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Posts Tagged ‘Gino Bondi’

My “Top 3” List for 2012

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Professional Development, SD45, Social Media, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2012| 18 Comments »

top3

My “Top 3” blog list is becoming a bit of a tradition with previous Top 3 lists for 2011 (here) and 2010 (here). This “top” list is an opportunity to review ideas that have become a big part or our learning over the past 12 months, which may have been missed in the “drinking from the firehose” approach (what has become social media and the Internet). I continue to shuffle the categories, trying to take a different approach to these year-end lists.  They are a great way to raise topics, discussion, debate, and perhaps shed some light onto areas deserving more attention (or topics missed) as the year went on.  I look forward to others adding their thoughts on my “Top 3” of 2012.

Top 3 “Culture of Yes” Blog Posts which have Generated the most Traffic this Year:

1.  The Multi-Sport High School Athlete

2. If School Was More Like Swimming 

3.  How My Teaching Has Changed

Top 3 Used (and often overused) Terms in Education for the Year:

1.  Game Changer

2.  Perfect Storm

3.  Flipping It

Top 3 Growing Trends I See Continuing in the Next Year:

1.  Self-Regulation (but more broadly social-emotional learning)

2.  Outdoor learning (outdoor classrooms and full outdoor programs)

3.  Low / No Cost Conference Events (e.g. Edcamps)

Top 3 Books I have Read this Year that have Influenced My Thinking:

1.  Why School? by Will Richardson

2.  11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era by Nilofer Merchant

3.  How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough

Top 3 Professional Development Events I have Attended:

1.  Visit to Finland (Here and here are my two posts on the visit)

2.  Two Library-related events:  the BCTLA PSA Conference in October and the Changing Times; Inspiring Libraries Summit in December

3.  West Vancouver Opening Day with cultural-anthropologist  Jennifer James

Top 3 BC Edu-bloggers that I didn’t know about 12 Months ago, and now Follow:

1.  Anthony Ciolfitto – Principal, Riverside Secondary School, Port Coquitlam

2.  Stephen Petrucci – Director of Instruction, Fort St. John

3. 180 Days of Learning – Delta School District (cool project!)

Top 3 Non-education New Twitter Follows:

1.  Rick Reilly – ESPN

2.  Nate Silver – New York Times (FiveThirtyEight blog)

3.  Andy Borowitz – New Yorker Magazine

Top 3 School-related Videos from British Columbia (that I bet you haven’t seen):

1.   What a Teacher Makes – West Vancouver

2.  VSB Transition from Elementary to Secondary School (VSB has lots of great videos)

3.   Gino Bondi – Innovation and School Libraries  (BC Libraries also has a number of other great videos)

 Top 3 School-related TED Videos Posted this Year:

1.   Will Richardson (TedxMelbourne)

2.  Thomas Suarez: A 12 year-old app developer

3.  Stop Stealing Dreams:  Seth Godin

Thanks to everyone who continues to engage with me on my blog and push my learning.  Our digital community is continuing to grow and I am thrilled to be connected to so many thoughtful teachers, parents, students and community members.  Blogging is not easy, but it is exceptionally rewarding.  I look forward to continuing to grow and learn together in 2013.

Chris Kennedy

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Some BC Edu-Tweeters To Get You Started

Posted in Change, Professional Development, Social Media, Technology, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2012| 14 Comments »

I feel like a Twitter veteran with my five-year subscription anniversary coming up on March 23.  And yet, in recent weeks, I have been disillusioned with Twitter — it must be the growing pains of social media.  While the current labour unrest in BC has, at times, brought out  thoughtful discord, too often, as discussions have moved to Twitter, it has brought out name calling, anonymous accounts, idea trashing, and inappropriate language.  Too often, adults have used the power of social media in ways we would never want our kids to.  Too often, I see one of the great powers of social media for educators being misused, instead of fostering its ability to role model for students how we engage in ethical and thoughtful ways.

So, with that said, I stand by the comment that I often make — that learning through social media, and Twitter in particular, has been a most powerful and inspirational learning.   Here is a slide I often include in my presentations describing Twitter:

A recent article by Max Cooke:  Twitter and Canadian Educators,  from the Canadian Education Association, nicely captured the use and potential for Twitter:

An emerging group of leaders in Canadian education has attracted thousands of followers. They’ve made Twitter an extension of their lives, delivering twenty or more tweets a day that can include, for example, links to media articles, research, new ideas from education bloggers, or to their own, or simply a personal thought. At their best, edu-tweeters are adeptly leveraging Twitter to brand themselves, to reinvent teacher PD, and perhaps to accelerate the transformation of our Canadian education systems. Twitter is being used to extend formal PD conferences beyond their venue to followers on Twitter in real time; it’s facilitating informal discussions (“unconferences”) among educators with common interests; it’s allowing best practices to “go viral” on the Internet; and it’s allowing innovative classroom teachers to challenge the status quo.

