Merry Christmas!

Today was a wonderful day. The children are all home, the tree is beautiful, we had a relaxed morning with no particular schedule, a wonderful mid-afternoon Christmas dinner with more trimmings than we needed, a fire in the fireplace, a cat to snuggle with, and pleasant conversation.

EBC - Everything but Capstone

I can remember several of my colleagues rejoicing when they reached a stage in their doctoral program where they were self-declared EBD - everything but dissertation. Well, my accomplishment is a little less lofty, but still important to me. I have finished all the coursework for my MSSE - master of science in science education. All the coursework, that is, except for the capstone project. Never mind that I am four weeks (out of 13 total) into the investigation portion of my project. Ignore the fact that I will doubtless have numerous revisions of the introduction, theoretical framework, and methodology portions of my final paper (I have already done four submitted revisions plus many other self-edited revisions). Discount the Data and Analysis section which I can't complete until I finish the study itself. Then there is the Value section (was there any point to this whole process?).
I have reached a significant milestone. I am done (Done! DONE! DONE LIKE DINNER!!) 27 out of 30 credits for this degree.
Now I just have to finish the 3 credit capstone project. . .

Thanksgiving

Well, I'm up early on this Thanksgiving morning thinking about those people for whom I am thankful. I'm also thankful for the life I live. It might not be turning out the way I expected it to, but I am happy, warm, dry and well fed. I get the exercise I need, don't usually have to listen to city traffic, and have regular access to good health care. I attend a church where I feel at home, and love my job teaching high school students.

I'm thankful for Randy, who gets his kidney stone blasted today. I'm also grateful that we could afford to take the time off work to get to Vancouver for the procedure.

I'm thankful for Caitlin, who is working hard and successfully as a third year nursing student. I also appreciate the picture taking, tread milling, bread baking, soup simmering, talents she has.

I'm thankful for Shaun. Someday his hard work and dedication to his dream, as well as loyalty to his employer, will pay off and he will be a professional fire fighter.

I'm thankful for Ryan and his persistence as he tries to become a fully qualified Primary care paramedic. I'm sure the search and rescue team is grateful for his talents and hard work. Rossland is lucky to have him.

I'm thankful for Shannon. I learn so much from her skill and dedication as a primary teacher. I also laugh more because of her entertaining story telling.

I'm thankful for my students - especially the class of 2011. What they did for a classmate yesterday was amazing. I pray that they will always be as supportive of each other as they were at lunch yesterday.

I'm thankful for my extended family, my other students, and my fellow students.

Get ready, get set, more paperwork

Well, I didn't officially start my non-intervention units yet - November 16 is now the official start date. However, my students did participate in one survey, and I used the results from two class assignments to do the mock up of my data analysis and conclusions.
I can say that my students have a fairly accurate concept of how well they can perform algorithms in math and chemistry classes. This is a very good thing.
After a bit of a panic last night, I have received official permission from my adviser to start my project. Now I need to get permission from the school, the students, and their parents to report what I find out. I can do the research without permission, but I need permission to use what I learn for the MSSE. I also need to submit a draft to a MSSE peer for input, submit the improved draft to three colleagues for more input, submit a proposal to my MSU reader, and make constructive comments about a peer's draft. All this by next Sunday.
More paperwork.

Get Ready, get set,

I'm working on the time line for my action research project. I am investigating the effects of a writing-rich format in my math 11 class. To do this I will need to compare student's attitudes and abilities before the "intervention" with their attitudes and abilities afterward. I want to see if writing and thinking about what they are doing helps in math class, and whether there is any carryover to their science classes. Therefore it stands to reason that I will need to do a 'non-intervention' unit - not much journaling about their though processes as they problem solve; and not many activities which work to make students think about what they are doing, and why they would follow a particular algorithm. So, Tuesday is the big day - I'll start journaling myself as I observe the students working in both math and chemistry.
I think this 'non-intervention' phase will last 4 weeks - until term 1 ends.
I'm nervous about how much writing I'll be doing, but excited to finally be underway.

