Why am I bloggin'?

You will likely notice that I have changed the format of my blog.  I have switched to Blogspot because I wanted to allow user comments on the posts.  I hope the comments will work and I look forward to your feedback.

In last week's blog I mentioned that I would let you know some other reasons about why I am blogging and specifically for you, the parents and the guardians.  I must admit that I am not a gifted writer and, if given a choice in methods to communicate, writing would not be even close to number one.  


Using this space will hopefully help to accomplish a couple of goals:

1. let you know what is going on my classes
2. help me communicate and model the use of more online tools
3. provide a positive online presence
4. allow some dialog between parents/guardians and myself
5. provide me a forum to talk about technology in education

As most of you know, a few days ago we had the OCSTA teachers' convention.  FYI OCSTA has undergone a name change and is now called EDIFIDE.  I always enjoy going to the conference.  It provides an opportunity to see friends and colleagues from other schools, listen to different speakers and I often present various workshops on using technology in the classroom.  This year we had the pleasure of hearing Andy Crouch as he led us in a discussion of culture making. His talk challenged us to be more than just consumers of culture but rather to join in and create culture.  He is an incredibly gifted speaker and I encourage you to watch some of the many Youtube videos he has.

The two workshops that I led at the convention were about Google Documents and Other Google Applications.  If you have a Gmail account I encourage you to check out Google Docs. Google Docs is an online office packages that includes a word-processor, spreadsheet and presentation component.  One key feature with Google Docs is the ability and ease with which people can share information and collaborate in real time.  If two people are working on a document at the same time it is kind of freaky to see another cursor on the screen typing and adding info. Content from Google Docs or sites can easily be made public to share with select people or the world.


Lately I have been thinking about my online presence, or lack of, and how I consume a lot from the Internet but I must admit that I do not really contribute a great deal to the creation of content online.  This blog is one way that I hope to add content. 

Our kids and students consume and create a lot of content and culture.  Andy Crouch again challenged us to not only copy culture but to create and cultivate the culture.  I think that this definitely fits in with having an online presence.  I will continue to work through how our kids, and ourselves, can create an online culture and presence that honours the Lord.  It is my hope that in our classes we wrestle with this and come up with more than just plans and ideas to create and cultivate culture but that we actually do create it.

Class updates:

I would like to welcome Mr. Wensink to our class.  He is a student teacher from Redeemer University College and will be with us for the next 6 weeks.

Grade 9 Computers (BTT)

We have finished the Internet Safety assignment and have just started our unit on Spreadsheets (my favourite business application).  We will be working on this for the next two weeks.

Grade 11 Computes (ICS)

We have just started our programming unit on looping. Students are working on a mini project to help provide them a solid foundation to the beginning of the unit.  This project is in response to the great conversation that we as a class had last week about what the students felt they needed to feel prepared in this course.  I have already heard positive comments from them as they work!