February 27

The SAN Script Friday, February 27th

SOS

This week, we are thrilled to reveal four more SOS vingettes that you can use this week with your staff.

Since social media was all abuzz this weekend, we thought we’d build off the momentum with some winning strategies!

 

 

Instagram-in (video contributed by Diane Lefebvre of Alberta, Canada)

Engaging students with a platform many are already familiar with, will captivate their attention and showcase their learning.

Tweet! Tweet! (video contributed by Selena Ward or Prince George’s, Maryland)

It’s short and sweet and to the point.  Learn how you can use the framework of tweets to inspire summarizing units and exploring new topics.

Fakebook (video contributed by Diane Lefebvre of Alberta, Canada)

There’s much to learn about inviduals when you look through their posts, friends, and images.  Help students synthesize their learning with this strategy.

Things You Don’t Know About… (video contributed by Tracy Carpenter of Columbia, Maryland)

Social media reveals many things you didn’t know about your favorite people.  Based off a popular magazine article, have students share 25 important facts about people, places, and things you are studying

February 26

The SAN Script – Thursday, February 26

2

 

 

 

St.Anthony Today

Ski trip today for juniors – all day

Teresa at System Class Networking CEC

OECTA AGM – 4:30 PM

 

davis-guidebook-social-media-thinkstock

A Guidebook for Social Media in the Classroom

An Edutopia article – a must follow blog

from Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher – great person to follow on Twitter

Is Social Media Relevant? Take the Quiz

Before we talk social media, let’s talk about the relevance of social media by taking a quiz. Which of the following is most likely to be true?

  • Should we teach letter-writing in the classroom? Kids need to write letters and mail them. But what if they become pen pals with strangers and share private information with them? What if their letter gets lost in the mail and the wrong person opens it? Are we opening up a whole dangerous world to our students once they mail letters to others? Surely students will send thousands of letters through the mail in their lifetime.
  • Should we teach email in the classroom? Kids need to email other people and should know how to title a subject. But what if they email someone bad? What if they accidentally send it to the wrong person? What will we do? And are we opening up a whole dangerous world to our students once they email others? Surely students will send thousands of emails in their lifetime.
  • Should we teach (dare we say it) social media in the classroom? I mean, they don’t have to learn microblogging on Twitter — you can do that in Edmodo, right? You can have a private blog or put them on Kidblogs or Edublogs instead of letting them post long status updates on Facebook, right? Are we opening up a whole dangerous world to our students once they are writing online and posting comments to each other? Surely students will post thousands of status updates, pictures, and blogs in their lifetime.

The Social Media Answer

  • ☑ There’s one form of writing that can arguably get someone fired, hired or forced to retire faster than any other form of writing.  (If you don’t believe me, read “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life” in the New York Times.)
  • ☑ There’s one form that will most likely be read by college admissions offices and teams of student “stalkers” hired to vet students before they receive scholarships.
  • ☑ There’s one form that will prevent some people from running for political office and get others elected.

One form of writing is that powerful.

If you guessed social media, you’re right.

The Social Media Myth

The myth about social media in the classroom is that if you use it, kids will be Tweeting, Facebooking and Snapchatting while you’re trying to teach. We still have to focus on the task at hand. Don’t mistake social media forsocializing. They’re different — just as kids talking as they work in groups or talking while hanging out are different.

You don’t even have to bring the most popular social media sites into your classroom. You can use Fakebook or FakeTweet as students work on this form of conversation. Edublogs, Kidblog, Edmodo, and more will let you use social media competencies and writing techniques. Some teachers are even doing “tweets” on post-it notes as exit tickets. You can use mainstream social media, too.

