The question of who to follow arose quickly when we started looking at Twitter. Through classroom discussion and exploration students identified how to tell if an account was verified, how to navigate a profile page to find the user’s biography and website and how to navigate tweets the user sent. Students then derived a set of five questions they applied to each user they wanted to follow.

1. What is this person’s/group’s job?
2. Does this person/group have an interest in the oil sands?
3. Is this person/group an expert in their field?
4. Does this person/group tweet about the oil sands?
5. Does this person/group use verifiable facts?

Once vetted by these questions students voted to follow the user or not and then began tweeting their questions using #oilsandsquestions to help organize the responses they received.

By using social media such as Twitter, our grade 3 and 4 students are learning how to navigate the digital world in a safe and controlled environment and how to use social media as a tool to interact with, engage in and experience their world as global citizens.


Dan Pye (@dcpye) is a Learning Leader at the All Boys Program. He’s passionate about empowering his students to create and collaborate through the use of technology, maker space and design thinking.
   
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Tuscany students were then invited to engage in a Design Thinking Water Challenge: ​

What did I learn today? or better yet, what did I learn from blogging everyday in the month of March?

In the month of March I joined teachers from around the world for the Slice of Life month long reflective writing challenge from Two Writing Teachers. I took the time to gather my jumbled ideas into one coherent blog post per day. As a teacher of writing across the disciplines I hoped that this daily reflection would remind me what it is to be a writer as well as allow me to experiment with my own writing in order to find my own voice, and better yet be an asset to my students writing lives. I took this writing challenge to give me the opportunity to live an authentic writing life. To give myself the time to reflect, muse, vent, plan, and create. Often as teachers we are so busy with the everyday mundane tasks that we don't give space to things that will make us better teachers, colleagues, friends, human beings. I hoped that in my muddled mind I could find some clarity. Clarity in my practice as a teacher, as a learner, as a writer and as a passionate lover of life.

Wow, what an experience. Some of my impressions were that I am a procrastinator, 90% of my posts were posted just before going to bed. Likewise, I mainly wrote in a reflective journal format with ideas ranging from classroom experiences, having a student teacher, the arts, and being in a reading rut. I did write a few poems but did not really go outside of my comfort zone as a writer to write any fiction. My biggest takeaway from this experience will be to include my students in the process for next year's student challenge. I am also going to continue to blog with this group weekly on Tuesdays. Likewise, I am going to continue to give my students ample opportunity to develop themselves as authentic writers.

As a teacher, it can be hard to give up control of the classroom and invite in “chaos”. Last year though, students and staff at Fish Creek took on our first Innovation Week and did just that. It was a huge success and everyone involved learned an immense amount. It was time for us to do it all again. So, in mid February, the Grade 5s (@FamousFCS5s) & Grade 6s (@InquiringFCS6s) met to plan this years Innovation Week.
 
Taking in the lessons from last year, we chose to focus on a theme of “How can we reduce waste at FCS?” while compressing the experience to one week (5 school days). With a deep breath, we introduced the week to eager students and then watched as they exploded in a frenzied fever of creativity, iteration and problem solving. It was an exhausting week but one of the greatest weeks of the entire year. It was an incredible experience.