Category Archives: Education

Planning a WOW! Experience

Soon the hallways and classrooms will be bustling with the first day chaos of students returning to school.  Some kindergartners will be crying and clinging to their parents, and some parents will be crying and clinging to their kindergartners.  Elementary … Continue reading

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Artificial Intelligence and Snuggling

Did you know that Google built an artificially intelligent computer that defeated the world champion in Go, a game that is considered much more complex than chess? And programmers did not explicitly ‘teach’ the computer the game. Instead it used the human brain’s neural networks … Continue reading

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Same Essay. Same Rubric. Different Marks.

Marking student writing can be challenging.  It’s not like there is one right answer like there is in math.  So it is understandable that there is some variability in marks when we assess student writing.  But, how much variability is … Continue reading

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Should a Child be Charged With Child Pornography?

One thing about Teacher’s Convention is the opportunity to catch up with former colleagues and to meet new colleagues who work outside your district.  Usually the conversations are about how things are going at each other’s schools.  One conversation in particular left me … Continue reading

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Starting From a Place of Understanding

One of the sessions I went to during our recent Teacher’s Convention was a panel discussion about trends in education.  There were four panelists, a former premier and minister of education, an ATA executive officer and adjunct professor of Education at … Continue reading

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Cyber-bullying Meets Restorative Justice

Recently, I had an opportunity to lead in a restorative justice session.  A student had sent out inappropriate emails to several other students.  And, the emails had been sent out using another student’s email account and password that he had found. Thankfully, our IT … Continue reading

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Our “Bring Your Own Device” is a Success!

Last spring I approached my principal and assistant principal about having our junior high students bring their own devices to school.  Our student population was growing, most of the junior high classes were in portables away from the main building, and … Continue reading

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What the Heck is a Startup Weekend, and How Did I Ever End Up in One??

That’s me in the picture, with all those handsome young men!  How did I end up there, you ask?  Well, it all started with a couple of friends of mine who somehow seem to persuade me into doing things that … Continue reading

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Cursor and Curiouser Round 2!

In June, our grade 7, 8, and 9 students wrapped up a second running of the Cursor and Curiouser project (I first posted about it here last year), and what a round it was.  We’ve had some successes and challenges along the … Continue reading

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Time to Stop Devaluing the McDonald’s Fry Cook

Last week I marked my students’ Grade 9 Provincial Achievement Tests.  This year’s assignment was to write about the importance of learning in a person’s life.  As I was marking them, I became a little worried and had to sit back and … Continue reading

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