12 Ways Teachers are Using Social Media in the Classroom Right Now

  1. Tweet or post status updates as a class. Teacher Karen Lirenman lets students propose nuggets of learning that are posted for parents to read.
  2. Write blog posts about what students are learning. Teacher Kevin Jarrettblogs reflections about his Elementary STEM lab for parents to read each week.
  3. Let your students write for the world. Linda Yollis’ students reflect about learning and classroom happenings.
  4. Connect to other classrooms through social media. Joli Barker is fearlessly connecting her classroom through a variety of media.
  5. Use Facebook to get feedback for your students’ online science fair projects. Teacher Jamie Ewing is doing this now, as he shared recently.
  6. Use YouTube for your students to host a show or a podcast. Don Wettrick’s students hosted the Focus Show online and now share their work on a podcast.
  7. Create Twitter accounts for a special interest projects. My studentMorgan spent two years testing and researching the best apps for kids with autism (with the help of three “recruits”), and her work just won her an NCWIT Award for the State of Georgia.
  8. Ask questions to engage your students in authentic learning. Tom Barrett did this when his class studied probability by asking about the weather in various locations.
  9. Communicate with other classrooms. The Global Read Aloud, Global Classroom Project and Physics of the Future are three examples of how teachers use social media to connect their students as they collaborate and communicate.
  10. Create projects with other teachers. (Full disclosure: I co-created Physics of the Future with Aaron Maurer, a fellow educator I first met on Twitter.)
  11. Share your learning with the world. My students are creating anEncyclopedia of Learning Games with Dr. Lee Graham’s grad students at the University of Alaska Southeast. The educators are testing the games, and the students are testing them, too.
  12. Further a cause that you care about. Mrs. Stadler’s classes are working to save the rhinos in South Africa, and Angela Maiers has thousands of kids choosing to matter.

It’s in the Standards

If you’re going to ignore social media in the classroom, then throw out theISTE Standards for Students and stop pretending that you’re 21st century. Stop pretending that you’re helping low-income children overcome the digital divide if you aren’t going to teach them how to communicate online.

Social media is here. It’s just another resource and doesn’t have to be a distraction from learning objectives. Social media is another tool that you can use to make your classroom more engaging, relevant and culturally diverse.

February 25

The SAN Script Wednesday, February 25

If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody.

-Madeleine L’Engle

prayer of the day

Lord God, protect us from the pointing finger and malicious talk. Give us the courage to win over enemies by our love and to wear them down with grace. Amen.

– Common Prayer

Big Ben

 Here is what our committee has come up for our Superstar award.  Please let us know what you think.  If this is OK we will start with an assembly at the beginning of next week.  

Committee members – Paul, Teresa, Geraldine, Maria, Sabina

The Super Star Awardcertificate in draft form – this is what we hope to hand out to classes starting in the first week of March.

Our first category will be:

I AM A LEARNER FOR LIFE!

I use my gifts and talents given to me by God
I always do my best
I build on my strengths and weaknesses
I set goals
I accept change
I am proud of the good things I do
I am thankful for the gifts of others
Because I am a learner for life, I can reach for my dreams, by living my life like Jesus.

The tokens you will be given to hand out look like this  I2015-02-24_1356

We need a class who could volunteer to present this first theme to the students
St. Anthony Today

Y Kids Academy – at school – grade 5/6Swim to survive – grade 2/3Planning meeting for Makerfaire – 1:30 in Learning Commons – Cathy and Paul  

February 24

The SAN Script Tuesday, February 24

We are looking for a grant of over $6000.00 to produce a mural on the outside of the school to prevent tagging.  We will know early April if we are successful with this grant application

We are looking for a grant of over $6000.00 to produce a mural on the outside of the school to prevent tagging. We will know early April if we are successful with this grant application.  The City of Ottawa program is called Paint it Up

 

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.

-Blaise Pascal

 

 

St. Anthony Today

Jeans Day for Shepherds of Good Hope

Chess club

Table Tennis today at 3:15 PM

 

We are trying a small crowdfunding project to see if we can raise a little money for our greening/depaving project in the yard.  I will be putting this out via social media and the web site to see if we can attract a little attention for this project.

February 22

The SAN Script – the week of February 23 – 27

Hebrew Scriptures:
Preferential Option for the Poor

Richard Rohr

Roots of Liberation
Sunday, February 22, 2015
One of the great themes of the Bible, which begins in the Hebrew Scriptures and is continued in Jesus, is the preferential option for the poor, or the bias from the bottom. About 1200 years before Christ, Israel was at the bottom, an enslaved people in Egypt. The Exodus, the great journey of the Hebrew people out of slavery and finally into the Promised Land, is an archetype of the interior spiritual journey from entrapment to liberation. It is the universal story.

Moses, himself a man at “the bottom” (a murderer on the run and caring for his father-in-law’s sheep), first encounters God in a burning bush (Exodus 3:2), which, like so many initial religious experiences, is experienced alone, externally and yet interiorly as well, both earth-based and transcendent at the same time: “Take off your shoes, this is holy ground” (3:5). This religious experience is immediately followed by a call to a very costly social concern for his own oppressed people, whom he had not cared about up to then. God said, “I have heard the groaning of my people in Egypt. You, Moses, are to go confront the Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go” (3:9-10).

