Friday, September 16, 2016

Welcome To My Hodge Podge!

Hodge Podge:In Nova Scotia, it is a particular stew prepared consisting of new baby vegetables (potatoes, carrots, and beans notably). The vegetables are boiled in enough water to cover them and when the baby potatoes are soft; heavy creambutter and salt/pepper are added. Locally, the addition of meat or older vegetables would be considered inconsistent to the tradition." 

Welcome to my blog!! It has been a long time coming! Blogging has been on my "Begin" list for a long time. I even took the challenge last year from the Shelly Terrell's "30 Goals Challenge for Educators.", but couldn't make the commitment all of last year. 

I have been wanting to start blogging for a long time, and I know that now that I have started the posts will come fast and furious, so HANG ON! What has taken me so long to do this?? Well, here are my current excuses:

1. I couldn't come up with a title that I liked (more about that in my next post)
2. I have too MUCH to say! Where to start? (Verbal Diarrhea to spew from my mouth!!) 
3. What can I contribute to the amazing, fantastic work that is happening in education across the globe? 
4. Where am I going to find the time!!

SO WHY START NOW? 


1. This year, I am facilitating a group of teachers in my district (SD27 Cariboo/Chilcotin), who are exploring Universal Design For Learning, and how technology can enhance their teaching and student learning. There are 5 teachers in the cohort, 2 of which have been part of my UDL PLC in past years as part of our involvement with our partnership with SETBC.   This is a little video interview I did last year with SETBC about our Partnership, and this is a video of our first Classroom Project, featured on the SETBC site. 
 We are a diverse group, including an itinerant music teacher, a teacher in a rural community with a 4/5 split, 2 teachers/administrators that work in small remote schools with populations of less than 20, and a teacher in a city school with a 6/7 split. 
We have our first meeting on Monday, and one thing I am going to ask the teachers to do, is to blog about their experiences this year. Well, I can't really ask them to do that if I am not doing it myself!! LEAD BY EXAMPLE! 

I plan to share this timely post from George Couros (One of my most favorite CANADIAN! bloggers where he nailed this topic of blogging on the head! It's titled, "The Arrows Go Back And Forth", and in this post, he talks about: 

IMPACT: "If one teacher reads your blog post and changes something for 20-25 students, that’s a pretty big impact."
TRANSFORMATION:  "It is not only what you consume, but what you create."
TEACHER AS A LEARNER: "..the ones that have stuck with it, I have seen grow
tremendously."
Image by Silvia Duckworth
I will also share Silvia Duckworth's image on Blogging.  (My favorite Sketch Noter and another fantastic CANADIAN educator!). 
2. I want to be part of George's MOOC, to dig deeper into his book, "The Innovator's Mindset", which I read from front to back the day I got it in the mail this summer. Part of being in the MOOC is the necessity to reflect and share, and the blogging platform is the most reasonable way to do so. 
3. I have been sharing lots on my EDMODO group I set up for teachers in our district that have shown an interest in the work we are doing with iPads and UDL but it is time for a bigger platform. 
So, NO MORE EXCUSES! Let the blogging/ verbal spew.. begin. I look forward to sharing my thoughts, reflections, knowledge and inspirations with you all. Let's BEGIN!

2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed your enthusiasm in your first two blog posts. It is clear you love your job.

    ReplyDelete