Tuesdays with Morrie

This weekend I've read two Mitch Albom books. The first "Five People You Meet in Heaven" left me thinking about the connections between people. "Tuesdays with Morrie" has left me wondering about the quality of my relationships with family, friends, and students. "Tuesdays" is a very personal series of essays about his relationship with a former teacher who dies from ALS. What Morrie is able to help Mitch learn is what really matters - Live Life Abundantly, Forgive Others and Yourself, Love Your Family.
The book ends:
"Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you are lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back. Sometimes it is only in your head. . . . . The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week. . . The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience. The teaching goes on."
I don't think I have ever had a teacher like that, but wouldn't it be wonderful to BE a teacher like that?
The capstone project I completed in 2003 dealt with qualities which are found in outstanding secondary teachers. The capstone project I'm working on right now deals with ways to help my students see the connections between what they learn in math class and how to problem solve in science classes. Both projects are little stepping stones in my path to becoming a teacher who truly makes a difference in the lives of her pupils.
I have found another role model.

Blogs and Action Research

I ended this summer with big plans for the fall. I would make time to introduce my students to blogs, would have a functional wiki I managed, and would breeze through EDCI 509. My classes would flow smoothly since I have taught them all before and know what I'm doing. My professional relationships would be mutually satisfying, my children would be happy and productive, my husband would feel fulfilled, and the income taxes would all be paid. Then school started.
Well, at least my children seem happy (I think Ryan's car is finally fixed.)
This week I will start on my fall list - or maybe it will be next week. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23friedman.html?_r=1
This editorial speaks to the need to bring people from a number of disciplines to the table when we work to solve problems. I really appreciate the call for multiple perspectives. It seems as though we have learned so much about how small parts of the universe operate, and this is extremely important, however, it takes a new perspective to use what various people have learned and synthesize these bits of knowledge into a cohesive whole.

I will never be a brilliant researcher - I don't have the clarity of mind to compose new questions, or devise new techniques. I am, however, very good at relating what I learn here, or study there, to what I read elsewhere. I need to hone this skill, and practice relating what I teach to a larger whole, so that my students can benefit from a more global perspective.

I would like to move my classroom from a place where students learn Biology, Chemistry, or Math to a place where we learn to use the tools we learned in one class to solve problems in another class, and then to problems in the outside world. I'll be focusing my capstone action research on this sort of transfer, and on the metacognition required to do so. It takes conscious effort to think about how one can solve a new type of problem using tools which one already has. I don't really think that I am the best guide as to how to accomplish this, but I will try to be the best I can.

I haven't formally articulated this before, but as I look back on my years of teaching, I can see that I have been working towards this goal for a quite a while. My plan is to use the MSSE capstone experience to help me be more aware of how I teach so that my students will be more likely to make connections within and between disciplines.

Adventures in Albuquerque

A "neighborhood" roadrunner who came visiting this afternoon. I expected to see the cottontails on the fairway behind my parent's house, but was pleasantly surprised to see the roadrunner visiting right beside the patio.
Yesterday I went to "Learning is Fun" with Shannon and my parents. This particular teacher store is exactly what teaching supply paradise looks like. We spent time and money there - and still have room in our suitcases. Luckily posters and borders for bulletin boards don't take up much space.
Today we went to Borders and to Cottonwood Mall. Books and shoes take up more space in our suitcases- and weigh a lot more than posters. We still have room, but we'll probably have overweight suitcases by the time we head back to BC!
It's been fun to not be working on class assignments. I've had a great time just relaxing, shopping, visiting, and eating great food. I'm very thankful for this opportunity.

Reflections from my creek bank

I really appreciate Wally's post which included Alan Jackson's "I still like bologna". The song gave me a focus for thinking about changes I might need to make to my philosophy for including web tools in my teaching repertoire. This collage demonstrates some of what is still important to me. I will continue to take plenty of pictures, and I'll still share them with students, friends, and family.

I will use more webtools in the future than I did in the past, but they will remain tools of my trade, not the focus of my trade. I will still need to decide if the time spent learning to use a tool is time well spent, or if I would be better off just to teach using a more traditional method.

