Photograph by Kien Do Kien Do captured this stunning view of a break in the clouds that looks like an eye in the sky. The photo was taken 31,000 ft above ground as the plane prepared for its descent to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. via Kien Do on Unsplash
Applications for Education
Today, I spent the day at a workshop run by Chris Brogan. The workshop wasn’t about technology, but I did pick up a neat idea about Google Keep. Chris was using Google Keep for his outline of talking points. Until today, I hadn’t thought about Google Keep in this way. Using the color-coding aspect of notes in Google Keep could be a nice way for students to construct an outline for a research paper or presentation.
Google Keep is an interesting digital sticky note service that is available as a website, as a Chrome app, and as an Android app. On Google Keep you can create sticky notes to use simple text notes, as bookmarks, or as reminders with dates and times. You can color code your notes and arrange them by dragging and dropping them into any order you like. And like most things in your Google Account all of the notes in your Google Keep account will sync across all of your devices.
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King, Jr.
St. Anthony Today
Math Collaborative Workshop Sandra, Maria and paul away – CEC – all day
November 23, 2014
I spent sometime this weekend curating and working on the list of iPad apps below. These are apps that students can use to create beautiful cartoons to use in their multimedia projects or in activities that involve comic strips, digital storytelling, presentations and many more. All of these apps are easy to use and do not require any advanced technical skill. Some of the things students can do with these apps include: take pictures and turn them into cartoons, capture cartoon videos, draw cartoon sketches, customize and add different effects to pictures, convert photos into cartoon avatars, and many more.
XnSketch allows you to turn your photos into drawing, cartoons or sketch images. It provides 19 effects easy to use with full control. Save your creations and share them with your friends through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, and Email. 2- Sketch Cartoon Me
Footage taken with a GoPro – a great video camera great for taking good video everywhere – even space!
This HD footage was taken by U.S. astronaut Terry Virts during two spacewalks (EVAs) on the International Space Station on February 25, 2015 and March 1, 2015. On EVA #30 (seen above), Virts and fellow astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore routed a series of cables in preparation for the arrival of two International Docking Adapters later in 2015. Virts also lubricated elements at the latching end of the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm while Wilmore prepares the Tranquility module for the relocation of the Permanent Multipurpose Module and the arrival of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) later this year.
On EVA#31 (watch here), the pair routed 400 feet of cable and installed several antennas associated with the Common Communications for Visiting Vehicles system known as C2V2. Boeing’s Crew Transportation System (CST)-100 and the SpaceX Crew Dragon will use the system in the coming years to rendezvous with the orbital laboratory and deliver crews to the space station.
God, may the awe of your presence shield us from the temptation to think too highly of ourselves. May we cultivate humility by pointing ourselves at you. Amen.
St. Anthony Today
Easter Mass at St. Anthony Church – 9:00 am
Paul away – Board Office 11:30
Chess Club
Table Tennis
Stay Focusd – A Chrome Extension That Helps You Eliminate Distractions
Last week I posted on Twitter that I had removed the Facebook app from my phone and that I was ignoring my personal Facebook account in my browser. My friend Gillian Duffyasked how I was doing it. My reply was to share with her the Chrome extension called Stay Focusd.
Stay Focusd is a Chrome extension designed to help you stop wasting time on sites like Facebook and get your work done instead. With Stay Focusd installed you can set a time limit for yourself for how much cumulative time in a day that you spend on sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Once you’ve used up your self-allotted time on those sites you won’t be able to revisit them in that browser for 24 hours.
Applications for Education
While we might not be able to force students to use Stay Focusd on every computer they use, we can certainly recommend it to them and their parents. As the end of the school year approaches and students are getting down to crunch time on big projects, Stay Focusd could provide students with the gentle nudge they need to stay on track.
Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched.
-Henri J.M. Nouwen
Congratulations to the grade 4/5 class and Nora and Sandra for winning the Bright Ideas Contest! $1000.00 for St. Anthony Greening! Terrific work!
