Down by the School Song Lyrics

Down by the School

Down by the school, where the students grow
Back to my work, I want to go
But if I do, Christy Clark will say
“Have you ever seen the zone?” “Now go get a loan”
Down by the school

Down by the school, where the students grow
Back to my work, I want to go
But if I do, Fassbender will say
“Come to the table”, “But we’re not able”
Down by the school

Down by the school, where the students grow
Back to my work, I want to go
But if I do, the media will say
“Have you seen Jim’s hair”, “Gives Cameron a scare”
Down by the school

Down by the school, where the students grow
Back to my work, I want to go
But if I do, the teachers will say
Time to fund education, to the standard of the nation
Down by the school.
Down by the school

Time for some Positive

Handy size so you can print and put on your lawn, the trail head etc.  The QR code sends email to Christy Clark. 🙂

Here is a PDF for easy printing.

KIDS FIRST-QR

Recorder Signs

Recorder season is upon us, and to go with my new fingering charts, I made some signs.  Hopefully I can point to them and save my voice a little. (not going to work, but I can dream can’t I?) Thought I’d share.   

Desk Name Plates

Since I teach in 3 different places this year, I’m trying to make my life as easy as possible.  I made this for names on the grade 3 kids desks. (I hate the idea of paying for stuff like this) I have uploaded a pdf of my “Canadian” version of the desk name plate since I use Libre Office and have lots of strange fonts installed to do things like this I figured no one would want to sort all of that out.  I’m not the master of pretty borders and cute clip art, but this gets the job done. 

desknameplate-math

Recorder Fingering Charts

In an effort to make the plain vanilla music room I am inheriting a little more colorful and inviting, this was my morning project.  Download all of them RECORDER-FINGERS11-17 if you wish. Border Graphics by Ashley Hughes

 

I’m on a roll…also made # and b Pencil cup signs.  sharp-flat

Device Neutral

Things are looking up at the new school.  We have a very forward thinking principal, and a staff who has decided to remain device neutral.  I am now looking at Chromebooks for our library.  My ramblings on why I think Chromebooks are the best choice.  I started with the question “What do I want the kids to be able to do with the device, and what are the learning goals?”

Answer:

First:  It would be awesome if kids could actually search the library catalog, it would free me up from helping some find books that they knew the titles or authors of.  Since the library catalog is online, this is easily achieved with any device that has online access.
Second:  I would like to teach research skills.  So many kids have no idea what a boolean search is, how to narrow search terms, how to take notes without a pencil and paper, how to multiple windows at once. (I know it’s kind of shocking to me)
Third:  I want the library to be the hub of the school, a place kids can come to do work, to read, to relax.  In my world that means that there needs to be a working internet connection so that kids can look things up when they need to or access an eBook, or see if the Public Library has the book they want to read.

When I realized that none of my goals were application specific, the price of a Chromebook is most certainly enticing.  At $199 US per device, that is the equivalent of about 1/2 and iPad or 1/5 of a desktop machine.

The only downside that I can find is the device management.  I am ok with managing them myself, but I’m skeptical with IT services at the district level.  Past experience has been that they say no more than yes. Which is sad.

Coming up next, my ramblings about BYOD and using eBooks in the Library.  I will likely post on the school library blog as well, http://blog44.ca/cclibrary

 

Getting Ready to Teach Teachers

New school this year…that means more pro-d.  It’s ok, I secretly enjoy teaching, and I don’t care how old the students are. 🙂 My new school has a totally useless lab.  You can word process as long as you don’t need to print, sharing to the server is hit and miss, the only reliable file transfer method is a USB stick.  So much for many things that I do.  Plan B.  iPads.  I loaded them up with apps and now I need to “teach” how to use them.  I don’t think anyone really needs to be taught, they just need someone to encourage them. I decided that rather than “teach” iPads, I would get people thinking more about the role of technology in the school.  One of my colleagues asked me to present my Tech Top 10.  Since I was specifically asked to do the workshop on iPads, I thought I’d try to publish that here.  So here goes.

1. Google Drive. (Formerly Documents) Hands down the easiest way to have students collaborate on a project.  Here is one a student did on Forestry https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ARe_y5B8Hc-nZGdtN2txcjhfNDlkejMyc21jZg While this wasn’t a collaborative project, it was done some at home, and some at school.  Google makes that easy.
2. Twitter.  I have to say that when I have a tech question, Twitter is where I go.  Follow #edtech or #edchat I have a circle of followers and people who I follow. Follow me at cfraenkel
3. Pinterest. Has become my new go to place for ideas and jumping off points.  A list of the top 20 Pinterest sites for education is here. http://edudemic.com/2012/10/pinterest-education-technology/
4. That leads me to one of my goto websites for educational information http://edudemic.com/ so far not too commercial…we shall see.
5. Glogster.  love love love this.  Poster it. With as one of my parents put it, no mess on the dining room table! We have used glogster for science posters, poetry, social studies.
6. TED talks (Technology, Entertainment, Design) great place to learn.
7. Top Documentary Films.  A colleague showed me this.  Thousands of free high quality documentary films free for you to watch in your classroom.
8. Prezi A new overhaul makes it even easier to make awesome looking presentations really easily.
9. Explain Everything for iPad.  Video, audio, record function, save to cloud.  I have used for recording lessons, or as a way for students to present information.  Brilliant.
10. WordPress/Edublogs/any easy blogging platform.  My students blog, (or they did when I had access to functional computers at school) http://blog44.ca/cfraenkel

*      My new favorite.  I’m just beginning to play with Pearltrees.  It is visual social bookmarking. It seems really easy    to use, and really easy to find information.  I’ll let you all know if I find any great educational uses.  Right now, I’m just playing.