In his article, Cooke included a list of 30 Canadian Educators to assist new users as they begin to explore Twitter. One of the key ideas about Twitter is to follow a diverse group of people to avoid the ‘echo chamber’ effect. I, personally, have found it very useful to follow a group of people with local, BC, Canadian and International content, and even a few for humour (how else do I explain why I follow @peeweeherman), and I am often asked by new users, who to follow?  My suggestion is you start by following one person, look at who they follow, and build your interest and list from there.  I found Cooke’s list of Canadian edu-tweeters to be very helpful, and it gave me a few great, new people to follow as well.

So, whether you are a new or experienced user, and having been inspired by Cooke’s article, here are 40 BC edu-tweeters I would start with as you look at who to follow.  I understand there are several thousand BC educators now using Twitter, so this list is only a small sample of the connections available. While almost all organizations have corporate accounts, I find following and engaging with people to be much more satisfying. My only rules in creating this list were (and are) that people are directly related to K-12 education, and not in West Vancouver (the West Van tweeters are all great and I encourage you to follow them from this list here).

Aaron Mueller, Secondary Online Teacher, Vancouver

Al Smith – Teacher-Librarian, Kelowna

Brian Kuhn – Technology Leader, Coquitlam

Bruce Beairsto – Adjunct Professor, Simon Fraser University

Cale Birk – Secondary School Principal, Kamloops

Carrie Gelson – Elementary School Teacher, Vancouver

Chris Wejr – Elementary School Principal, Agassiz

Darcy Mullin – Elementary School Principal, Summerland

David Truss – Vice-Principal, Coquitlam

David Wees – IB Math and Science Teacher, Vancouver

Elisa Carlson – Director of Instruction, Surrey

Errin Gregory – Elementary Teacher, Gold Trail

George Abbott – BC Minister of Education

Gino Bondi – Secondary Principal, Vancouver

Glen Hansman – 2nd Vice-President, BC Teachers Federation

Gregg Ferrie – Director of Technology, Saanich

Heather Daily – Teacher-Librarian, Coquitlam

Hugh McDonald – Elementary School Teacher, Surrey

Jacob Martens – Secondary Science Teacher, Vancouver

Janet Steffenhagen – Education Reporter for the Vancouver Sun

Johnny Bevacqua – School Principal, Vancouver

Karen Lirenman, Elementary School Teacher, Surrey

Kelley Inden – Secondary Humanities Teacher, Nechako Lakes

Larry Espe – Superintendent, Peace River North

Peter Vogel – ICT / Physics Teacher, Vancouver

Mike McKay – Superintendent, Surrey

Moira Ekdahl – Teacher-Librarian, Vancouver

Neil Stephenson – District Principal of Innovation and Inquiry, Delta

Paige MacFarlane – Assistant-Deputy Minister, BC Ministry of Education

Patti Bacchus – Board Chair, Vancouver School Board

Ron Sherman – Elementary Principal, Kootenay lakes

Robert Genaille – Teacher, Fraser-Cascade

Sheila Morissette – Secondary Principal, Surrey

Silas White – Board Chair, Sunshine Coast

Stephen Petrucci – Director of Instruction, Peace River North

Steve Cardwell – Superintendent, Vancouver

Tamara Malloff – Teacher-Librarian, Kootenay Lakes

Terry Ainge – Secondary Principal, Delta

Tia Henriksen – Elementary Vice-Principal, Surrey

Valerie Irvine – Educational Technology Professor, University of Victoria

Looking through my list of who I follow, and checking in on their accounts, has been a good process and an excellent reminder of the passion and curiosity so many BC educators have and are sharing in digital space.  It was interesting to see how different districts were represented — I could have found at least another dozen from Surrey for example (like @rwd01 and @bobneuf ) but tried to share a more provincial picture.  This list should not be looked at as a Best of list (this is relative), but rather a starting point for new users, or users with more experience looking to broaden their conversations. To be sure, even as I go through my list, I know I have missed a number of awesome BC educators I learn with and from on a regular basis.

