Every Tuesday I share a Tech Tip on our social media pages to assist our staff in their use of technology as it relates to their role. When I moved into this position I noticed that there were reoccurring concerns from administrators and teachers from many of our schools: families were unfamiliar with a variety of technology-related aspects of their children’s’ lives. This may include how to utilize school-related tech tools, how to help their child navigate social media, how to guide their child’s use of screen time, etc. With the shift to remote learning in the spring of 2020, this concern… Read More
WOW Wednesday – MVSD Families
Every Wednesday I highlight some of our amazing MVSD staff on our social media pages. Everyday our staff are using tech in new and exciting ways, are learning new skills, and are sharing ways in which ed tech is assisting them in their practice. This week I wanted to shift this practice and highlight our MVSD families who have stepped up to the challenge and are also learning new skills as they work to navigate the role tech plays in their children’s lives. Our Community Outreach program is back for our spring session offerings. This program has been designed to work… Read More
Teacher Education: Part 1
*This post has been written as part of my professional growth plan through my #ISTE20 scholarship. PD Magic: Applying the Best Practices of the Walt Disney Co. Presenters: Ryan Boeckman, Jerry Johnson Overview: “P.D. Magic is a transformative professional development model that strives to create future-ready classrooms and schools. Explore the instructional methods, concepts and activities that P.D. Magic uses to develop graduate-level courses, workshops, online courses and experiential on-site learning experiences.” Main Takeaways: 6 Core Values 1. Creative storytellers 2. Innovative designers 3. Memorable leaders 4. Blue sky thinkers 5. Empowered learners 6. Knowledge constructors The goal is to develop… Read More
Project-, Problem- & Challenge-based Learning
*This post has been written as part of my professional growth plan through my #ISTE20 scholarship. Anatomy of Effective Digital-Age Projects: Designing for Equity, Inquiry, Literacy Presenters: Suzie Boss, Myla Lee Overview: “From project launch until final showcase, decisions about project design, technology integration, and student choice shape the quality of the learning experience–both in person and via remote learning. We will analyze the anatomy of effective projects, emphasizing opportunities to amplify inquiry, equity and digital-age literacies in PBL.” Main Takeaways: PBL allows for collaboration, creativity, curiousity, connection, critical thinking, etc How can we amplify inquiry, equity, and digital-age literacies in… Read More
#TweetTheHalls Winners!
Today is the LAST DAY of school in 2020, which also means that our #MBEdChat #TweetTheHalls event has come to a close. Over the course of 15 days we had almost 60 educators participate with a total reach of over 10,000! While the majority of participants were local to Manitoba we also had our network extend to include those from Ontario and the East Coast provinces as well; welcome to all! This morning Donna Miller Fry and myself joined Stephen Hurley at VoicEd Radio for “Hurley in the Morning”. We had an opportunity to not only share about the connections… Read More
#WOWWednesday – Wendy Oversby
Every Wednesday I highlight some of our amazing MVSD staff on our social media pages. Everyday our staff are using tech in new and exciting ways, are learning new skills, and are sharing ways in which ed tech is assisting them in their practice. This week I would like to highlight Wendy Oversby from Ochre River School (ORS). Earlier in the fall the staff at ORS began discussing how best to organize and deliver their Remembrance Day Service as the school-provided service is the only one available in the community. Due to Covid restrictions that prevented any type of gathering or… Read More
#TweetTheHalls
Recently, while on Twitter, Donna Miller Fry brought up the idea of a Twitter challenge to help foster community and bring holiday cheer amongst educators. She shared a past example from Ontario who hosted a #TweetTheHalls event which was a series of daily Twitter challenges in the weeks leading up to the Christmas break. After a bit of brainstorming, we decided that this could be a perfect activity for #MBEdChat to take on in lieu of a formal December Twitter chat. From there our team came up with a series of daily prompts, I made up a graphic using Canva,… Read More
The Virtual Teachers of Our Childhood
I came across the following image this past week on social media and I can’t seem to get it out of my head. Its true, many people that I can credit with acting in a “teaching” role through my childhood are people that I never met or had any one-to-one interaction with. If I had to personalize this graphic, mine would look something like this: The virtual teachers of my childhood include individuals such as: Bill Nye Fred Rogers Mr. Dress Up (aka Ernie Coombs) Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton Hal Johnson & Joanne McLeod As I work with teachers… Read More
Strengthening the Ed Tech Capacity of the Community
If you are a social media user you are probably familiar with the Throwback Thursday trend where users participate by sharing a memory (recent or distant). I was reminded on my ICT social media accounts that this time last year was the kick-off to our community outreach program (see Instagram post below): When I entered this position last September I was pleasantly surprised to realize that although I didn’t have “my kids” (students) anymore, I now had an extended network of over 4000 new “students” to support. This group includes MVSD students, teachers, admin, support staff, and our MVSD families.… Read More