Category Archives: General

General

Voice – Have You Found Yours?

Leave a comment

Last week I had a fantastic opportunity to hear flamenco guitarist David Sinclair perform in a quaint house setting thanks to friends Bob and Jan.  As  you might anticipate, the performance was fabulous and so great to hear in that setting.  David provided some interesting insights into the music history and style to set the context for each piece.

IMG_6489

One  of the introductions really struck a chord with me.  As he talked about progressing as performer, David shared that one of his teachers challenged him to accomplish more:  be a great performer, but find your voice, write and perform your own music as well – leave your own legacy.

There is was: the importance of  “find your voice“.  Thanks David.

Given the number of conversations  in education about finding your voice and sharing learning openly, and a new school year just around the corner, perhaps this was a happy coincidence.  Or perhaps it was an “ignite moment”  to encourage us (educators) to take steps or continue a commitment to support open learning and sharing.

Blog!

September is coming.  Are in you in? 

~Mark
markicon2

 

 

Creative Commons Photo Credit (blog graphic) to Flickr user  ginaballerina

General, OASBO

OASBO Triple Tribute

Leave a comment

It was great to attend the final OASBO ICT meeting of the 15/16 school year yesterday.  It was my first meeting in quite some time and it was great to feel the friendship, passion, and energy in the room – such a strong sense of team and professionalism.

To me though, this particular meeting seemed to be a marker in time as the close of this school year brings change.  Three members of the ICT family are retiring: Greg Elliott, Ron Plaizier and  Wayne Toms.

Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 11.46.45 PMGreg                                       Ron                                Wayne

These IT leaders are exemplary professionals who have provided leadership, guidance, mentoring, visioning, problem solving and openly learned while forging a strong and vibrant ICT family in the Ontario K-12 education space.

Congratulations to all of you.  I wish you a long and happy retirement. Please don’t stray too far from our IT/ICT family!!!

~Mark
markicon2

 

21st century learning, General, Technology Enabled Learning, Technology in Education

Have Your Say: What has changed?

Leave a comment

Over the long weekend my wife and I were thumbing through a stack of magazines and I came across a fall 2014 professional journal that had an article about this top 10 classroom tools list.

ProfSpeak

In contemplating how fast technology changes and the considering the emphasis on changing classroom practice,  what are your top 5 tools now?

HAVE YOUR SAY:  Take the top 5 survey

~Mark
markicon2

General

WREPNet Anniversary

Leave a comment

Today Waterloo Region celebrates the 15th anniversary of WREPNet, a regional fibre optic network that was built to serve education and community partners within the region.

WREPNet15yr

WREPNet is governed through the establishment of a joint venture agreement.  The ongoing existence and development of the network is a real tribute to the technical team and steering committee members of each organization who have worked together in a cohesive and progressive manner to serve the needs of Waterloo Region.

It has been my pleasure to serve as WREPNet co-chair for a number of years,  and I extend sincere congratulations to all involved in this fantastic venture.

WREPNetPartners

Here are a few WREPNet fun facts:

  • WREPNet is currently one of the most state-of-the-art region wide information networks in Canada
  • Approximately 585 kilometers of fibre optic cable is installed to connect the 327 sites throughout Waterloo Region to WREPNet
  • The fibre optic cable is connected to 10,200 hydro poles
  • If you laid all of the individual strands contained within the fibre optic network being installed for WREPNet, they would stretch 5,042 kilometers – most of the distance across Canada! – Vancouver to New Brunswick
  • a typical day of network traffic  has doubled  16 times over this 15 year period.

A little WREPNet history:

Learn more about WREPNet [here].

~Mark

General, Library, Technology in Education

WRDSB Libraries on the Go

Leave a comment

Our new library system at WRDSB comes mobile ready.  The free  ILS  app (iOS and Android) is easy to download and set up.  iOS users should note that the iPhone version of the app is also used on the iPad so the search settings in the app store may need adjusting to locate that app on an iPad.

ILS-1

Once the app is downloaded, launch it, choose the Waterloo Region District School Board from the school board list. Next,   press the  ‘choose library’ icon to select your school library and set it as the default.

ILS-3

As an example,  I choose the  Huron Heights SS  library and set it to my default library.

ILS-5

This is a sample search result based on “world war 2”.

ILS-6

Now you are ready for searching on the go. Happy inquiring!

~Mark

General, Just pondering, Things That Caught My Eye

Back to the Future Tablet Style

Leave a comment

During a recent trip to the Netherlands,  we had the opportunity to visit the  Netherlands Open Air Museum & Park.  It is an interesting stop.  Additional information is available in this  Wikipedia  article.

One of the points of interest at the site was the Village School (Lhee Dr.) originally built in 1750, relocated in 1953.  The interior as you see it in my photos is vintage 1800-1830.