This is what you would be seeing when you open Discovery – if you don’t see the Techbook and Streaming Canada Plus I need to know before I set up another workshop for us. Thanks
Getting Started with Discovery Education Streaming Published on 17 Jun 2013 This is a quick overview to show you some of the main features of Discovery Education Streaming.
We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.
-Malala Yousafzai
prayer of the day
God of peace, keep us from confusing peace with submission in the face of injustice. Keep us from confusing patience with tolerance in the face of oppression. Grant us true discernment for the sake of your kingdom. Amen.
– Common Prayer
St. Anthony Today
Pizza Day!
Blogging club
Assembly fourth block today – please let me know what items you have for today’s assembly, we will reward St. Anthony Superstars during the assembly
Some of the tweets Tuesday night at the Director’s Forum – Joe Mazza @Joe_Mazza on parent engagement – a huge topic for us!
Easter confronts us with the greatest challenge of them all: faith in darkness. Just because we know that what we’re doing is right does not mean that it will be easy. It certainly does not mean that even our best efforts will prevail. It finally does not mean that what we live for will happen in our lifetime.
Mary Magdalene is our model. She was one of the women who, according to Luke’s Gospel, “followed Jesus, supporting him out of their own substance.” She banked her whole life on the fact that the vision of this Jesus would come to fullness.
She believed in him and everything he believed in: She believed in the Beatitudes. She believed that the curing of cripples was a more important moment in time than even the celebration of the Sabbath. She believed in women as he did and in the poor as he did and in the reform of the synagogue. As he did. She believed in him first, before anyone else, and she followed him to the end, even when all the others had disappeared.
She followed him in the light and, finally, like the rest of us, she followed him in darkness. She went to the tomb, to the place where it was clear that failure lay. But she went in the faith that what had come to life in her because of him, even if suppressed in the world around her for a while, could not die. Not in those who had been touched by him. Never in her. Not really.
It was then that she found him risen. Gone. Beyond the grasp of those living in whom there was no life and who had wanted him dead so that their own death-dealing could go on.
The message to us is a clear one. When we follow Jesus, the path is often through darkness to what looks to the world—to us—like failure and defeat. But when we ourselves carry the message of Jesus—when we live the life of Jesus here and now, when we, too, confront the world around us with the blessedness of those poor, those outcast, those foreigners, those women, those voiceless for whom Jesus gave his life—we carry within ourselves the promise of new life. We live the ongoing message of the Resurrection itself: What comes in the name of Jesus will not die. The darkness will not overcome it as long as we ourselves never blow out the light of Truth in our own hearts. Alleluia.
Happy Easter, everyone.
United States Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang In this beautiful capture we see Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, above Bear Lake, Alaska. The photo was taken by United States Air Force Senior Airman Joshua Strang, and was awarded first place in the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2006.
Just a reminder that the Director’s Forum is taking place on Tuesday, April 7th at St. Paul High School, 2675 Draper Ave. Student-led displays can be viewed at 6:15 p.m. and the keynote speaker, Joe Mazza, will deliver a message about Keeping Home and School Connected … Communicating in a Digital Age at 7:00 p.m. For more information, visithttp://ocsb.ca/directorsforum
Wednesday, April 8
Paul Away all day CLL
Thursday, April 9
Lockdown practice (AM)
Yvonne Whalen in
Paul away in PM
Young Rembrandts
Friday, April 10
Paul meeting with Andrew (Evergreen) 10:30
Little Horn Theatre * MUSIC/FIDDLE WITH CHAD WOLFE
Little Horn Theatre
* MUSIC/FIDDLE WITH CHAD
WOLFE St. Anthony’s
9:45-10:00 recess
10:00-10:40 (24) Gr 4/5
10:40-11:15 (24) Gr 5/6) *get ready
for lunch upon dismissal
11:15-12:15 LUNCH
Blogging Club
Melisa and Teresa working on Ecoschool Application- afternoon only
This looks like a really interesting resource for our school – to access click on the link on the right or click here
Photograph by Aqwis on Wikimedia Commons A tranquil day in Western Norway captures the beautiful scenery of the Ulvikfjord Mountains reflected in the Hardangerfjord below. The main village in the area is Ulvik, which connects to the high mountain regions in Hol and Aurland.