So, what of the powers of this social media tool? It is the ideas, not role or geography that matter.  And, hopefully, this small slice of my network can help you grow your network.

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My Take on Librarians

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Technology, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2011| 18 Comments »

From my recent Slideshare presentations, I have had a number of questions about what my thinking is about the role of teacher-librarians?  Here is the slide that has generated some discussion on this and the one I use to explain how we, in West Vancouver, are trying to support digital literacy and move forward with inquiry-based learning:

We don’t have the ‘middle layer’ of support for our schools that some districts have; we have no district coordinators, helping teachers, district support teachers or other similar positions that many, particularly larger districts, have to support the work of the teacher and schools.

In part because of size, and in part because of vision, we have made commitments around school-based staffing; thus, we are required to develop a model to support digital literacy and other innovative learning relying on the work in schools with limited outside support.

I call this the “Just in Time” solution, where we have principals and vice-principals who are learning leaders.  Regardless of their technology skills, they know their pedagogy and find ways to connect learning goals to technology and, more importantly, provide leadership around curriculum and assessment.  We have also been overt in recent years with our postings and our hirings — having digital skills is an expectation for new principals and vice-prinicpals. They are our first circle of support, and we need to continue to support them to lead the learning (including digital learning).

Teacher-librarians are our second circle of support.  In a recent interview with Dr. Paul Shaker on Your Education Matters, I said that as we move forward “teacher librarians are more important than ever.”   My experience has been that next to the principal, the teacher-librarian is often key in moving the learning agenda forward.  In schools that are moving forward, it is very often the teacher-librarian, working side-by-side with teachers on staff, who find new ways of working with students.

The third ring of the “Just-in-Time” solution is key staff members; they are formal leaders like secondary curriculum coordinators, or informal leaders who have an influence on staff, who are able to help in the moment to support digital literacy.  Teachers cannot wait for a workshop in six weeks, when they are stuck now; they rely on our network of staff — formal leaders, teacher-librarians, and key teacher leaders — all working together.

I saw the power of the teacher-librarian working with Gordon Powell (click on his name to check out his great blog), when I began my teaching career at McRoberts Secondary in Richmond, and then later in Port Coquitlam, as Principal at Riverside Secondary working with Sue Kilpatrick and Ron Haselhan, who simply “got it” in their roles supporting and working with teachers and students.  I am hardly an expert on teacher-librarians, but I have now seen first-hand — in three school districts — the important leadership role they play.

My thanks to Moira Ekdahl, a teacher-librarian from Vancouver and a recent winner of the CLA Angela Thacker Memorial Award who, in her recent post here, did a much more articulate job of pulling together my thoughts around teacher-librarians.  On the topic of library transformation, the BC Teacher Librarians Association have a wonderful document: The Points of Inquiry.

As we lament that little change has taken place, or how slow the change has been, many teacher-librarians have transformed what they do to stay relevant and ahead of the curve.  We have many who are seeing their roles, as Seth Godin does, “as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario” (Later, in this post, Seth stole my line about librarians being more important than ever).

Finally, one more place worth reading on the topic is Gino Bondi, Principal at John Oliver in Vancouver, and the work they are doing on a Learning Commons.  Thanks to Gino and Moira, Building a Learning Commons, is now on my summer reading list.

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My “Top 3” List for 2010

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Professional Development, Social Media, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 20, 2010| 20 Comments »

I love year-in-review lists, so I’ve come up with one of my own — the “Top 3” in a variety of categories.   A great way to spur on discussion and debate.   I look forward to your own additions.

Top 3 “Culture of Yes” Blog Posts – these posts have generated the most traffic this year:

1.  Printing is not Meant to be Convenient

2.  A Recipient in the Sharing Revolution (thanks to Dean Shareski for sharing this post)

3.  TedxUBC (Post 1 and Post 2)

Top 3 Jurisdictions I Want to Learn More About:

1.  Revelstoke — latest graduation rate is a provincial best 98%

2.  Ontario — their recent PISA results in reading is something from which we can learn

3.  Finland — in almost every measure, they continue to lead the way in education

Top 3 B.C. Principals Influencing My Thinking and Work in our District:

1.  Cale Birk — his post on collaborative time was particularly helpful

2.  Gino Bondi — he is pushing the change agenda and thinks differently about high schools

3.  Chris Wejr — a great champion of thinking differently about assessment

Top 3 Professional Development Events I Have Attended:

1.  TEDxUBC

2.  BCSSA Fall Conference

3.  Twitter (pretty much on a daily basis – and it doesn’t cost a cent)

Top 3 Social Media Tools I’ve Used More of in 2010 Than Before:

