Willow Park School is a school that encourages students to learn through the arts. In our Career Technology Foundation (CTF) class, grade nines had the 7th Annual Math and Science Speculative Arts Festival. 

When the project started, we got to hear from several speakers about their careers and how it includes art to inspire us as we were looking at topics. The project asks us students to choose any science or math concept and represent it in an art style. 

I chose the concepts of crystal systems which uses polyhedrons to show the shape of the crystal molecules. Polyhedrons are geometric 3D shapes and I created the shapes with pipe cleaners then used the borax crystal experiment which makes crystals form on the pipe cleaners. Alongside it, I did a painting which I overlapped the nets of the shapes in order to hide them in the painting.

There were also many other projects, ones which personified planets or hazard symbols. People created drama performances or dances as well. It's a good way to let students choose a science or math topic that they are interested in and expand their knowledge. Some students explored supernatural topics like ghosts and six senses. In the end, it lets students go with their strengths and interests to create cool projects. All grades came by to look at our projects and got to learn something new.

Sarah H attends Willow Park Middle School in Grade Nine. She thinks fezzes are cool and enjoys watching anime in free time.

For my blog post today I want to share some of the wonderful Google Drive success stories that I’ve witnessed over the past few weeks.

Seldom, in my 11 years working with CBE students, teachers and technology, have I seen anything as readily adopted and potentially transformative as our move to Google Apps. Students of all ages have taken to the Google suite literally like fish to water, leaving smiling teachers bobbing in the wake. Here are some anecdotes that I’ve collected from my schools.

• Within one week of our intro session, a Grade 5 student (who had never even used email before) used Google Drive while on vacation with her family to collaborate on a Social Studies project with other group members who were still at school.
• Here’s a quote from a teacher - new to Google - who was initially very reluctant to begin: “The students are really loving this way of recording and sharing their work.  Loved [hearing] a group of girls today making a time to collaborate tonight.  And I had an interview with one of them tonight and she said all but one did log in and work at the designated time. … "forms".  Oh my - what a tool.  I experimented ... Took too much time doing this, but wow, the survey ability is awesome. … And the results showing up in a spreadsheet and with printed pie graphs - amazing.”
• Teacher comment, “I wonder when they’re going to figure out that they’re actually doing homework?”
• One teacher threw away his USB stick after he uploaded his first file to Google Drive. “Why would I continue to use it?”
• Tech Leader Comment: “If I walk into a classroom and the whole class is working on Word documents, I’m really going to go to that teacher and ask WHY?”
• Teacher Comment, “I have a student who never completes his assignments. But he has logged into Google every night this week and finished a journal paragraph. It’s not just that they’re doing the work, it’s that they’re doing better work.”
• Teacher: “The students write their home journal every night, and they used to submit them on Friday for marking on the weekend. Now I can mark them as they are written and my weekend is free!”
• Finally yesterday, I watched students in Grade 9 being coached to create and organize folders for their upcoming Grade 10 subjects. Having a consistent tool that is accessible from anywhere makes their learning seamless and eases the transition process to High School.

If you haven’t introduced your class to Google yet, I’m going to echo my tech teacher and ask, “What’s stopping you?”

Linda Easthope has been the smiling face of Client Technology Services in Area I schools for 11 years, and there's still something new every day.

Last week I took our grade six students to outdoor camp.  Every year I look forward to this week away from the classroom because I get a chance to interact with my students in an entirely different environment full of teachable moments, where I am the student and my class becomes the teachers. 

On day three of the camp my students had the opportunity to attempt traversing a climbing wall.  Everyone was excited, but as arms tired and feet slipped it became apparent that the wall was tougher than anyone had anticipated.  What happened next inspired me and taught me a lesson I will not soon forget.  

Instead of complaining, or quitting each student that slipped off the wall went back to the start to try again.  Those students that made it all the way across cheered on the rest, or walked beside their classmates that were still on the wall providing pointers and tips for tricky sections. Not everyone made it all the way across the wall but every student pushed to go further than their last attempt. As we donned our daypacks and left the wall behind us every student was laughing, smiling and celebrating their accomplishments.

So what lesson did I learn? As I watched the boys traverse the wall I realized (not for the first time) that these boys are fearless and willing to try anything. To reach my full potential as their teacher I need to also be fearless and willing to try anything. 

