I’m not trying to be disingenuous here; I truly believe it because I see it with my own eyes everyday.

Loved this quick tweet from @ktenkely so much, I thought I’d Phosterize it:)

I’ve been busy making posters for the start of the school year…

As some of you may know, I am what we in our district call a Learning Centre Classroom Teacher. In other words, ours is one of many open classrooms that accept visitors from stakeholders to come learn from and with our class as we venture through the landscape of contemporary pedagogy and learning. One of the things people are often struck by in my class is how we do ‘paperless’. My response has become a standard one: We are paperless in the sense that students and I don’t use paper to submit and return assignments, but we use paper everyday in the process of learning, to collaborate and think. Paper is an absolutely essential tool for learning; we shouldn’t try to eliminate it just for the sake of it. The most vital pieces of paper in our class are our individual sketchbooks, something I call the Thinking Book. Yes, we have smart phones; sure, we have iPad devices; and indeed, we have a few MacBook Pros. But, perhaps standing head and shoulders amongst the rest are our beautiful, hardcover sketchbooks. Here are just a few pages from last year’s books. I find them so much more beautiful than ‘final product’ pieces of work. This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I got interviewed by the great Doug Peterson about various #edtech stuff. Check it out here.

If there’s one myth which I am perturbed by, it is the one that goes something like this. Well, you know, getting technology in there is going to be great for those disengaged, behavioural boys… There are so many things wrong with this stereotype of our metaphorical wild animals suddenly being tamed at the sight of a touchscreen, but I’m going to focus my attention on one in particular. In my experience using social media and web 2.0 (SMW2.0) tools with students since basically their inception, I would say that if it favours or holds a bias towards any one identifiable student demographic at all, it would be our introverts. Before writing this post, I had a glance back at what you might call my own data. In the past two years, I have introduced and guided nearly 200 adolescent students in the use of Google Apps for Education, Voicethread, Animoto, Bitstrips, Prezi, Today’s Meet, and other well known SMW2.0 tools. All of them have had the ability to not only complete assignments and projects mandated by myself as their teacher, but also to take initiative and create, post, respond at their leisure 24/7. I went through my list of 184 and started by tagging each based on the results of a survey I had them complete from Susan Cain’s website: Extrovert Introvert Ambivert (difficult to identify as only one) I then compared this information with another where I assessed their engagement with SMW2.0: 1 - Exhibiting little engagement, rarely posting even when teacher required them to do so. 2 - Exhibiting some engagement, usually when the teacher outlined a specific task to accomplish. 3 - Exhibiting significant engagement, posting frequently. 4 - Exhibiting a high level of engagement, posting most frequently, to the point where we learn about skills, ideas, and aspects of their personality that are rarely shown outwardly in class. Here are the results of my mom ‘n’ pop research: What do you think this says about social media and introverts? Cross posted at Stephen Hurley‘s awesome blog Teaching Out Loud. Also check out my conversation with Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts, as well as her take on Why Gadgets are Great for Introverts.

I made this Animoto to introduce myself to this school year’s students and parents.

Enjoy. Share and share alike. Remix at your leisure. Download the .mov file here. Download the Keynote file here.

Our class was featured in the September edition of Canadian Family magazine. Thanks to Jennifer Reynolds for letting me share it here. Click the cover below to take a gander.