Connections and Learning

I just spent a day at a teacher librarian’s conference where I was surrounded by people who are excited about change in education and at the same time scared stiff.  Chris Kennedy, Superintendent of West Vancouver School District gave the Keynote speech.  He talked about the role of teacher librarians in technological implementation in schools. I was intrigued by a few things that he said, so after reading his blog, I took a look at the work of Will Richardson, via this TEDxMelbourne presentation .

Richardson is a big voice for educational reform.  He has some interesting ideas, but one in particular made me crazy.  He said something to the effect of there is no point in learning facts, you can look them up on google.  I have to disagree, a lot.  Education is more than learning facts.  Could you google an article on foreign policy and read it if you had to look up every country, every politician and every big word?  I know I couldn’t. How about math? If you don’t know basic addition are you ever going to understand algebra? Calculus? Chemistry? No.

Education needs to be about training your brain how to find answers, not about getting them.  There is merit in learning basic facts, they allow us to make connections to other ideas and form questions.

I am very interested in the work of George Siemens who is the founder of the Connectivism: Open Social Learning theory.  He argues that learning is all about making connections. Something elementary teachers have been fostering for years.  This is not a new idea, but how we use it in a technological age is. Siemens talks about “Sensemaking not learning.” When learners have the tools of their sensemaking under their own control, they have the capacity to shape and direct the activities that they find meaningful.”

He says that Open Social Learning is:

• responsive to the needs of the individual
• adaptive
• fluid, varied and contextual

I’m not convinced that this is not already happening in elementary schools.  We use “think, pair, share,”  we encourage group work and group learning, we take advantage of “teachable moments,” we adapt lessons and curriculum to the needs of the students, we try to teach in themes to make sure our students are learning in context. Perhaps our educational leaders need to be elementary school teachers instead of University Professors. That is one thing I do agree with Richardson about.  Teachers need to start screaming about what we believe in, and stop being so polite. Otherwise we are going to have an education system which is built by politicians and businesspeople.

BC Teachers Job Action

If you are wondering at all about what the teacher’s job action is all about, this video is a good summary made by  Surrey Teachers.  http://youtu.be/TYe5EPvSWpI

Want to know how class size and composition affects your kids?  I have 6 diagnosed Special Needs kids in my class, and 2 who are waiting for testing – their parents can’t afford the private testing.

How this affects these kids – we have one aide, she does a great job but between the two of us, we don’t really get to many of the kids, the worst 2 get most of our attention, partly because it is a safety issue for the other children. Obviously if you are spending all your time with 2 kids, then trying to help the other 6 who have difficulty,  the “regular” kids don’t get the attention they deserve either. (don’t even get me started about the bright ones.)

I am frustrated beyond belief, and it doesn’t look much better next year.

We asked for more Learning assistance time from the “Learning Improvement Fund” but we got more CUPE (non-teaching) time instead.  The school district decided they know better than we do what we need. (or could it be because CUPE has already settled their contract?)

Only one more week.  I am seriously considering changing professions again.

 

 

Time for a Rant

Today the teacher’s union in BC voted to escalate job action.  We have been without a contract since September.  When asked, a clear majority of teachers said that the biggest issue they wanted resolved was class size and composition.  Unfortunately the government took that out of our contract (illegally- per a supreme court decision) and it can’t be negotiated.

I am new to teaching, having had other careers including database management, banking and Export Management. I decided to become a teacher late in life because it was what I had always wanted to do, but was told that I was “too smart to be a teacher” or “would never make any money as a teacher.” I am fortunate to have a spouse with a good paying job, so I can pursue this passion.

I’m ok with my salary, I’m ok with Net zero, I’m ok with professional development being changed, I’m ok with the idea of having evaluations of teachers, and I’m more than ok with the idea that we should trust our administration to know who is the best candidate for the job rather than the person with the most years. (most of them find creative ways to do this anyway.)

I am NOT ok with removing restraints on class size and composition.  I have 27 kids in my grade 4/5 class, let me give you a little breakdown.

# of kids who can’t read at grade level = 3 (one who can’t read at all…)

# of kids who have to be given a personal invitation to begin each task, EVERY TIME = 3

# of kids who have a ministry designated learning disability = 5 (only one overlap with above)

# of kids who don’t have a designation because they are still on the “list” = 2

# of kids who have severe medical conditions which limit their ability to learn = 3

# of kids who are ESL = 2

Didn’t even get to the ones who have parents who are divorcing, are moving, don’t get breakfast etc. That is just “normal” these days.

Who is losing out here? The kids.  All of them.