"Never say good-bye because good-bye means going away and going away means forgetting." ~ J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan   Saying good-bye is never easy, well at least for me. That's why I like to say "see you later", rather than good-bye. Good-bye seems so final. One of the first words my daughter learned was bye. Every time I leave the house she waves and says bye, over and over. Sometimes I even see her at the window with her mother waving and saying bye. If you're a parent or grandparent you've probably gone through the same ritual. I often wonder why she's so happy to say bye to her dad, with such enthusiastic waves. Is she glad I'm going? Is she proud of her command of a new word? Or is it because she knows I'll be back? I'd like to think the latter. At this point you must be...

As I made the journey to Ancaster on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning with @sbruyns, @technolit and @cordym I couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation and eagerness about my first experience at an Edcamp. Each of us have been involved in organizing and planning conferences in our own district but going by everything I have read about Edcamp this was going to be a much different venture.  To start I must say congrats and well done to the organizing committee of Edcamp Hamilton ~ Sue Dunlop (@principaldunlop), Heidi Siwak (@heidisiwak), Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca), Michelle Horst (@michelle_horst), Cindy Lee (@dangergirl1218), Lisa Neale (@lisaneale) and Karen Wilson (@kawilson68) ~ what a great job. I'm sure I speak for everyone that attended that the hours you put into planning Edcamp are very much appreciated.  So onto Edcamp itself. From everything that I have read about Edcamps, the day started off in...

"Inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists; it is making a new space, a better space for everyone". ~ George Dei     Friday was a professional development day in our district. Part of the day was dedicated to providing inservice on the provincial government's Equity and Inclusive Education document. Our learning goal for the session was to deepen understanding of the goals of the Ontario Equity Strategy and to examine the relationship between assumptions, power and privilege and the learning continuum. After some introductory comments on the document and viewing a TED talk from Chimamanda Adichie we moved into an activity based on what is called the Equity Lens. Staff were presented with the following question - You are about to embark on an 8 hour flight. The airline has given you the option of sitting beside one of the following people. Which one would you choose, and why?...

"Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts." Arnold Bennett    I'm under no illusion that change is something that we should all be able to embrace. It's difficult, uncomfortable, unnerving and even scary to many teachers and administrators. At those times where a change in direction is presented you might feel like you're standing looking at the sign above, unsure of which direction you should go. As someone who has worked in education for nearly 20 years I have experienced and been witness to the "this too shall pass" mantra that often resonates through the classrooms and staff rooms of schools that are asked to move their teaching practice in a new direction. So how should one deal with change, especially when it comes to classroom practice that is geared to help support learning? I offer 4 practical ideas that anyone can use to...

App smashing is simply defined as the process of using multiple apps with each other to complete a task. App smashing could be completed on a smartphone or tablet like an iPad where students may be completing a project. As part of my annual growth plan I made the commitment to not only make my own learning visible but also make the learning activities of our school visible to the parents and community at large. One way that I do that is provide regular daily tweets accompanied with pictures and short descriptions. Here is an example of a daily tweet.   Awesome writing this morning in kindergarten ow.ly/i/1wRUy #tweedsmuirps #writing — David Fife (@DavidFifeVP) February 15, 2013 The culmination of a month of learning is a video I produce and post for our community to watch and enjoy using Animoto. I get lots of feedback from parents that not only love...

"Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them." ~ Steve Jobs     After interviewing Michelle Cordy (@cordym) and visiting her classroom it's taken me a couple of weeks to reflect on what I saw in Michelle's class and to form my own opinions about the impact of a 1:1 iPad classroom. While not many teachers will have the opportunity to teach in a 1:1 environment there are lessons to be learned that can help support any method of technology use in the classroom. If you read the interview with Michelle you will note that she has experienced challenges with the implementation of a 1:1 program. This should give everyone pause for thought. Regardless of your experience with integrating technology instructional design needs to be purposeful. You can't just...

