Monday, March 24, 2008

Meme: Passion Quilt

Graham tagged me in the Passion Quilt Meme. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to use as a one word descriptor of what feel is a needed when teaching my students. Then after many failures using flickrcc and other tools my brain finally realized that my K12 presentation had what I was looking for. My goal when teaching my students is to unleash their potential. Let them have the feedom to want to learn what I have planned for them. And to take that information in new directions "off leash"!!

Unleash

What you need for this Passion Quilt MEME

1. Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
2. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
3. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
4. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter

In the spirit of the meme.... I would break it off because many others have done so but I will just name three others to continue the meme.
Darren Kuropatwa
Alec Couros
Dean Shareski

I have chosen you three because other than Graham, you are automatic reads in my reader and I feel you are great motivators and mentors to all of us edubloggers. Meme away!!


Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Collaberation is fun. You really should try it!!

Whether I am on the band wagon this year or just riding my own 2.0 wave collaboration has been the them in my math room recently. I was asked to collaborate with a group of grade 7 students in Alabama. Their teacher and I hit it off immediately and started to push the limits of our respective students. We started off using voicethread to get to know one another. We then started to do math problems together. Using Eluminate 's free V-room was a great way to share. Both rooms had access to interactive whiteboards and took time explining different ways to solve the problems.



Recently we started creating Geomonsters. One room created instructions and the other room created using the instructions provided. It was a great activity to jump into my geometry unit and to teach the importance of writing instructions. These final monsters can be seen in a series of voicethreads. ( go to voicethread and search alatoba07 or geomonsters to see them all.)

A common theme with all the collaboration days is that the kids were focused for the entire time. They were working and more importantly communicating mathematically.

Viva Collaberation. Were to go next.......? Stay tuned.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Teacher Candidate in my room... time to breath

Wow I have a teacher candidate in my room an I have time to breath. I have read my backlog in my google reader and am now getting ready to post.

I am like a new father.
My baby is on the truck and ready for delivery. I hope it comes later than 330 or I will have to wait until tomorrow.

Here is my new child
17'' of Mac goodness. Waited along time for the update and ......... Man the work I will now do. The wait was all the more painful because of the lovely weather in Toronto on the weekend. My baby was caught up in a snowstorm. Well it is on the ground now and ready for delivery.

Now I am mobile.

Chat soon !!!!!!!