Why Differentiate?

I feel this way about the OSSLT sometimes as well.  Students who have learning disabilities will struggle as much on the Literacy Test as that fish will trying to get up that tree.

Using Tagxedo

My smart teacher candidate found a neat website that is an alternative to Wordle.  It is called Tagxedo (www.tagxedo.com). You can enter text and the website puts it into a shape.  We are going to try it with The Hunger Games.  Students will find adjectives that describe a character and put them into a Tagxedo shape.

Here is my exemplar.  I just cut and pasted a portion of text from Part 1 of the book so they can see what it will look like.

Thanks for the idea, Sarah!

I love looking at other teachers' classrooms

My favourite teacher blog posts are the ones where I get to see into other people's classrooms.  So, I am going to post a few pictures of mine today.  I have a few shots of my classroom after a day of classes.  I have a couple of Grade 12 classes and one Grade 10 class.  I need to do a good cleaning and reorganizing but this it, mess and all.

This is the front of the room.  We still have old blackboards so I put up a white board at the front with velcro.  We also still use TV/VCR sometimes.  Don't laugh.  There is also a projector next to my podium so I am not a dinosaur. I teach from the front and have my desk at the back.

This is the side view of the room.  I am luck to have a bank of cabinets.

This is the back corner.  The shelves come from our now defunct library (that is another story).  The old Mac was generously donated by my sister.  Thanks, Melanie!

This is a view of the back of my room, including my Smart board and my teacher desk.







I also have some close ups of two of my movable white boards at the front.

Here is my Objectives Board (for Learning Goals and Success Criteria)

It is a small dry erase Board I got from Home Depot.  I used some American Crafts stickers I had lying around for the titles.  My latest project connects Reading Strategies to the Objectives Board.  I will be trying it out tomorrow.














Here is my other white board, "Ticket to Freedom".  It is my exit card board. I use it primarily with my ENG 2P1 class.

TLLP 2013-2014

My friend Daniella and I have decided to try for another TLLP grant.  We are interested in using graphic texts like graphic novels and comic books in the High School classroom.

The idea of using more graphic texts has been floating around in my mind for a couple of years.  I love graphic novels and comics.  Daniella's son loves them as well.  What really made me see the potential of using graphic novels was an incident that happened in my grade 10 Applied class a few weeks ago.  We read every day at the beginning of class and I have a student who was a pretty reluctant reader.  Then, I gave him Amulet, a graphic novel by Kazu Kibuishi.  He cannot put it down.  He is on Book 4 now.  I think this might be the way to get more students engaged in class.

I have read a bit about teaching using comic but we need time and money to get the project going.  Enter the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program through the Ministry of Education.  I am excited about it.  We have asked for both digital and print texts and some iPad Minis to deliver the digital portion.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.

A summer of Pinterest

I have spent the summer adding great ideas to some of my Pinterest boards about Education. I am very anxious to try them out for myself. I have added a button to the sidebar for easy access to my pins. There is a bunch of food there, too.

Finishing our TLLP project

We have just finished our Teacher Learning and Leadership Program Project. It is a program through the Ministry of Education. Some colleagues and I did a project called "Equal is Not the Same: DI and the Middle Learner. The purpose of the project was to form a PLC to explore the use of DI to improve the engagement and involvement of the middle learner at Holy Names Catholic High School in Windsor, Ontario. I have added links to our TLLP blog and website to the sidebar. Take a look.

Back at it...

A new semester has started and I have been busy with my new classes and my return to my old school as Department Head there.  I am happy to be back at Holy Names, where the students still laugh at my jokes...

So, I am finally back online, preparing my digital classroom for the new year. 

My tech guru, my sensei of the virtual word, Doug, recommended that I switch my class wiki from Wetpaint to Google Sites.  He also showed me how to use hot spots (which are pretty decent, I must say).  If you are looking for a guru or sensei, check out Doug Sadler's blog & wiki.

It has been a very easy transition and I think the new digital classroom looks much better than the old wiki.  I guess my students will have to use it and decide if it is easy to use.  I think that will take some trial and error, just as my Wetpaint site did.  

I don't yet have an accessible network drop in my classroom, so I am going to have to put my goal of using an RSS feed or Twitter to provide frequent updates about my classes on hold.  I hope to have that resolved soon, so I can get on with my next steps into the brave new world of integrating Web 2.0 (or is it 3.0 now?) into the classroom.

My next goal is to get back in touch with my friends and family - so if you are reading, hang on... I will call soon.

If you are looking for something to read, find a copy of  a long way gone: memoirs of a child soldier.  It is a compelling read and I am just starting it with my ENG 4C1 class. 

Oh, and I just learned how add soundbites...

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sound bite  Zoolander sound bites