There, right at the beginning of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the perfect integration of action and contemplation. First, the contemplative experience comes–the burning bush. And immediately it has social, economic, and political implications. The connection is clear. There is no authentic God experience that does not situate you in the world in a different way. After an encounter with Presence you see things differently, and it gives you the security to be free from your usual loyalties: the system that you have lived in, your economics, and your tribe. Your screen of life expands exponentially.

I believe the Exodus story–with Moses and the Jewish people–is the root of all liberation theology, which Jesus clearly exemplifies in the synoptic Gospels (see Luke 4:18-19). Liberation theology focuses on freeing people from religious, political, social, and economic oppression (i.e., what Pope John Paul II called “structural sin” and “institutional evil”). It goes beyond just trying to free individuals from their own particular “naughty behaviors,” which is what sin has seemed to mean to most Christian people in our individualistic culture.

Liberation theology, instead of legitimating the status quo, tries to read reality, history, and the Bible not from the side of the powerful, but from the side of the pain. Its beginning point is not sin management, but “Where is the suffering?” This makes all the difference in how we read the Bible.

God sees all the many kinds of suffering in the world. The world tends to define poverty and riches simply in terms of economics. But poverty has many faces–weakness, dependence, or humiliation. Essentially, poverty is a lack of means to accomplish what one desires, be it lack of money, relationships, influence, power, intellectual ability, physical strength, freedom, or dignity. Scriptures promise that God will take care of such people, because they know they have to rely on God.
Adapted from Gospel Call for Compassionate Action (Bias from the Bottom) in CAC Foundation Set (CD, MP3 download);
and Job and the Mystery of Suffering
(published by Crossroad Publishing Company), p. 126

Gateway to Silence
God hears the cry of the poor.

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This is from Brain Pickings – you should really subscribe to this blog!

Nature Anatomy: A Glorious Illustrated Love Letter to Curiosity and the Magic of Our World

“A writer is a professional observer,”Susan Sontag noted in her spectacular lecture on literature. So is any great storyteller – including the artist. After turning her professional-observer powers and their visual record to the city and the farm, illustrator extraordinaire Julia Rothman now directs them at what Virginia Woolf believed was the source of all the arts: nature.

In Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World (public library), she fuses the curious scrutiny of science with the loving gaze of art to explore everything from sunsets to salamanders, ferns to feathers, mountains to mushrooms, and the whole enchanting aliveness in between.

 

From

The Digital Primary Teacher – Marcie Martel

Speech to Text – Google Add-on

Wow! I just came across this excellent add-on for Google Docs – Speech Recognition. Although it has mixed reviews – so far it has been working well for us. With the early learners, this can be an excellent way for them to get their stories down on paper and share it with the world! There are lots of great ones out there right now this add on works for me. To go directly to the add on: Speech to Text
 
A short tutorial about how to get add-ons for Google: Speech Recognition for Google
speech to text
St. Anthony This Week
Monday, February 23
Squirmies to start
Paul out PM – Paint It Up Program
Tuesday, February 24
Board-wide Jeans Day for Shepherds of Good Hope
Cathlee O’Connell to read with Mrs.Rupnik’s class
Chess Club
Dorothy reading with Mrs. Rupnik’s class
Table Tennis
Wednesday, February 25
Innovations Group Meeting at St. Anthony – 1:30 Learning Commons – planning a Makerfaire at St. Anthony
Y Kids Academy at St. Anthony
Swim to Survive – 1:00 PM Grade 2/3
Thursday, February 26
Teresa at System Class Networking CEC
Junior Ski Trip to Mount Pakenham
AGM OECTA – 4:30PM
Friday, February 26
Little Horn Theatre  * MUSIC WITH AUDREY LEMIEUX
Gymnastics Showcase – all day
Pizza Day!
Blogging Club – lunchtime
February 19

The SAN Script Thursday, February 19th

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Lord, help us minister to others in ways that validate and authenticate them as fellow children of God. Keep us from daring to assume that our good fortune is of our own doing or that ability to serve is anything other than a gift. Amen.