I met Michelle Cordy (@cordym) around 2004 when I was a learning technologies coordinator and she was a young, energetic teacher looking to make her mark in the classroom. I knew at that moment in the computer lab at Althouse College that we would cross paths again. Since that first meeting I have watched Michelle grow into a fantastic teacher who integrates technology into her classrooms providing her students with amazing opportunities. I recently learned that she was successful in obtaining a grant that started with investigating the use of ePortfolios and then evolved into a 1:1 iPad classroom. With my own school moving to purchase more iPads I was keen to see how a master teacher utilizes iPads to engage students. Before making a visit to her classroom I decided to ask her a few questions to get a deeper understanding of her experiences plus I thought it would be...

"Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?" ~ Benjamin Franklin This post has been a long time coming. A year ago I was given a book called Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath which immediately went on the bookshelf to be forgotten, until I did some reorganizing a few weeks ago. I knew nothing about the book or the author other than it was a Wall Street Journal Bestseller, and I got that from the cover! With my Comparative Education Masters course finished I decided to make it my next reading, as I could tell from flipping through it that it wouldn't take long to finish.  The premise of the book and the research behind it is that almost any learning program is trying to help us become who we are not. In other words, helping us develop our weaknesses. The author Tom Rath...

It's amazing what kindergarten students can do when given the opportunity. As this week came to a close I couldn't stop thinking about their amazing thoughts and writing about what love is. It's hard to believe that some of these same students, just 5 short months ago, started school without knowing the alphabet or even how to count to 10. Now their writing and profound thoughts on love have me counting myself lucky to be reminded about what love is. For me, love is my daughter Zoë. As she approaches her first birthday I can't imagine my life without her. So, If you are lucky enough to be celebrating Family Day this Monday I hope you enjoy the holiday with your loved ones and maybe even enjoy some "choklit kises". ...

It has been a very busy couple of weeks for me with writing a paper for my comparative education course and reading 8 sets of classroom report cards. I'm happy to say they are both behind me and I'm ready to blog about something that has been on my mind for a long time, Netbooks vs iPads.  My first experience with Netbooks came during my time as a learning technologies coordinator. I failed to be impressed with the device on a personal level but more importantly confused on how they would be used in schools. Those first impressions have stayed with me and became more evident during the past couple of months as we introduced iPads into our school. Students have been engaged creating book trailers, Haiku Decks, and paper slide videos with the iPads. These same students have a teacher who embraces BYOD, have access to a mini-lab of Netbooks,...

This week my office was in need of cleaning and organizing, especially my bookcase. As I re-arranged the shelves to accomodate an ever growing library I found some gems that I had forgotten about. The books listed below changed the way I taught, or moved me to establish new practices to meet the needs of my students. Now there may be ideas that are considered antiquated in today's classroom but I am confident there are still great practices contained in them that would be valuable in any classroom today. Below are my personal favourites with a brief description of each. The Teaching Gap (James W. Stigler and James Hiebert) - The description of math practices in Japan, Germany and the United States literally had me searching for more research on effective programming. It led me to implement a math program based in problem-solving. This wasn't lost on my principal and colleagues as...

On Monday our grade 7 & 8 students completed their iMovie Book Trailers and over the last couple of days we've had time to reflect on the project.  What worked well? What didn't? What would we do differently next time?  Below are our reflections. What we were happy with: the technology worked flawlessly and the students had no difficulty using the software the students were completely engaged in the storyboarding/writing stage all groups worked well together the storyboard templates were excellent organizational tools  videos were very well received by the rest of the school during our video announcements (we heard many students commenting that they couldn't wait to read that book!) What didn't work so well: some students didn't quite fully grasp the concept of a book trailer not all the iMovie templates lend themselves to the concept of a book trailer some students didn't use their storyboards during filming What...

  This past Friday was supposed to be much different than it turned out. Teachers in the province of Ontario had planned to hold a one day political protest against the government and Bill 115. That was until the Labour Relations Board ruled that it would be considered an illegal strike. So at 6am the Thames Valley District School Board made a decision that all schools would be open to receive students. The result was not many students showed up, at least at my school. About 50% of the students were not in attendance which left the office scrambling to make safe arrival calls and teachers trying to put together instructional activities they didn't think they would need based on the union's decision late Wednesday. With our new iPads configured and ready to be used our intermediate teachers came to me with an idea to help keep the students engaged during a...

