
March
It was a tough month with the very unanticipated need to euthanize my 7 year old German Shepherd, Zoey. On the Wednesday night before March break, she suddenly experienced a cardiac taponade, the result of a cancerous tumour bursting, filling the pericardial sac with fluid, and making it extremely difficult for heart to beat, and tough for her to breathe. The vet aspirated the fluid but subsequently discovered that she had cancer everywhere; spleen, liver, lungs and heart. There was no hope, so we went on Thursday to say goodbye to her. It was definitely one of the most difficult days I've experienced this year.
During the break, I took a first aid course offered by Peel, and then returned to school and made sure I was familiar with our AED (Automatic External Defibrillation) unit.
In terms of tech breakthroughs - there have been a few. I'm convinced that one of the teachers I work with is finally comfortable with Google Classroom, and is using it effectively. A second teacher that I work with is using it with my assistance to help provide formative feedback to students.
Just the other day, I suggested to yet a third teacher that she try using Flipgrid to have her students record the first two sentences (the hook) of their speeches so that they could view each others. The free version of Flipgrid doesn't allow for written feedback, but there was nothing to stop students from recording their ideas on a Google doc and then sharing their feedback with their peers. The teacher seemed quite excited when she realized that, quite easily, she could set up a station in her classroom to allow students to regularly record responses to prompts.
One of the grade 8 classes is almost finishing up the menu board activities that they were working on for Black History month. They had to complete on straight line of activities from a 3x3 menu of choices. I'm excited to see the results since each line involves something written, something oral, and some kind of "dramatic presentation". They are using a variety of technology; Audacity and Beansprout to create a podcast, imovie to create a Heritage minute, Pic Collage to document their tableaus, Explain Everything or Adobe Spark to create a photo essay. I provided a series of rubrics to help them identify what was important to their final products from a "technical" standpoint, and their teacher co-constructed the criteria for the academic content criteria. Overall, a very satisfactory collaborative effort.
Pink Sheets are coming out soon so I'm updating my information. I am looking to work in a place where I will feel like I can continue to grow.
It was a tough month with the very unanticipated need to euthanize my 7 year old German Shepherd, Zoey. On the Wednesday night before March break, she suddenly experienced a cardiac taponade, the result of a cancerous tumour bursting, filling the pericardial sac with fluid, and making it extremely difficult for heart to beat, and tough for her to breathe. The vet aspirated the fluid but subsequently discovered that she had cancer everywhere; spleen, liver, lungs and heart. There was no hope, so we went on Thursday to say goodbye to her. It was definitely one of the most difficult days I've experienced this year.
During the break, I took a first aid course offered by Peel, and then returned to school and made sure I was familiar with our AED (Automatic External Defibrillation) unit.
In terms of tech breakthroughs - there have been a few. I'm convinced that one of the teachers I work with is finally comfortable with Google Classroom, and is using it effectively. A second teacher that I work with is using it with my assistance to help provide formative feedback to students.
Just the other day, I suggested to yet a third teacher that she try using Flipgrid to have her students record the first two sentences (the hook) of their speeches so that they could view each others. The free version of Flipgrid doesn't allow for written feedback, but there was nothing to stop students from recording their ideas on a Google doc and then sharing their feedback with their peers. The teacher seemed quite excited when she realized that, quite easily, she could set up a station in her classroom to allow students to regularly record responses to prompts.
One of the grade 8 classes is almost finishing up the menu board activities that they were working on for Black History month. They had to complete on straight line of activities from a 3x3 menu of choices. I'm excited to see the results since each line involves something written, something oral, and some kind of "dramatic presentation". They are using a variety of technology; Audacity and Beansprout to create a podcast, imovie to create a Heritage minute, Pic Collage to document their tableaus, Explain Everything or Adobe Spark to create a photo essay. I provided a series of rubrics to help them identify what was important to their final products from a "technical" standpoint, and their teacher co-constructed the criteria for the academic content criteria. Overall, a very satisfactory collaborative effort.
Pink Sheets are coming out soon so I'm updating my information. I am looking to work in a place where I will feel like I can continue to grow.

choice_board_black_history_month_feb.docx |