As I walked to "my" little creek this afternoon, I realized that I learned a lot this summer, but I'm still the same person underneath. I like my cell phone, my laptop, my camera, high speed internet, data sharing and satellite photos but I love walks to the creek, long talks with my family, and watching my kids play a board game. I'm reassured that I have become more confident but I'm still me.

What I've learned from this course

I have learned to edit (and re-edit) wiki pages. I'm still not very comfortable doing so, but I can if I need to.

I've learned how to make blog postings, and am beginning to learn how to personalize them. I've really enjoyed this process, so I will certainly keep this up.

I've learned that there are a lot of wonderful web tools which almost, but not quite, work. The Proprofs Pollmaking tool is one which I wish had a little more flexibility, because then I would use it to create prompts for directed journaling. Slideshare seemed like a good idea, but simply took too long. I never did get Jing or Screencast to work. Twitter works well when I want news updates, but is a disaster as a networking tool. I simply am not social enough. MasteringGeneralChemistry worked really well for me as a student. I wish my school could afford to pay for access to homework sites which accompany the textbooks we use.

There are also a number of webtools which I will use whenever I can. Picnik, Panoramio, GoogleEarth, and GoogleReader are tools which I will use regularly. I wonder how I ever survived without Facebook.

I've learned that I need face-to-face contact with my PLN in order to make effective use of the resources these wonderful people offer. I don't have to have regular visits, but I'm much more likely to get help from someone with whom I have a multifaceted relationship.

I've learned to take time to play with new tools. I'm intimidated by new technology, but I've found that when I'm not under time constraints I can easily spend hours playing with some of the tools I enjoy.

I've learned (again!) how interconnected we are. I'm looking forward to sharing data my classes collect with others, and with using data that others collect. I've very much appreciated the ideas some of my classmates shared, and I've enjoyed the varied perspectives other teachers bring to this class.

Final Project

I decided, after reading Sandy's blog post, to try to create a wiki for my classroom. She did a great job of explaining how she set up her wiki, and why she was using the tools she did. Thanks, Sandy!
I'm not sure how often my students will be required to access either the classroom wiki or their own blogs, but I think probably two times a week. I envision parents checking the class schedules occasionally - just to see if their child has a test coming up.
The Biology 11 page contains the rubric for a project the students will be doing next spring. Most students will prefer to use some web tool or another to present their information, but some will prefer to make a poster. Since not all of my students have frequent access to computers or internet I can't require a web based major project. The page also contains links to examples of student work which I have uploaded. Thanks Jared and Brendan!
I have also put a link to the PowerPoint presentation I put together for the web tools course on that page. I will be using the presentation as part of the ecology unit. I don't use PowerPoint for many lectures, but I will use the ones I have made for various MSSE courses. That way I will have a few good presentations without a lot of bad ones!
The Chemistry 11 page contains a PowerPoint presentation I made as part of the requirements for a Chem 580 course I took this summer. I will be using the presentation, as well as the lab activities this fall. This particular presentation uses two images I got from Google images. Usually I prefer to take my own pictures, but I do appreciate being able to find one quickly when I need to.
I will also be having each of my students set up a learning blog. Since most of them take more than one class from me, I will limit the number of postings they have to make for each course to one a week. The blog posts they make will be in the form of directed journals, which I hope to use in my capstone project. Last year I used journals in my math classes, and found that sometimes students needed more time that I could spare in a class period. Hopefully using a blog format will help them finish writing out their thoughts.

Webtools I will actually use (AKA Final Project)

I have learned about a number of new interesting tools this summer, but most of them are not something I will actually use in classes I teach. This is a disclaimer that I need to add to my final project for the webtools class: what follows is a work of fiction. Most of my students have internet access at home, but not all do. Any tools I use have to be able to be used at school during limited computer lab time. I either give up class time, or stay very late after school so that students can access the lab, under my supervision, after sports practices which end at 5:30pm. It is not going to happen very often.

Version 2 of my proposed use of webtools during the 2009-2010 school year

I would like to use some sort of interactive lab notebooks. So far, I think individual blogs would be more useful in my setting than wikis, but I'm not positive. I lean toward a set of postings that students would make, and then I would just give feedback, but maybe students would like to get feedback from their peers also. I'll keep pondering.

