So I’ll be the first to admit that because of my wide variety of classes taught, my marking has been somewhat schizophrenic.  I don’t generally mark the same way in CPT as I do in History, French or Science, and each class lends itself to specific ways of gathering marks.  Readers will note that I [...]

I’ve had many discussions with outstanding teachers around the country (Teachers of the Year, Milken Educators, NBCTs, and so forth). It always amazes me how few of the teachers being recognized for their accomplishments in the classroom can brag on the support of their administrators. Much more common are stories of subversion, sneaking around policies, [...]

This article (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2010/05/17/why-does-it-have-to-be-eitheror-it-doesn%E2%80%99t-but%E2%80%A6/) gets across far more elegantly what I was trying to say in my previous post… that process, held above content, leads to selection of content not on its own merits, but on the merits of the skills it can impart to students.  This is the triumph of process [...]

I’ve come to realise the underpinnings of a fundamental disagreement with the direction of education in my school and the province.  At heart, I’m a product-orientated person.  I don’t care how you do something as long as it gets done to a particular level.  The problem I have is that things like UBD and new [...]

My district finds itself in a bit of a pickle finance-wise this year.  Three factors have come together to create one of the toughest financial times this school district has faced.
The first is inability to raise our own funds.  The Saskatchewan government last year announced that it was removing the ability of local school boards [...]

Filipendulous (adj): hanging by or strung on a thread.  Funlipendulous (adj): the thin thread that ties this definition to amusement (whoa, meta).  Here we go!
Social:

Old age – This is the elderly age.  As the article points out, “Of all the people in human history who ever reached the age of 65, half are alive [...]

Marks are due today, and my usual angst about the meaninglessness of mid-term grades has been amped up this year with two classes whose mid-term reports are going to be even more inaccurate than usual.  One class is basically a semester-long project, with very little to mark until the whole shebang is turned in on [...]

Furciferous (adj): bearing a forked appendage. Funciferous (adj): forkloads of fun!  Here we go:
Language Arts:

Godzilla Haiku – Just like the title says, these are haikus composed by the rampaging monster, each accompanied by a photo.  Aside from the poetry instruction possibilities, the juxtaposition of the traditional Japanese verse next to the stereotypical Japanese monster is [...]

Monday afternoon I gave a presentation on Personal Learning Networks.  I’m not sure I was at my best – not because my presentation was bad, but I’m not sure I managed to get across why I think PLNs are so important for teachers nowadays.  I tried to Ustream it so that there would be a [...]

Farley Flex, really?  Okay, I admire the things he’s done as a record producer, radio station manager and community activist, but we all know that the reason he’s in Prince Albert speaking to 1000 educators is that he’s a judge on Canadian Idol.  Idol and its reality TV brethren represent much of what is wrong [...]

The middle of this last week was spent in Saskatoon at the UofR’s internship seminar.  The seminar itself was nothing to get excited about; fairly routine procedural stuff.  In the course of one of the discussions, however, an interesting debate was launched.
We were talking about the law in Alberta whereby teachers have to inform parents [...]

Science:

DNATube – Science videos online.  Organised into channels, from structural biology to neuroscience, with contributions from MIT and other scientific institutions.  Very cool!
Science is Real – They Might Be Giants takes on public misperceptions about science and the scientific process.  Ironically somewhat preachy, it none-the-less does a credible job of explaining in layman’s terms why [...]