1.  Twitter — it is changing the game with professional development

2.  Slideshare — wish more teachers would use it to share PowerPoints

3.  YouTube — it was only a couple of years ago this tool was blocked in schools

Top 3 Used (and often overused) Terms in Education for the Year:

1.  personalized learning

2.  backchannel

3.  21st century learner

Top 3 Used (and often overused) Quotes in Education for the Year:

1.  “It is not about the technology”  (guilty of this one)

2.  “The 21st century is more than 10% over”

3.  “Creativity, now, is as important in education as literacy” (or other Sir Ken like quote)

Top 3 Canadian Educational Reform “Blueprints” Worth Reading:

1. British Columbia – A Vision for 21st Century Education (pdf)

2.  Alberta – Inspiring Education

3.  New Brunswick – Creating a 21st Century Learning Model of Public Education (pdf)

Top 3 Education-related Videos from B.C. (that I bet you haven’t seen)

1. Digital Immersion Class Video – from Riverside Secondary in Port Coquitlam

2.  Barry McDonald – Boy Smarts from TEDxUBC (Barry is a Langley teacher)

3.  The North Delta Secondary Focus Group Initiative

Top 3 Education-related Videos from Outside B.C. (not featuring Sir Ken)

1.  RSA Animate – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

2.  Project-Based Learning Explained

3.  Alfie Kohn vs Dwight Schrute (thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for pointing me to this one)


The best thing I did professionally this year was start this blog.  Thanks to all of you who engage with me here on a regular basis.  I look forward to more discussions to come — there will never be a shortage of topics.

Happy Holidays!

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Buy Local!

Posted in Professional Development, Social Media, tagged , , , , , on December 5, 2010| 32 Comments »

The title comes from a mantra we often hear with produce and other food products.  Wikipedia describes it:

Local purchasing is a preference to buy locally produced goods and services over those produced more distantly. It is very often abbreviated as a positive goal ‘buy local’ to parallel the phrase think globally, act locally, common in green politics.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately in the context of our work in the digital world.  I wrote recently (here) that while I continue to be influenced by many thinkers outside of British Columbia and Canada, more and more I am connecting with local voices.

While I love the learning that is free of borders, I feel it is very important to support B.C. educators who are beginning to put themselves out there in digital space. There seems to have been an edu-blogging boom this fall in British Columbia.  I have created a rule for myself that I will try to comment on at least five blog posts for every post I write, and comment more on B.C. educators’ writing.

I am not quite sure why we have a huge increase in local educators writing on the web, but it is great for education in B.C.  We are using social media to connect around ideas, at a point in time, when there is so much discussion about learning and schooling and how a high-performing system like ours should move forward.

I listed four local bloggers in a previous post — but I want to list all the local bloggers who are adding to the conversations.  I am sure I will miss some (particularly, in the teachers’ category), so please add comments to point me toward others, and I will update the post.

The parameters of my list — blogs by active educators in the K-12 sector in British Columbia who have posted in the last 30 days.  I know many teachers have class blogs, but this list is not intended for blogs used with a class of students, or as a news site, but rather to share ideas with other educators and the larger community.

District Staff

Scott Benwell, Assistant Superintendent, Fraser-Cascade

Larry Espe, Superintendent, Peace River North

Rick Fabbro, Assistant Superintendent, Surrey

Tom Grant, Superintendent, Coquitlam

Chris Kennedy, Deputy Superintendent, West Vancouver

Brian Kuhn, Director of IT, Coquitlam

Doug Sheppard, Assistant Superintendent, Delta

Jan Unwin, Superintendent, Maple-Ridge / Pitt Meadows

Principals and Vice-Principals

Terry Ainge, Principal, Delta Secondary, Delta

Aaron Akune, Vice-Principal, Delta Secondary, Delta

Cale Birk, Principal, South Kamloops Secondary, Kamloops

Gino Bondi, Principal, John Oliver Secondary, Vancouver

Joe Campbell, Vice-Principal, Seycove Secondary, North Vancouver (ADDED)

Remi Collins, Principal, Kilmer Elementary, Port Coquitlam

Dean Eichorn, Vice-Princpal, Burnsview Secondary, Delta (ADDED)

Grant Frend, Vice-Princpal, Garibaldi Secondary, Maple Ridge (ADDED)

Cindy Gauthier, Principal, Vancouver Learning Network, Vancouver

Mark Heidebrecht, Principal, Gibsons Elementary, Gibsons (ADDED)