I will require my biology 11 students to make some sort of presentation on a habitat we study on our major field trip. This worked quite well last Spring, and with some modifications to the grading rubric, and with plenty of notice, I think students would prefer to use computers for this presentation. Most of the projects turned in were powerpoints, but with a little encouragement I think other presentation options would be wonderful.

I will make a google earth presentation at the beginning of the school year to the grade eleven class parents, and then at the end of the year during the "Year End Concert". Students, and their parents, love to see pictures taken during the school year. We'll use tools like Picnik to edit pictures to portray our year in math and science.

News from the preschoolers

We have been learning about Noah's ark this week in Hope, BC. I can't decide if all the children lined up on stage singing about rainbows, or 60 little fingers wagging while little voices sing "Don't mess up God's world" is my favorite. I should try introducing our BC forests theme next year with the "Don't mess it up" song. All this is a preamble to my intro to ecology powerpoint.
Ecology
The slideshare tools we have explored this week have added a whole new level of frustration to my life. Anything which takes six attempts and still gives a "Oops, you found an error" message is not worth using. I won't willingly use these tools for several summers. I'll try again after the creators have a chance to work out the bugs. I'm glad that I had a chance to play with the ideas, and am glad that I will know what people are talking about when they mention screencasting, but I'm also very, very glad that I won't have to try to navigate them again any time soon.

Introduction to Ecology Powerpoint

This posting is under construction.
I wish I could post my powerpoint presentation here, but I can't figure out how to do so.

Week 6 from Camp Hope

This week has been busy, almost unbelievably so. Shannon, Caitlin, and I have been setting up the program for three and four year olds which we will be running for the next ten days. This means cleaning, chasing away spiders, sorting, moving furniture, setting up props, and trying to convince administration that we can not run programming for 60+ children while someone else uses the same space to run a women's health seminar for 100 people.
Clearly I need my PLN to ride in to my rescue! Maybe Susan Berrend (Connectivities Lab) could let me watch her children while I'm doing my program, and then we would both have time to do the work for this class.
I've been able to adapt my word document notes for my intro to ecology lecture into powerpoint, but that is as far as I have gotten this week. I'll continue to try over the weekend and into the next week.
Camp Hope has no internet access right now - and, unfortunately, no hope (pun intended) of getting very much bandwidth until after August 2. So, in the interest of working hard on the Webtools course, I am making a real sacrifice - I will drink frozen lemonade in the Blue Moose Cafe so I can access my virtual network of friends.

Thoughts from my PLN

This weekend a couple of things happened which helped me appreciate my virtual learning network. First, as part of the webtools course requirements, I participated in a live elluminate seminar. The topic was clip art for use in interactive online courses. Now, I don't teach any online courses, but I do teach students who occasionally get bored or distracted (rather like me). I did not walk away from this course with ideas I will use as presented, but I did come away with ideas to help make my presentations more learner-friendly.

I learned something else from attending this seminar: I don't multi-task well. I could either listen to the audio presentation, or read the chat, but there was no way I could concentrate on both at once. I know that research shows that students do much less well when trying to study and listen to music, but I watched this in action as I participated. I learned that I need to give my students time to first listen and then look, or the other way around, but to expect both at once is irresponsible.

The other learning event was the outbreak of several fires in the West Kelowna area. Yesterday afternoon a major forest fire broke out near Gorman Brothers Mill. People were evacuated almost right away, and as the fire spread I found myself following AM 1150 on Twitter. I also followed my facebook friends and the radio for news. Telus asked people to refrain from using cell phones except in emergency, so tweets sent by reporters from the front lines were really appreciated. When my son was called up to fight the fire I was able to let all my friends and relatives know. When one of my co-workers feared being evacuated I could see his facebook status; when another told us that her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were safe, if not allowed home, we all rejoiced; we all knew when two more fires broke out during the evening and night and we all knew to stay away when another fire broke out this morning on this side of the lake. My PLN of virtual friends is almost identical to my PLN I see and work with, but online tools certainly help me keep up with changes.

I'm not sure how helpful this is with shaping how I teach, but it is certainly helpful as I build relationships with the people around me.

