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Sunday, January 25, 2015

Happy New Year!!! My goodness, I've been away for long time! My family went through some challenging times, and I didn't have it in me to blog here. It's a new year, and I have been inspired by my friends and colleagues' ideas and passion for teaching. So I'm back!

Two weeks ago I was at the ETFO ICT conference in Toronto. I learned so much! By the end of it I was ready to jump into using tech more in my classroom. The presenters were fantastic! The amazing Natasha Feghali (@NEFeghali) gave a fantastic workshop on using Twitter, Skype and blogging in the classroom. She had a very cool exit card board that looked like an iPhone. The Apps on the phone were pockets for us to leave our feedback cards in. It was entitled iConnect. Super cute, right? So I decided to make my own for my class. Here it is...

 I can't wait to use it on Monday! I will be using the book "Inquiry-Based Learning Using Everyday Objects" by Amy Edmonds Alvarado. My copy has been shipped from Chapters, so I hope it arrives quickly! 

I'm working on asking better questioning of my students, to promote deeper thinking. I am also going to use the techniques in the book to help my students develop their own questioning skills. Each week, I will bring in an interesting object (i.e. rotary phone, loom, seashell) for them to observe and ask questions about. The students will be coached to ask questions that lead to deeper critical thinking. Then they will write their questions on their exit cards, and slip them into one of the App pockets. I will collect their cards to keep track of their progress. Natasha Feghali gave me the cute iPhone exit card template she gave us in her workshop. Merci, Natasha!  I'm super excited to see how this plays out! And it just so happens I have a loom.

Have a spectacular Sunday!

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