Gary Kern, District Principal, West Vancouver

Chris Wejr – Principal, Kent Elementary, Agassiz

Teachers

Paul Aiken, Coquitlam

Jaki Braidwood, Comox Valley

Jeremy Brown, Port Coquitlam

Moira Ekdahl, Vancouver (ADDED)

Errin Gregory, Lillooet

Starleigh Grass, Lytton (ADDED)

James Gill, Coquitlam

Bryan Jackson, Coquitlam

Phil Macoun, Nanaimo

Jacob Martens, Vancouver

James McConville, Coquitlam

Gordon Powell,  Richmond

Al Smith, Kelowna (ADDED)

Zhi Su,  Vancouver

David Wees,Vancouver

Jen Whiffin, Coquitlam (ADDED)


Others (ADDED)

I feel like I need to add another category for several blogs related to education in B.C. that are not written by currently active B.C. educators

Christina Campbell, Education Reporter, Vancouver Observer

Lesley Edwards, Retired Teacher-Librarian, North Vancouver

Heidi Hass Gable, DPAC President, Coquitlam

Janet Steffenhagen, Education Reporter, Vancouver Sun

David Truss, Princpal, Currently in China on leave from Coquitlam


Finally, a shameless plug. The Culture of Yes has been nominated for the Best New Edublog 2010.  You can click here to vote.  This site is also a great place to find other interesting blogs to follow. Thanks for all the ongoing conversations.

 

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Professional Learning Beyond Borders

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, Professional Development, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2010| 13 Comments »

I have written quite a bit this past week on educators’ professional learning, and how we are experimenting with extending these conversations, using technology to engage more people.  I have also written, here and here, two posts on backchanneling during the recent BCSSA Fall Conference.

There are a couple of more reflections I want to pick up on before moving on:

1. School District borders matter less and less when it comes to professional learning

This really struck me on Monday night.  I came home, went on my computer at about 8:00 and saw a post on Twitter that an online session was starting at 8:15, entitled Blogging First Steps, hosted by Lesley Edwards from North Vancouver.  This is part of the LAN: Learning Is Social series that is coordinated by staff in the North Vancouver School District.  There were 12 of us who participated from a variety of districts.  I don’t know everyone on the elluminate (this tool is available free to B.C. educators) session, but I know there were participants (trustees, administrators, teachers) from North Vancouver, Vancouver, and Coquitlam.  In my just over three-year tenure in the West Vancouver District, on the North Shore, I have not attended a professional development session in North Vancouver.  That said, there was nothing that could have felt more natural than sliding into the session on a Monday night.

We still have lines on the map for School Districts, but when it comes to our professional learning, these are blurry and less, and less, important.  We are finding ways to connect and engage online that has very little to do with geography.

2.  Ideas, not roles are dictating the people I connect with

There are still many traditional structures where we gather in role-alike groups.  There are sessions for teachers, administrators, support staff, parents, the community, and sometimes we bring these groups together.  What I am finding online is that roles are almost inconsequential.  It is the ideas that matter.  I did an interview with Janet Steffenhagen on Monday, and we talked about how technology has really had a dramatic effect on realigning the power structure in education.

I find that I don’t follow topics, I follow interesting people.  I also find that while I am still attracted to voices from afar like Philadelphia Principal, Chris Lehmann, and edu blogger and presenter, Will Richardson, I am increasingly more attracted to local voices who share a somewhat familiar context.

It is always dangerous to make a list, knowing I will miss some key people, but some of those within B.C.’s education system who are influencing my thinking right now include:  David Truss (a Coquitlam principal currently working in China), Chris Wejr (an elementary principal in Aggasiz), Cale Birk (a secondary principal in Kamloops), Brian Kuhn (technology director in Coquitlam), Gino Bondi (a secondary principal in Vancouver), Gordon Powell (coordinator for library and information services in Richmond) and David Wees (a teacher in Vancouver).

I want to finish this post  by coming back to the students, and looking for guidance from my experiences as an adult learner, with how students learn.  I think what I take from this is student learning will continue to be less hierarchical, less about the teacher being the keeper of knowledge, and more about the teacher helping students make sense of content, and connecting them to other experts.  Schools will be less bound to discussions within the walls of a building, and connections will be made across schools, communities and beyond.  School will continue to look less like an activity that happens between nine and three from Monday to Friday.

This is a great time for a transition in how educational professionals learn, and it is this transition that is also changing the game for how our students learn.

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