Friday, November 28, 2014

A week in Review

Here are all the cool things we did this week on top of our everyday learning!

Popplet...What can you use it for?

Here is a video of a student explaining an app called  Poppplet. Give it a try as it helps us to organize our thoughts prior to writing. How would you use it?


Thursday, November 27, 2014

How We Leave Feedback on a Blog... Appropriately.

Blogging is relatively new to us. My class of grade 8 students and I have been looking at other blogs and commenting on them in order to make new connections. My students often post their work to the blog and ask for feedback. Students are getting very good at providing each other with positive, formative feedback in order to help each other to bump up their work.
     We have developed a framework, or formula if you will, on how to leave positive feedback. There are three parts to the comment, positive, to, and try.  First, say something positive. Open by explaining what you like about the post. It's easy to find something positive in anything.  Second, use a to statement. Lastly, add the try statement. Put it all together and you get a great way to help others bump up their work.
     A great way to think about this is by putting yourself in the place of a coach. Pretend you are a snowboard coach. I was a snowboard coach and instructor for a long time and snowboarding happens to be my favourite sport (to add context to my example). In order to get a snowboarder to spin, he or she needs to get air, initiate the spin with their head/shoulders and the rest of the body will just follow (there is a little more to it than that so don't strap in just yet).  Back to the example, a coach would say something like the following to their snowboarder - I liked the height you got off the jump (positive). To get the spin around faster, try twisting your hips in the direction you are spinning once you have initiated the spin.
     There you have it folks. The positive, to and try model of providing positive formative feedback. Please leave your thoughts below! Try using the positive, to and try model!

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

The Amazing Cue Card Reader!

Check out the first addition to "Tricks and Tips for the 21st Century Learner"!


Coming Soon!

We started a new blog page called "Tips and Tricks for the 21st Century Learner". As the teacher, my goal is to have students and teachers showcase any ideas or forms technology that assist students with learning. If you have any ideas please post them here! Check in regularly for new tips, tricks and ideas to make learning easier!

Friday, November 21, 2014

Do you need to know how to make a wet or dry mounted slide?

In science we have been learning about cell processes and cell functions. We learned that a very important part of studying cells is to be able to create a slide to look at under a microscope.  We decided to create DIY videos about how to make a slide. Here are some of the videos.






Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Our Experience with Google Classroom

This year we have been using Google Classroom a lot! As the grade 8 teacher, I have all of my students using the platform. I have received mostly positive feedback from the students. During the early weeks of using Google Classroom I got a little bit of push back from the kids. I think it was "growing pains" because the students were used to using a different on-line platform, Edmodo, last year.

I would like to know how you, whether teacher or student, utilize the platform. Also, please explain why you like or dislike the classroom in the cloud!

Friday, November 7, 2014

The Week of November 2, 2014

Here in grade 8 at Sagonaska we had a great week. We learned how to multiply all sorts of fractions (fractions x whole numbers, fractions x mixed numbers and mixed numbers x mixed numbers) and we are becoming fraction ninjas! Next week we are going to wrap up our first geography unit, and we will be having an assessment in mathematics to celebrate how far we have come.
     We celebrated Remembrance Day with a short media presentation  that we produced with Mr. Hayes and the grade sixes. The presentation does a great job of illustrating student learning of World War 1 and the effects it had on Canada as a growing nation. 


Some of the second year students joined in on reading buddies with OMNI. our little buddies had a great time reading and learning about the importance of encouragement. We always look forward to reading with our "little friends" down the hall!



Haley is the recipient for the Terrific Kids Award for November - encouragement! Congratulations Haley!



I am currently in the middle of writing student progress reports which will be going home next week!

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

The 100th anniversary of WW1

For the last couple of language classes we have been learning the "story" of World War 1.  After learning about the characters, plot, setting and details of the war, we posed two questions to students: 1. What is one thing you remember about the first world war? 2. Why is it important to think about and remember how the First World War shaped Canada?

The last question we asked was, "Did you like learning about WW1? and why?"

Monday, November 3, 2014

How to Leverage Social Media for Learning

If you have been vising our blog lately you'll know we have been trying something new. We tried to get feedback on our writing from people around the world, not just the school. As the teacher, I am glad to say this process worked very well. All we had to do was explain how to leave feedback, and Tweet it out that we were looking for guest editors. We didn't just receive comments from other students and teachers from down the hall, but we got editing tips from as far away as New Zealand (Thanks Mr. Webb!). This peeked student engagement. All of a sudden students didn't see bumping up their writing as an arduous task. Instead, they started viewing as something they needed to do as an author.

Check out the before and after samples!

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