I think I can

Mission Creek, the riparian habitat most of my students researched and presented.

The Marine biology station about which I thought they would make their presentation.

Sea kayaking from Friday Harbor. This was another chance to research about intertidal zones.


The desert center in Osoyoos. Two students made presentations about this habitat.


Snowshoeing at Crystal mountain. None of my students made presentations about this habitat either.

I decided this week that I really can use online data in my grade 11 classes. I have been meaning to include stream ecology as part of my grade 11 biology class, but knew that the provincially mandated curriculum really does not include water quality in any of the courses I teach. The concept of making room for something I really enjoy has been germinating for two years - since I took Streamside Science in the summer of 2007. Last summer I took Teaching Ecology, and renewed my conviction to include a more hands-on ecology unit, so I made plans to include a student-generated habitat presentation this spring as a culminating activity. Since I take my grade 11 students to Rosario beach each year, I rather expected that several students would choose to present information about the inter-tidal zone. No one did. Two looked at the desert habitat near Osoyoos which we toured, but most explored the riparian habitat surrounding the river near our school.

Each year I try to improve each of my courses, so this upcoming year I'm going to make a few changes to the major field trip I plan with the class. First, I will tell them about their presentation, complete with the grading rubric, at the beginning of the course. Second, I will remind them as we snowshoe through the alpine habitat that they could use pictures they take, and information both from their textbooks and from other sources to make a presentation on the alpine habitat near our school.

Third, I will add one day (a Sunday) to our four day ecology field trip. This will allow us to continue to include the Osoyoos desert center in our trip, to include a stop in the alpine portion of the north Cascades highway, and to include a little more down time at Rosario marine biology station.


Then, since students are already interested in the riparian habitat, I will include short trips to the water (less than a 5 minute walk from school) during our Terry Fox run in September and during PE training runs once in the winter and once in the spring (assuming that teacher does not object too strenuously). I will be able to have my students work on this project over the course of a year since I teach chemistry as well as math to this same group of students.

Luckily for me I found that the province has a water monitoring station approximately 1km downstream from our collection point, so we should be able to compare our data to the data from the ministry of environment's. I've also found a water monitoring site (World Water Monitoring Day) where my students can share their data with others.

I have been uncomfortable making major changes to a successful program (which our former principal taught for years), but I think a series of small improvements is well within my capabilities. This project will allow me to integrate things I've learned in several of my own classes, and will be a way to help my students make cross-curricular connections as well. I'll adapt and improve my ideas next summer, but this seems like a good start to me.

Musings on Personal Learning Networks

This evening my family and I headed out for a walk to the creek and back. Part of our motivation was the birthday cake we had just eaten,and part of it was the beautiful summer evening. My daughter and I are both taking education courses, and needed the opportunity to talk about the course work as well as the teachers with whom we spend time. My husband and son provided perspective. The musings below are a synthesis of our conversation and my own thoughts.

My PLN does not include very many other teachers. I usually need more help with the academic advising and grad planning than I do with the teaching part of my job. I spend a lot of time finding out what exactly the entrance requirements are for some course that one of my students thinks would be fun. That sort of information changes on a yearly basis, and the career opportunities and educational institutions multiply. I need to have frequent updates to help me learn how to best help my students.

On the other hand, I find that, as an experienced teacher, I am less likely to be impressed by the latest gadget, or newest simulation, or new curricula presented by the Ministry of Education than I was several years ago. I have a pretty good idea of what will fit into my personal teaching style, and am quite selective when incorporating new ideas. This is not to say that I teach the same subject the same way each year, because I definitely do not. My PLN reflects this bias. I have a few people I can rely on for new ideas which will work, one or two people who are good sounding boards, and a few sources which I check regularly. NSTA and NCTM are two sites I check almost every day.

I do need to see the enthusiasm of new teachers, as well as the wisdom of more experienced teachers, but mostly I need to connect on a personal level with the people who form my PLN. For me, that means limiting the number of people I try to follow, but following those people for an extended period of time. My emphasis will continue to be on a Personal, not a Public network.