– Common Prayer

St. Anthony Today

Chinese New Year: Year of the Goat

Morning Prayer is 5/6

Paul, Nora and Meg out (AM) Sipsa

Maria and Sandra out (AM) Math Collaborative Team project

Little Horn Theatre in today

JK/SK 8:30-9:00 (20)

JK/SK 9:00-9:30 (20)

9:45-10:00 recess

10:00-10:40 Grade 1 ( 12) +

Grade 1/2 (20)

10:40-11:15 Grade 2/3 (16)

*get ready for lunch upon

dismissal

11:15-12:15 LUNCH

12:30-1:10 Grade 4/5 (24)

1:30-1:45 LAST RECESS

2:00-2:40 Grade 5/6 (24)

Young Rembrandts – 3:15 PM

 

 

The Stewart Library Makerspace Story

We entered the Follett Challenge this year with a video telling the story of how we started the Stewart Makerspace and the impact that it has had on our library and our school. Unfortunately, we weren’t among the winners this time around. Still, I’m so proud of how this video has come together, and I want to make sure that I am sharing it as much as possible. I think that it makes for a great overview of our Makerspace journey, and I hope that it can serve as an inspiration for other schools around the world.

February 18

The SAN Script – Wednesday February 18

download (3)

verse of the day

Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

– Isaiah 26:19

voice of the day

They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.

-Mexican Proverb

prayer of the day

God, as resurrection people, may we never lose hope. May those who are beaten down and buried believe in their hearts that they will grow forth like seeds. Amen.

St. Anthony Today

Squirmies forms due today

Committee meeting – character development

9:00 Ash Wednesday liturgy – gym

Shayne Salter in to work on netbooks

Swim to Survive – first session – grade 2/3

Y Kids Academy – grade 5/6

Nicole Belanger in to discuss Paint It Up Program

 

 

February 16

The SAN Script The Week of February 17 – 20

IMG_20150213_114726

 

Here is where we are going to complete work on this year’s SIPsa.  We have a focus on feedback that we have yet to work on as a staff.  We will be planning another half-day PD session where we will be focussing on some of these Google extensions, especially Kaizena and Read and Write which is a great feedback tool we can all use.  Take a look at the Thinglink by Krista Sarginson above – it will give you some ideas on other apps that you would like to focus on for the PD Day.

 

Please complete the form below – we especially need to know what time you want so we can book your supply.

Thanks

 

From our SIPsa:

An overall goal for staff this year will be to use digital technology more effectively. We will work on more effective use of iPads, chromebooks and iPods on a regular basis in the classroom.

Our school SEF, EQAO debriefing and professional observations indicate that students are not yet able to read, understand and apply strategies with a necessary degree of independence. We need to use guiding questions (such as “5 Productive Talk Moves”) to provoke thinking and encourage student engagement .

As a staff we will come to a common understanding of descriptive feedback and effective questioning techniques (e.g., Edugains, Ministry Monographs, Fountas & Pinnell’s “Teach, Prompt, Reinforce”, Opening Minds) Participate in World Spelling Day

 St. Anthony This Week

Tuesday, February 17

IPRCs for Mrs.Rupnik- Learning Commons Location – Paul and Teresa (AM)

Cathlee O’Connell to read with Mrs.Rupnik’s class

10:50 Ash Wednesday songs practice in gym gr.1-6

chess club (noon)

Guest Reader Session in Mrs. Rupnik’s Class

Table Tennis – 3:15 – 4:15

Wednesday, February 18

Ash Wednesday

Squirmies forms are due

Y Kids Academy 1130-2:00PM grade 5-6 students

Shayne Salter in to work on netbooks – conversion to chromebooks

Swim to Survive Program – grade 2-3 Ms Manzoli’s class

Nicole Belanger (muralist) visiting the school regarding the Paint it Up Program

Thursday, February 19

SIPsa Collaborative team meeting – Paul, Nora and Meg attending

Guest Reader Session in Mrs. Rupnik’s Class

Shepherds of Good Hope – Jeans Day

Little Horn Theatre with Audrey Lemieux

Chinese New Year: Year of the Goat

Young Rembrandts After School

Friday, February 20

Ski Day – Junior Students Mount Pakenham

 

 

February 13

The SAN Script – Friday, February 13

SAN Script

Love is creative. It does not flow along the easy paths, spending itself in the attractive. It cuts new channels, goes where it is needed.

Evelyn Underhill

St. Anthony Today

Little Horn Theatre here – Audrey Lemieux in the Learning Commons

Pizza Day today!!

Grade 6 Bake Sale!!

Enjoy the long weekend everyone!!

Ecosystem Explorer – Activities for Learning About Predators and Scavengers

 from Free Technology for Teachers

Ecosystem Explorer, produced by PBS Learning Media, is a nice collection videos, images, and games designed to help students learn about the roles of predators and scavengers in ecosystems. Three animals are featured in Ecosystem Explorer: wolves, sharks, and vultures.

