Bonjour

Testing a video ... working with a teacher of elementary French with some ideas of how little instructional videos might work. Using PhotoBooth on the Mac.

Assessment

Grapes
Originally uploaded by bobsd46

Taken in macro mode, so not really as big as they look. Disappointing this year ... only this one bunch and no real growth. It kind of relates, though, to thinking I've been doing about assessment. From my perspective, the best way to look at assessment with students is growth ... how much have they grown during the year, not what grade they are in. And, what contributes to their growth. In the case of the grapes, environment is important, as is input from the grower, care, monitoring and adjusting conditions. In the case of students, are things much different? When a student shows little growth, do we think about why? As students are progressing, do we consider how the growth is affected by their environment both at school and at home, by their learning styles in comparison to the teaching style of the instructor, by the monitoring and adjusting of their work and assignments based on success or difficulty. Will this thinking make a difference for the grapes next year? I don't know. Will it make a difference with some of the students I'm working with this year? I hope so.

SmartBoard work at HMBay

Smartboard
Originally uploaded by bobsd46

Working for a bit in a classroom today with a teacher and his math lesson delivered with his district supplied Macbook, his smartboard (this school has 6 new ones this year), and his math manipulatives. Kids loved working with the materials. The teacher had students come to the board and manipulate the electronic manipulatives while others in the class solved the same problem with the ones on their desks. Nice to see an active lesson incorporating the technology that I am fortunate enough to get to work with teachers and students in multiple schools.

New learning

What a wonderful day today.

Our tech department has decided to upgrade servers to Leopard and has, for the most case, kept things pretty stable as to the way things operate. However, we did choose one school to pilot with using many of the wonderful features of the Leopard server. The school we chose was one that had a small number of teachers, a group of teachers who are not highly knowledgeable about networking, and who were willing (at least their principal was) to participate in a pilot program.

Today we (me and one of my fabulous techs) did an inservice training with them. Best part, my budget paid for them to get released during the school day.

It went, from my perspective, wonderfully and I expect to spend much more time, starting next week, with them going through the network setup for their students, special "Other" logins, etc.

Love it.

First week of 2009/10 done

It was quite the week for our tech department, responding to numerous phone calls and email requests for help and fixes.

One thing about working in the summer on new and exciting projects for our schools is that we are relatively unencumbered by staff. Yes, we do have to work our way around the maintenance crews and this summer our work centre in Gibsons was closed for 6 weeks due to some issues. That said, there is nothing like having all your "clients", students, teachers, admin staff, etc. back in gear, trying out some of the things you worked on. While we felt that our conversion to Leopard servers was good, we did find some interesting issues that we now need to address.

My team works incredibly hard to support learning and I'd like to say a big thanks to Chris, Kim, and Layne. I'd also like to thank Kathy for coming in from time to time during the summer. Kathy is my admin assistant, but unfortunately she got bumped at the end of the year by someone with seniority when cuts came. That person decided not to take the job - went somewhere else - and now Kathy has to reapply. Decisions about the position will be made next week. Hopefully she gets the position back.

One other big job over the summer was getting ready for a new district wide library system - Destiny by Follett. Records have been converted for 9 of our 13 schools and training is next week. Should be interesting!

Back to School

I know that for some of you, back to school has already happened. For us on the British Columbia Sunshine Coast it all gets back in gear on September 8, next Tuesday. What an exciting day.

For me, there is some nostalgia as for yet another year, I will not have a specific school to go to. Imagine... I think back 35 years to this first school day in September, 1974, as I was starting my career in this school district. Yes, I had already taught for three years, but this was a new, wonderful experience to come. Wow, 35 years ago. And today, I occasionally see some of my students from back in the early 70s and I have even taught, or been a principal, for some of their children.

I hope this is a good year for you and your children/students. And, I'll even try to write more this school year. Yes, I know, I've said that before, but maybe this year will be different.