Prayer of the Day
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
– John 8:32 NKJV Study Bible
voice of the day
The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.
QR Codes are all around us today. Open a magazine, a catalog, or glance at a bulletin board and you’re likely to see a QR code. QR Codes make it easy to jump to a website or download a file on your mobile device. QR codes and QR code reader apps are one of the many ways that cell phones can be used in schools for academic purposes. To that end, Russel Tarr the QR Treasure Hunt Generator.
The QR Treasure Hunt Generator provides you with all of the things you need to get started creating your own QR codes and using them in your classroom. To use the QR Treasure Hunt Generator type out a series of questions and answers, generate the QR codes using the tool Russel Tarr provides, then print and display the codes around your classroom or school. Click here to view a sample QR Treasure Hunt.
If you’re looking for a QR code reader app, I use and recommend QR Droid for Android devices. For iOS devices take a look at QR Scanner or QR Code Reader.
Applications for Education
Creating QR Treasure Hunts could be a great way to get students moving and learning at the same time. With a QR Treasure Hunt a quest for information can become a physical exercise as well as an intellectual exercise.
The suffering of Jesus is a very human thing. The people he came to love, the system he meant to stretch to its human limits, to its fullest potential, to its deepest vision of God, turned against him. We have all known the situation, the feeling, the pain. It is what people did to Jesus that killed him. It is what the system did to him that destroyed him. It was a fearful system and apathetic people that brought the total sacrifice of Godhead to an ultimate end. It is what people did—or failed to do—for the One who had already sacrificed everything for our sakes, who “did not deign being equal to God a thing to be clung to but who became like us in everything,” that led to his death. This is the suffering that takes all the love a human being has. This is the kind of suffering that is divine mystery nobly, humanly, borne.
Jesus does not come to appease God. Jesus comes to teach us how to live a life that makes us worthy of the God who made us. Jesus comes to show us what we ourselves can be, must be. Jesus comes so that we can come to be everything we were created to be, whenever our lives, wherever our efforts, whatever our circumstance: shining glory of human degradation.
The truth of the passion rings across time for each of us: The goal we each seek is the cross we each choose. The purpose of our lives determines the nature of our deaths. What we stood for in life determines who will be at our deathbeds, how we will be regarded by the “nice” people of the time, the degree of respect with which we will be held thereafter. Jesus lived the human cross with us, for us. We have a companion on the way.
Paperless Classroom – an excerpt from a blog post by George Couros @gcouros
with digital portfolios and 1:1 we are heading in the same direction – step by step…
I recently heard that a principal who is in school that is trying to go paperless decided that when their photocopier went down, it didn’t make sense to get a new one. If you are trying to go paperless, why is a photocopier an essential need? I heard this story from a third party and do not know all of the details, but I do know it would take guts because this pushes people in a different direction. Could they still use paper? Probably, but do they need to spend thousands of dollars on a machine that has traditionally been used for worksheets?
In my own context, we developed a digital portfolio process that can be used for a student’s time in our school, but can also be exported to their own space when they either graduate, leave our schools, or at any time of their choosing. This gives peace of mind to educators moving forward, yet it also ensure that years of learning shared in one space is not hidden within the school walls. Can you imagine doing 12 years of work in anything, and when you leave, it is not accessible to others, or even yourself? Our universities and colleges pushinig for digital portfolios? Maybe they aren’t right now, but they will be, and even if by chance they never want to see this, the learning is hopefully invaluable to the student. This is both focused on the present and the future.
St. Anthony Today
We Day – Lenn and Diana away
Dental Screening for JK, SK, 2, 4, 6 – in gym (not sure how long each class will take)