What have I learned from my network this week? I've learned that the color yellow is perceived differently by different people, that great conversations take place during the summer in our almost empty school building, and that networking for online courses sometimes takes place over paint cans. I've learned the tricks I need to set up tours complete with pictures in Google Earth, and I'm in the process of learning how to use those tours for classroom use. One of my PLN friends suggested that I make a great tour, complete with lots of pictures of my students, to show at parent night to encourage support for my Biology 11 multi-day ecology field trip. It seems like a great idea to me, especially since I'm assured that pictures with people in them won't be posted publically!

simulations and google earth

I've been looking forward to this week since before the course started, and had high hopes for finding math simulations - specifically transformations and translations of quadratics to use with my Math 11 course. I found some, but most seem to be of the "free trial" variety. Since our school budget for these sorts of things is zero, I don't want to try something, decide it would be really useful, and then not be able to use it. I was also hopeful of finding Hardy-Weinberg simulations to use with my Biology 11 students, but so far the biology simulations I've found are cell biology and anatomy and physiology (which are not in my curriculum - they are in Biology 12). I've also looked at several chemistry simulations, and the most helpful of these are also of the "free trial" kind. Clearly I will have to keep looking, and probably sort through a lot of stuff which might be useful to someone else, but not to me.
I know that part of the benefit of taking this class is the time and freedom to explore what is available, but I find that I'm still in "teacher" mode - I feel like I need to find useful simulations quickly.
Google earth will probably wait until my son, Ryan, is home tomorrow. I discovered that I can do some things on my own, but I need a tutor right beside me for other applications. I can find home, and my running route, but I can't make the ocean level rise. I think my real problem with the simulations and maps is that I get stressed so quickly when I don't understand what I am supposed to be doing. I clearly still need to work on patience and confidence!

Musings on week three

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-harvard20-2009jun20,0,1598291,full.story

This is the article I tried to post last week - I learned this week to listen to Caitlin when she tells me how to interpret the instructions Sandy so kindly gave me.

I've learned that my PLN is a lot bigger than I initially thought. By the time I include Glenda, who sends me pictures she takes, Betty, who wants me to give her the "Reader's Digest version" of the Web Tools course and then comments on it, Randy and Caitlin, who surf youtube looking for cool stuff, Ryan who provides technical help, and Shaun , who listens to me vent . . . Clearly I am more connected than I gave myself credit for being. I knew all these people in real life before I connected with them on the net. I seem to be most comfortable web-talking to people I already know.

I've learned that uploading and sharing photos is a lot of fun, and that, should I ever not be teaching full time, this is a hobby I would like to explore. Caitlin and I have had great fun finding pictures from all over and then choosing the best ones to play with. I've also had to stop and make a few real scrapbook pages, simply because I enjoy the textures of real pictures, papers, and textiles.

I've thought about the webtools which I want to use, and have decided that the web for me is simply a way to make my life flow a little more smoothly. I enjoy hiking, running, lazing on the porch with a good book, and visiting with family and friends too much to want to stay tied to a computer the way I have the past three weeks. I'm looking forward to being done this course so I don't feel so obligated to spend so much time online. Mind you, when I finish summer classes I have to finish paining the house, so maybe I'm not really looking forward to being done!

Picnik fun

These pictures show the after and before versions of a picture I took at Waterfront park on Canada Day. I had a great time investigating all the activities, and then I had fun playing with the pictures I took. Jordie Bowen runs an outdoor adventure guiding company here in the Okanagan Valley. I have taken my students on several tours -snowshoeing, canoeing, hiking, orienteering, and building fires. Both of my sons work for him part-time, and I know he appreciates the romance of old-time explorer's journals. I wanted my version of this picture of him teaching to look like it could (almost) have come from a dog-eared, leather-covered notebook.

Thoughts as my children move away from home

Shannon, Caitlin (and Ryan) at Storey's beach, near Shannon's school.












Shaun and Randy at Shaun's graduation from firefighting school.

Ryan and me just as he headed out to his first posting as a professional paramedic.



There's a beauty in being a sweet young child. There's beauty in being a young single woman, and a new wife, and a young mother - and also incredible beauty to watch your family grow. There's also beauty in growing older.