Launch the Ecosystem Explorer and select one of the three animals to get started. After choosing an animal in the Ecosystem Explorer you will see three new sections appear. Each of those sections about your chosen animal will include a short video, text, and a game to play to reinforce the lesson of the video and text.


Feed the Dingo is another fun game from PBS Learning Media that students can play to learn about the importance of maintaining balanced ecosystems. I reviewed Feed the Dingo last month.

February 12

The SAN Script – Thursday, February 12

 

Photograph by NASA/Barry Wilmore In this incredible photo we see spirals of lights bursting from Earth. The photo was taken from the International Space Station by astronaut Barry Wilmore, the commander of Expedition 42 and one of six astronauts currently on board.

Photograph by NASA/Barry Wilmore In this incredible photo we see spirals of lights bursting from Earth. The photo was taken from the International Space Station by astronaut Barry Wilmore, the commander of Expedition 42 and one of six astronauts currently on board.

 

voice of the day

That is our vocation: to convert the enemy into a guest and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.

Henri J.M. Nouwen

prayer of the day

Forgive, O Lord, what we have been
Direct what we are,
And order what we shall be,
For thy mercy’s sake. Amen.

– 1000 World Prayers

St. Anthony Today

Krista away – Elizabeth in

Debra away Mary-Anne Benoit in

Colleen McDonald (FDK) visiting today

Term One report cards and IEPs going home today

9:20  Ash Wednesday songs practice in gym gr.1-6

Term 2 IEP meetings: Please see the conference for the schedule

Young Rembrandts – 3:15 PM

 

 

a good blog post for us featuring one of our own Nancy Kalil

Change Is Happening

I was recently sitting with the awesome Nancy Kawaja Kalil (make sure you follow her on Twitter because she is awesome) at a conference in Ontario, and she shared the following picture with me:

Screen Shot 2014-12-09 at 5.52.56 PM

What I loved about this picture, is that it is the opposite of the narrative we have heard from many schools that believe shutting down is crucial to learning, where this picture says the opposite.  My assumption is that this school doesn’t use technology all of the time, nor does it have zero problems with technology use in school.  I am sure that, like in any school, things are not perfect.  But this picture shows to me a shift in mindset of an organization more than anything, which ultimately leads to growth and the creation of new ideas.

I sat and listened to Lisa Jones this year, talk about taking three years off for a maternity leave, and come back to school and see significant changes.  Wanting to push her own growth as not only a teacher, and a learner, she really shifted her focus on student learning, as opposed to her teaching.  It was a great story because it reminded me that every teacher wants to be better for kids, but there is always a lot on their plate.  Support is necessary to growth.

But the one thing that really stuck out to me from what she shared was her perspective on how much has changed in three years from someone who was out of the system, who has now returned.  If you really think about even the last three years in education, have you not seen a major shift with many organizations?  It is really hard to be around the same people or in the same building every day, and not realize how much education has grown, but if we were to take a step back, would we realize that a major shift is happening?

Although I think it is imperative that we continue to push, I also think it is important that we see that many educators and schools are not only wanting a better way for their students, but are creating it.  This is especially important to remember and recognize at a time when many teachers are either going into break or finishing school (depending on where you live) and they, like the students, are exhausted.

All great learning organizations see the need for growth, and realize that, like learning, it is a messy and non-linear process.  But they also recognize and acknowledge steps made by individuals and the group as a whole, that they have made towards something better.  This builds confidence and competence along the way.

No organization in our world is exempt from dealing with the constant of change, but if we all take a step back, there are many areas where we are getting better.  I think it is important to stop and acknowledge that along the way.

Snapverter app for Read and Write

Lisa Langsford

 Many students and staff have switched from using products like Kurzweil and WordQ to Chrome’s Read&Write extension because it is available on any computer or Chromebook, for all students and staff in the Board. Now those clever folks at TextHelp have come up with a way for any images of text to be converted into PDF documents and then used by Read&Write. This means no more scanning, just use your phone or tablet, take a picture of text, make sure it is in the Snapverter folder in Google Drive and it will be converted to PDF. You can then open the file in Read&Write and it will read it for you with highlighting and all the features you would expect, very cool. Try it out!! But first watch this video to explain it all.
We are trialling this across the Board for now and looking for your feedback.
and finally….

Check out the Tiny Hamster Valentines Cards!: http://imgur.com/a/tWOou#0