Dan Pye (@dcpye) teaches Gr. 5/6 at the All Boys Program. He’s passionate about empowering his students to create and collaborate.

Today, my Grade 9’s started their human sexuality unit. Standing in front of a room full of raging hormones to talk frankly about the birds and the bees is a truly joyful, and not at all awkward/terrifying/scaring experience.

We started off this unit by discussing ‘positive self-talk’, something that I have struggled with my entire life.  I tend to view the world through an overly critical lens so to teach students to recognize all the positive attributes of their ever-changing existence felt a little forced.  I could see myself in the students that were struggling to put their own perceptions of themselves into a positive light but as we started to share our lists as a class I saw tiny sparks of ‘oh yeah, me too’ in some of their eyes.  I am sure those same students saw my energy shift when the room started to fill with positive thoughts.  

I’m no hippy, but the vibe in the grade 9 hallway today was truly grooving.  All from a little bit of directed positivity injected into a world of tests, critiques, analysis, and assessments.

Phil Brayton is a former punk musician turned teacher at 12 Mile Coulee School (on a temporary contract, just saying)

This entry was inspired by Breane Pahl’s post on CBE182, day 45.  A teacher who experiences the power of social media in education, even in a division 1 classroom.  

I’ve been teaching grade six for four years now and it still amazes me how passionate, knowledgeable and determined this age group can be in achieving social and global change.  

What started as a novel study on ‘The Breadwinner’ by Deborah Ellis has turned into six months of constant connections between texts (ex. ‘I am Malala’, ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’ and ‘Hana’s Suitcase’), personal life experiences (ex. Living in Syria and Pakistan) and connections to the greater world via Twitter and Instagram.

A student approached me in early April with an Instagram photo of Selena Gomez with various handles and hashtags associated with it, such as @MalalaFund #FreeTheChildren & #WeAreSilent.  From this discovery, came a flurry of interest to participate in #WeAreSilent on April 17, 2014 to support Malala Yousafzai in bringing awareness to the millions of girls around the world who are not given the right to education.  

This students’ interest represented one voice from our classroom.  This one voice turned into 24 other students buzzing with questions.  From there, 25 mini activists channeled their energy into 3 simple, yet effective tweets.  These tweets submerged us into the conversation and awareness brought to the #WeAreSilent pledge.  On this day, students learned that their one voice turned into dozens of retweets, a handful of new followers and recognition from the @MalalaFund directly.  Although my students didn’t raise thousands of dollars like many schools did across the world, they still got to experience the power of speaking up and being passionate about issues that concern them.   

Kate Logan (@logankatej / @MarlboroughYYC) is a grade six teacher at Marlborough School.  She is inspired daily by her students’ ability to fearlessly observe, wonder and explore. 

What I learned in School Today

A lifelong learner never stops learning.  As a teacher I have learned many lessons.  Among them, this is  some of my most cherished learning:

• relationships are the backbone to almost everything that matters in school
  
•  all students learn on a continuum; teaching is now translated to that continuum
• assessment is a guiding principle to give me direction in my work
• what I do matters and makes a difference in the world
• having a big picture idea will benefit everyone
• start everything with the end in mind
• to do a little thing is not a little thing - make a difference in your teaching by going the extra mile
• students need positive learning models; most teachers excel at that
  
• the talents of individuals and the possibilities of success should never be underestimated
• teaching and risk taking work together and will benefit schools with major impact
• students will achieve when you raise the bar just high enough and support them; students  want a challenge for the most part
• school leadership is only as strong as the follower-ship that embraces it

While some of these may seem “rose-colored” in nature, it would serve us well to always be open to growth and change to meet, and exceed our potential.  The same holds true for the students whose lives we impact.  There must be joy and passion in our work with students.

Kevin Bauer has been a teacher for 33 yrs. Working in provinces and Europe, he has taught Pre-K to College. Currently, Kevin is a principal of an elementary school.

Having just recently attended the Calgary Board’s Comprehensive School Health mini-summit, I found myself with a renewed vision and focus to work towards building life-long learners and apply a more holistic approach to my practice.

What a perfect opportunity to spark some interest in our upcoming unit on Electricity and Magnetism than by embarking on a field trip to the Science Centre and letting the students explore concepts that they will be exposed to in the upcoming weeks.

Students worked in groups on a Scavenger Hunt to explore a variety of elements of ideas related to electricity and magnetism.  Observing the students participate in this hunt, I was struck by how many different perspectives students can have about the same concept.  

