STOP for a TED talk

If you have 21 or so minutes to spend (or, for that matter, even if you don't) stop and watch a TED talk. Any TED talk will do. You will learn something. I promise. 

Here are a few of my favourites. This one by Sir Ken Robinson. I was fortunate enough to get to hear him in person last year. He is charming, personable and speaks with conviction about his beliefs on creativity and education. His words resonate with me.

This one by Simon Sinek about leadership.

And this talk featuring Sugata Mitra about his Hole in the Wall project on self teaching.

And the amazing Sarah Kay, spoken word poet extraordinaire. Who says "I use poetry to help me work through what I don’t understand, but I show up to each new poem with a backpack full of everywhere else that I’ve been.”

And one of my all time favourites (and only 3 minutes long so you have no real excuse not to watch it!) by Talor Mali called What Teachers Make.

Technology is wonderful...

...except when it isn't. Our smartboard has decided not to co-operate. For a few days we had quite a psychedelic light show as the board flickered on and off at random intervals. Very annoying. Then, on Monday, it just died. It won't turn on. It won't do anything. Sigh...

The tech guy came and it looks like a new bulb or possibly a new arm for the board. This could come in a week or it could come in a month. There is no way to know. And once the part arrives, I will have to wait for the tech guy to come back out and fix it. I guess it is one of the perils of technology.

In the meantime, I am having to work it old school. This is not as easy as I had hoped. I didn't realize how much I have come to rely on the smartboard in the year I have had it in our classroom. Morning attendance, calendar, mini-lessons in math, reading, writing, social studies, all are on the smartboard.

Thank goodness I kept the chart stand when I got the smartboard AND that I ordered chart paper in June because I am using it all day long right now. On the bright side, it is giving me lots of opportunities to use my smelly felts. I do love those Mr. Sketch markers. Yum!

Also, it has reminded me how much I like having the class do things on charts that I can hang up. Today we started a mini-unit on healthy eating and the class brainstormed all of the things that they know about fruits and vegetables. It was really nice to be able to write down their ideas and let them choose a smelly marker to write their name beside their ideas. They liked it because it was the first time I let them use the markers! The smartboard is super convenient and has become a mainstay in my teaching but it is still nice sometimes to do things the way I did for the first 17 years of my teaching career!

Ms. Hughes