @DanaAriss moderated a chat on collaboration. The topic of blogs came up for professional growth/use. The topic peaked my interested……. So, I started to explore blogs from other educators that were linked on the #mbedchat blog. I found myself getting sidetracked from #mbedchat and lost into all these educators' blogs. I was inspired. Simple! I read through them and realized on just how many paths you can go down once you connect, collaborate, read, share, tweet, retweet - whatever! The possibilities are endless.

So… in the middle of a 1 hour #mbedchat I began to ask myself… Do I start? Do I jump in and blog……Am I ready to take this on? Then @shareski jumped into the conversation! I read his blog on "How To Make Better Teachers" . Blogging allows us to connect, share and reflect on our practices. My first thought: "He's lucky that I don't like golf……"  Reading half way through his blog, I felt like my feet were right on the edge, I was almost ready to take the plunge….

As @shareski explained- blogging "allows us to be accountable." It made me started thinking of the possibilities. It's making me to start thinking about all the paths. Paths of doing things, not doing things, paths of perspectives, paths of "never again!" and the one I'm looking most forward to… "the path of self-reflection." … and I JUMPED!

As soon as I finished my #mbedchat I said to myself "Let's do this!"

What are my hopes for this blog?
-  I hope that once in a while I have something exciting to share and/or reflect on
- I hope that I can stay committed to 1 post per week (if there's more - great!)
- I hope that these posts help me reflect on my teaching practices
- I hope that I can spark some new paths for other educators to travel down


Keep your clubs, @shareski… I don't think I'll be needing them anytime soon! :)