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Today I will be joyful, and I will look for beauty. I will acknowledge the pain of loneliness as our children move away, but I will also rejoice that they are adults, off on new adventures. The world is a better place because of Shannon, primary teacher extraordinaire; Ryan, amazing paramedic/firefighter/guide; and Shaun, firefighter/lifeguard/ day camp organizer. I also praise God for Caitlin, third year nursing major, who chose to stay at home a little longer.

More Canada Day videos

Please note: I do not drink beer (unpatriotic of me). However these commercials (like many beer commercials) are very well done. These particular Molson's ads epitomize Canadian identity. We do not define ourselves by who we are, but by who we are not. For those of us with dual citizenship this makes who we are a little harder to understand. We are Canadian, but we are also American. Our family, friends, and neighbors define "Canadian" as "not American". Who I am depends on who I am with, but today I say with Joe "I am Canadian!"

CBC's old signoff video

Today is Canada Day, so in light of that I chose to embed a video which makes me think of all things good about this, my adopted land. I notice that even though I grew up as an expatriot , I still felt distinctly American. However, after 23 years here, I am more Canadian than American - even though I say "zee" not "zed", spell "color" not "colour", and have never been to Manitoba or Saskatchewan.

What I learned this week from my PLN

This week was the last week of school for many of those teachers in my PLN. Gleanings from their blogs tell me that, like me, they were concerned with finalizing grades, classroom inventories, purchase orders for next year, and awards assemblies. Next week we will start thinking about what we want to change for next year.

I've learned from Shannon that "Its a good day if no chairs were thrown!". My tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders don't struggle to learn that, but her first graders do. I've been reminded that a little encouragement helps one struggling student just finish her assignments and at least pass math class, and gives another hope to finish biology and thus graduate. The little extra time (ok, several hours over the course of a week of the summer) that I spend with these girls is something that I don't get paid for, but really is the reason I teach.

I learned from Dave Topham, my high school biology teacher (1974) that he considers my mom one of his mentors - how cool is that? He shared an LA Times article about a homeless girl who has headed to Harvard for university. He reminded me that we teach to make a difference.

What I didn't learn this week - how to post a link to that article in this blog!

Musings from the other side of 50

Today is my birthday. I'm 51, and proud of it. I grew up in a foreign service family, and am incredibly proud of the work my parents did working for USAID and teaching in countries around the world. I appreciated the chance to travel, to meet new people, and to understand the world from other points of view. I chose a different life as an adult. My husband and I settled in Kelowna in 1986, moved into the Joe Rich valley in 1989, and have lived here ever since. My children grew up next door to Grandma, had aunts, uncles,and cousins around the corner, and knew they were loved and cared for by people they saw daily. My students have been friends, neighbors and church family. My husband's patients have been parents, grandparents and extended family of my students. I was delighted to hear from neighbors that "I followed your son home from town today, he is a great driver", "Your daughter did a great job on her 'Night' essay" or "Today Iwatched your son deal with a 911 call - he is a great paramedic!". I even appreciated the "Did you know that your son, daughter, and nephew (ages 14, 12, and 12) are out joyriding around Huckleberry?". My town of 100,000 feels alot smaller because of our connections.

On a professional level, I learn best from those I admire and respect, from those I know. The MSSE program has broadened my world, but those from whom I learn are still part of a very small group that I get to know over the course of a semester. I learn best from teachers whose work I observe, not from those who tweet or blog from some far away place.

My personal learning network includes Edra Van Doren, a gifted middle school humanities and music teacher; Shannon Gerber, an outstanding young primary school teacher; Lisa Rasmussen, another gifted humanities teacher; Lawrence McMullen, a math, science, technology, PE teacher, and coach with a gift for listening and occasionally saying something wise; Larry McCarty, "the guy next door" who lets me listen in on his Chemistry and Physics classes; and Rhonda Rogers, an inspiring humanities/middle school teacher who was also a classmate in our professional teacher certification program. I have tried ideas and lesson plans from The Science Teacher and The Mathematics Teacher with great success. I listen to what my students say about what was most helpful to them, and what I should contine to use with the next day's or next year's classes. I ask former students to tell me what they wish they had known before they started their university courses. These students are also part of my PLN.