I have added comments to each photo applying a current  educational lens.

A peek in the door: open space and welcoming. 

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

Central heating, flexible space (no rows!),  support for  small group instruction and a respectful design reflecting that learning is social. 

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

Evidence of the use of mobile tablets to support personal educational experiences. 

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

Hands on, independent use of tablets. It looks like they are actually drawing on the screens so I am assuming that these are not touch-screens.  I wonder about the wifi access.

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

On a more serious note, this early classroom was certainly forward looking in many respects.  Perhaps they were simply learning while waiting for the thinking around the C’s and the whole ‘internet thing’ to become a reality.

~Mark 

General, Tech

Free wifi, sort of

Leave a comment

Travelling is always an interesting time.  For me, one of the perspectives I keep an eye on is technology use in other contexts.

Here in China, it seems that everyone has a cell phone, and some have smart phones.  It appears that at least basic connectivity is deemed an important need.  As a traveller of course you need to have an eagle eye  (or an internal beacon) for free wifi opportunities.  In conversation with tour guides,  I believe that the cellular network is massive and quite robust.  Three major telco’s dominant the market, and I will write more on this in a upcoming blog post.   Wifi, and make that free wifi, is not readily available like it is in North America.  Yes, hotel lobbies etc. but not necessarily in retail places.

I did come across a Starbucks in Beijing and HAD to check out the wifi. Of course, I have to admit to wanting a coffee too.  While the venue offered free wifi access, the actual process to get access is controlled.   In order to gain access, you must enter a mobile phone number and you are texted an access code.  This process is oriented to cellular devices, not so handy for wifi only devices.

ChinaSB

… you may prefer  the translated version:

ChinaSB_eng

This verification approach seems to be used by a variety to vendors.  So, no free wifi for my iPad on this attempt.  Watch for my next connectivity update.

~Mark

General, student voice

TEDx Youth at HHSS

1 Comment

Last week I happened to come across this tweet.

AB-tweet

This sounded interesting, so  I took action, visited the website and reserved a ticket.

AB-ticket

I meet teacher Andrew Bieronski at the door.

AndrewB

The Program:

I was very impressed with the TEDx Youth event that Andrew and his class put together.   The program featured a number of speakers well balanced with male/female and a variety of ages.  In addition to the tradition voice based presentations, the speakers used different approaches to presenting including music, dance, video and poetry.  I particularly enjoyed the slam dunk poetry session with a good message about bullying and a personal presentation about dealing with diabetes.

I was struck by one common element over the evening.  All of the presenters were obviously passionate about what they were doing, and their topics of choice.  All of the presenters were awesome in their own way, and  had an important message to share out to a broader audience.

Congratulations to all presenters, and to the class who that took on the task of organizing the evening.  I understand that a similar event may in the works for next year, so I will be watching for details!

Thanks for a great evening at Huron Heights Secondary School.

~Mark

General, Technology Enabled Learning, Technology in Education

Keep the Learning Going

1 Comment

ONgafesummit

The first the ECOO sponsored, Waterloo Region District School Board  hosted Google Apps For Educators (gafe) held on April 20/21 at  was an amazing success. I loved the energy and synergy in the building.  Awesome learning, connecting with new people, reconnecting with friends, solid pedagogical practice, technology as an enabler  and lots of sharing — simply amazing.

What do you do next?  Well, how about attending  Ed Camp Hamilton  on May 4th?   I know the organizers have put a lot of hard work into planning a great day.

edcamp-attending

#edcampham

Will I see you there? 

~Mark

General, Technology in Education

Ontario gafe summit day one

3 Comments

ONgafesummit

Today was an amazing day. After many months of preparation the ECOO sponsored, Waterloo Region District School Board hosted Google Apps For Educators (gafe) event launched at 8:30 this morning. Mark Wagner from the Google Ed Tech team provided a warm welcome and overview from the day. Linda Fabi, Director of Education for the Waterloo Region District School Board delivered greetings to the 525  attendees.

Jim Sill delivered an outstanding keynote address challenging attendees to define the type of world we live in. Jim used effective examples to portray a world of will and reckless creativity, cleverly referencing twitter, sub tweets, selfies, personal branding and digital footprints. I am glad I livescribed this session so I can enjoy listening to it again!

Most of the balance of the day provided a wide variety of  workshop  strands addressing a variety of skill levels. A closing session provided an opportunity to  showcase some awesome tips and clever uses of Google Apps in a 3 minute window. Each presenter concluded with a resounding expression of “SLAM” !

On a personal note, I enjoyed connecting and sharing this experience with so many dedicated educators I know across the province, and of course, meeting new people too.  I learned more about using google maps more effectively, leveraging extensions to Google Drive and tucked away a variety of nifty tips and tricks.

I am looking forward to GAFE day 2 tomorrow!!!

~Mark