Watching the students explore and choose the activities that were must most drawn to was both telling and eye opening.  Watching one of my students, who usually resists engaging in many of the activities at school, spend a good hour on the stop motion movie-making was really exciting.  It truly put a new perspective on personalization of learning.

I was struck with the “aha” of why I teach many times throughout the day, not least of which was watching my students interact with one another in caring ways helped ease the fatigue one feels this time of year.

Natasha Barrie – Teacher at Captain John Palliser.  Loves her family, nature, fitness, yoga and weekend get-a-ways.

The Power of a ‘Tweet’

I have a large interest in technology and where technology is going to take us in the classroom. With that being said, I recently created a classroom Twitter account and introduced it to my grade two’s. In just under a month, my class has connected with authors of books we have read from all over the world and have had the opportunity to ask these authors questions and receive responses. One author from Australia even sent our  class a letter with some new books! It really blows the kids’ mind that they can talk to someone from across the world and that in minutes they can get a response. When I first brought Twitter into the classroom, I told the students that I would be picking students who listen carefully and create quality work that they would get a chance to take a picture of their work, explain their work and share it with the Twitter world! Not only have I noticed I have been getting a lot of really great work out of all of the kids I have also found that this opportunity really gives students a chance to showcase their hard work and to be excited and proud about their learning. Parents love that at the click of a button they can go onto twitter and check out what has been happening in our class. 

I think as educators we need to explore and use all of these amazing technological tools that are right in front of us. The possibilities are endless! Feel free to check out @MsPahlsClass on twitter, we’d love to hear from you.

Breane Pahl (@breanepahl) Grade 2 teacher dedicated to life long learning. She believes in the power of positive energy and loves adventure

Achieving the Impossible                         

I learned that the most worthwhile projects are the ones that seem impossible to execute.  

Example #1 - As a culminating review of our Electricity and Magnetism unit, my Grade 4/5 class was given a very short time period to create magnetism experiments for the Grade 2’s in our school to explore.  Despite the time constraints and the high expectations, they quickly became engrossed in creating fun, meaningful experiments.  Not only did the Grade 2’s enjoy them but also my class was so excited to facilitate their own experiments and become “the teacher” for a class! 

Example #2 - My class was inspired by our novel study of The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies.  In this novel, students compete in a Lemonade Stand war.  My class immediately became engaged in the possibility of planning their own style of a lemonade war, which we called The Hot Chocolate War.  Each group designed their own name, logo, and budget and decided on which strategies from the book they wanted to use to make their business successful. At one point the project was becoming monstrous in size, but the class was convinced they could handle it and we went ahead with it.  The result was priceless.  Two hours of several classes streaming through our room, buzzing with excitement to choose a vendor based on a specific success criteria.  Their conversations were proof all of the hard work was worth it.  I still smile thinking about all the things we learned that day!

Hannah Niemi (@luv_history) is a Grade 4/5 teacher at Marlborough School.  She is passionate about travelling, finding new adventures and lifelong learning.  

I have the pleasure of having 20 first graders as my teachers. At the end of the day we have a meeting about what we learned at school. I always enjoy their take on the day and what stood out to them.

Yesterday was one of those days when nothing worked out.  You know those days when nothing gets finished and your classroom is a disaster. I contemplated “forgetting” our classroom meeting because I couldn’t imagine what my students learned and I didn’t need a reminder of what an epic teaching fail I had.  Sure enough one of my bright-eyed six year olds said, “Mrs. Hellyer it’s time to have our classroom meeting!” At first I cringed that I had taught them to tell time and then with a smile I asked everyone join me at the carpet.  The first child to put her hand up was a shy girl who rarely talks.  In disbelief I called her name and leaned in to listen to her soft toned voice. She took a few breaths and said, “You know what I learned today, sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t, but every time we try we are learning.” My mouth dropped and my eyebrows lifted as I listened to what my teacher was saying. 

If we pay attention to the process and not the product we will learn that deep knowledge and understanding shines through when we are fully supporting children in their formulation of ideas and questioning of their knowledge.   


Emily Hellyer (@onerockinteach) loves to teach her grade one students through art and inquiry. Instilling a sense of wonder and creating a passion for knowledge in young learners.  http://visualjournals4kids.blogspot.ca