So why am I even trying to form an online PLN? Why do I care what someone who I have not met, who I do not know, says about great teaching ideas? I don't. I need more than a great blurb, I need context before I can decide how what seems like a great idea to someone else will work for me. If I thought that the rest of "Web Tools for Teachers" was going to be like the last two weeks, I would probably not finish - tuition be hanged. Instead I will keep trying and hoping that something we cover will actually be something that I can use in my classroom or personal life.

Blogs for class?

I must admit that I'm a sceptic - I don't think I'll ever require blogs in any classes I teach. I've looked at several teacher's blogs, and I'm simply not impressed enough to want to go back. I think websites are useful, but the way posts, comments on the posts, and links to other sites are arranged simply doesn't appeal to me. The blogs I skimmed simply don't met my "guiding principles". That is, they don't help me in an organized way, won't help my students because they would be inaccessible during much of the day, and aren't thought provoking enough to be worth checking regularly. I would rather read "The Science Teacher" and "The Mathematics teacher" and check on those websites regularly.

I have found several blogs on Discover Blogs and ScienceBlogs to be quite useful. I've used content from several of these in my Biology, Chemistry and Math classes. Mostly I use the postings as discussion starters, or ways to interest students in a new topic.

I also think that blogging as a way to interact with other teachers has real potential. I very much enjoy following blogs of several friends who teach in a variety of school settings around the province. I can empathize with their struggles, laugh at the comic mishaps which inevitably occur in classrooms, rejoice when one of their students "get it", and mourn for the occasional tragedy. I need that social interaction, which is very difficult to arrange in real time.

My Guiding Principles for Technology Use

Sometimes I wish I was the sort of person who could formulate profound statements on various topics with very little editing, but I'm not. Instead I work to articulate what might seem obvious to others, but which helps me clarify my own thinking.
My guiding principles for technology are very similar to my guiding principles for a lot of what I do in my life.
1) Will this help me? If I invest time or money in learning to use this will I be better off, or will this gadget simply sit in my closet until I give it to Goodwill? My graphing calculator is a great example of a technology I actually use regularly. The ease of use means that I can spend time looking at relationships between changes to equations and changes to the graph of those equations.
2) Will this help my students? If not, why would I ask them to learn how to use it? I require my Foods 12 students to search for recipes online simply because many of them will be living away from home next year, won't have a library of recipe books, but will have internet access. They need to learn how to scale recipes realistically, so I give them practice.
3) Can this be implemented without tears on a zero budget? If not, am I willing to pay for the privilege of using it professionally? A great example of something I'm willing to pay to use is my laptop. It is worth it to me to be able to type up my notes, find illustrations, and format tests at home instead of at school.
4) Are students motivated to use this technology? Can I use their motivation to encourage them to learn what I want them to learn? This spring I wanted my students to research one habitat we studied during our ecology field trips. I really didn't want to assess their learning using a traditional test or research paper. Many of the students signed up to take a digital media course, so I used their interest in that topic to allow them to present information about "their" habitat in the format of their choice.
5) Is this technology transferable to other courses? Temperature, pH and turbidity meters/probes might be really nice to have for my biology course, but no one else in my school will be able to use them.
6) Does the administration support the use of this particular technology? Will the safety guards be more trouble than they are worth? Our school does not allow the access of most blog pages, youtube, or social networking sites from school computers. If I wanted to base course content on these I would spend a lot of time setting up parameters for their use from home. The benefits would have to be great before I would want to spend time in meetings convincing administration to change school policy.

This might be my favorite Saturday morning song.

Year End Woes

How does a student who didn't want to take Math 12 last fall with a class of students think she will be able to finish a provincially examinable course in 3 weeks? Why would I even let her? How does 3/20 on a chapter test encourage her to finish the course?
If she passes, why wouldn't other students want the 3 week crash course instead of the 19 or 20 week semester?
My classes are already small, so now (of course, I used to homeschool) feel the need to individualize.
All this and starting new courses this week.
My timing stinks.

Update: She passed the course - with 4% to spare! It is amazing what motivation to start a summer job does for a student.