Yes, you read the title correctly, but let me explain. Yesterday I had a brief conversation with our Reading Support Teacher (RST) about her observations during a Literature Circle discussion she had with a group in grade 5. It immediately had me reflecting on my classroom experiences with Literature Circles. For those of you who haven't heard of the concept of Literature Circles check out Harvey Daniels website, or just google it. Basically it's adult book club for kids. Lots of reading, lots of talking. There are many aspects involved in implementing Literature Circles that I won't write about today, but what I loved most were the "roles" students took that allowed everyone an opportunity to shine. The roles I used were: Word Wizard - discovering special words in the text Discussion Director - leading the group during conversation, developing conversation guiding questions Artful Artist - creating a picture to represent...

As 2012 comes to end I'm reading more and more blog posts reflecting on the past year and resolutions for the future. So why not follow the lead of other more notable bloggers and write about my thoughts on the past year and what I resolve to do in 2013. Personally the past year has been one of ups and downs. But no matter how low I was at any point there is nothing that can take away the most wonderful gift anyone can receive - a child. I am so blessed to finally be a father that words can't express it. February 29th, 2012, (yes that isn't a typo) my daughter Zoe entered the world at a whopping 5lbs, 5 ounces. Tiny but beautiful! Everything changed in that moment. People all told me it would but I just shrugged it off. It's amazing, scary, exciting, tiring and fun, sometimes...

Below is a deck I created with Haiku Deck. As always, feel free to comment.   

Finland has been cited a lot recently about their successful educational system. As part of my current Master's course in comparative education I am required to write an essay comparing my current educational system to any other country. I decided to use Finland for a number of reasons, the most important being their success on international measures such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). Through the many journal articles, research papers and books I have read in preparation for writing my paper I have come across 8 very interesting aspects of Finland's educational system that you may not have read before. It should be noted that for those looking to any other educational system for a "quick fix" needs to keep in mind the cultural, social and economic realities of their own context and the one they are studying. Can we learn from other systems? Absolutely. Can we transplant those ideas...

The last day of school before the Christmas break is always a day filled with excitement. Well, maybe not for everyone. In your school you may have students who are less fortunate than others and today won't be as happy for them. They come from families that don't have a lot of money for gifts or special trips or maybe they come from broken homes. This week I have seen the kindness of our staff reach out to those families with gifts of toys, clothes, food and most importantly love. The smiles on their faces lit up the school and made me proud to know the staff at Tweedsmuir P.S. So to all the teachers, administrators and support staff around the world I want to thank each and everyone of you for the hard work you put into every day so that the students in your care succeed. Have a great...

Earlier this week I tweeted about a conversation I had with a kindergarten student and his drawing of a broken heart machine. The conversation I had with him was short but inspiring at the same time. His machine was quite simple. The broken heart would go into the machine on one side and come out fixed on the other. Brilliant. There was nothing sad that had happened to him recently he just wanted to draw a picture of a machine that would mend broken hearts. I left the room after our short conversation with an overwhelming feeling of happiness and pride that students this young are able to demonstrate compassion for others. Then came Friday and the horrible events in Newtown, Connecticut. As my Twitter feed filled up with information about the tragic event I couldn't stop thinking about the safety of the students in my school, about my own...

"Feedback is the breakfast of champions." Kenneth Blanchard For administrators, giving feedback to teachers can be challenging. This week I had two very different conversations regarding classroom practice that had me reflecting on the process of providing feedback, and how it is received by teachers. Feedback is something that I have valued throughout my life as a student, athlete, teacher, learning coordinator and administrator. For those that are open to feedback it is a powerful tool for growth. However, the challenging conversations that occur when discussing classroom practice can be good, bad and even ugly. The culture that is prevalent in the school will have an impact on how these conversations go, but as the leader you must instill the idea that feedback is always for support. Create that culture by valuing your staff as the professionals they are and demonstrate that you are willing to take risks and lead by example....