BIT2018 Conference Reflections

Attending a conference can be a great way to get new ideas, connect with other passionate educators and consolidate your thinking.

This past week I was able to attend two days of the Bringing IT Together 2018 (#bit18) conference in Niagara Falls.  It was two days of pushing myself out of my comfort zone and, back home and reflecting on the experience, I'm so glad I went.

As a former primary teacher and Kindergarten/Primary Consultant, most of the conferences I attended and presented at were geared to an audience of primary and kindergarten teachers. At BIT2018, the participants at the sessions I attended were mostly secondary teachers. Even though we were coming from very different contexts, the overall consensus was 'good pedagogy is good pedagogy.'  Whether we are talking about online learning or learning in a bricks & mortar classroom, it's about building relationships with students.

To push myself even further out of my comfort zone, instead of presenting a workshop with an agenda, powerpoint and speaker's notes, I facilitated a Learning Conversations session.  In these sessions, participants sit in a circle and engage in conversation on the designated topic. The facilitator guides the conversation, provides prompting questions when necessary. The topic I selected was Building Community in an Online Classroom, and the participants shared lots of ideas.  I had been worried - what if no one shows up, what if no one talks, what if.........  I shouldn't have worried. It was a group of teachers - of course they're going to talk!

I attended another Learning Conversation about the pedagogy of online classes, and having attended and facilitated a Learning Conversation, I'm now a huge fan. While there is still a place for 'sit and get' sessions at conferences, it was a welcome change of pace to engage in a small group discussion with other educators. The Learning Conversation gave us an opportunity to talk about the ideas we were hearing at other sessions, and consider how to apply them in our own context.

Thank you to the organizers for a relaxed, well-organized conference.  I left feeling renewed and re-energized with lots of new ideas to try in my online classroom.

Self-Regulation and Art

Image from Surrealistic Reality

Each person has different strategies for restoring their energy and their sense of calm after dealing with or even while dealing with stress. Earlier this month, I wrote about exercise as one of my go-to strategies.

This image popped up on a social media feed today and I was reminded of how we can use the arts for self-regulation. The arts can encompass a wide range of activities - drawing, sketching, painting, sculpture, music, fabric arts, writing, singing, composing music even culinary arts. 

For some people, it is restorative to create art while others are restored by listening to music, reading poetry, or viewing art. 

One stumbling block for me was the idea that art had to produce something and the something I produced had to be 'good.'  Instead of reducing stress, this mindset made art more stressful for me. As a kindergarten teacher, I was a firm believer in the importance of process over product. It was all about allowing students to explore different media and being expressive. So why wasn't I able to grant myself the same permission to focus on exploration instead of focusing on the final product? 

There are a number of very creative, artistic people in my family who create beautiful art that they can display in their home or give as a gift.  I had to stop comparing my artistic efforts to theirs, and turn off the voice in my head that said, "You're not good at art."  Gradually I began to enjoy the process again.  Now I like doodling in my bullet journal, putzing about with paint, writing poetry, and other creative endeavours for their own sake and not as a means to an end. Drawing, painting, and writing are tools I have added to my self-regulation toolbox.

Do you use the arts as a stress reducing strategy? 

What arts do you like to use to reduce stress?

Do you enjoy the process and/or the product?

Running & Self-Regulation

It was cold today.
And a little bit windy.
There was rain in the forecast.
I am coming down with a cold.
I have a sore throat.
My sinuses are stuffy.

But I put all these excuses aside, got on my cold weather running gear, and went out for a leisurely 5K run late this afternoon.  Not pushing myself to go fast, just putting in some miles.

I ran a half marathon last weekend - over a week ago - and haven't run since.  It was time.

Part of this is willpower.  I pushed myself to put on my running gear and get out the door.

Part of this is self-regulation. I know that running makes me feel better.  It's a great stress reliever. I feel strong and healthy after a run. There are nights when I think I'm too tired to run, and yet after my run I feel energized.

As the weather turns colder, I will keep running a few times a week - just as long as the roads aren't icy.  And then it will be time to switch to the gym for my fitness fix.

Do you exercise to reduce stress?  
What is your go-to exercise? 

From Quotefancy.com

Horror Movies - Yay or Nay?

Horror movies - it seems that people either love them or hate them.  I don't find it entertaining to be scared, yet both of my girls love horror movies. I can tolerate the ones that are more suspense than blood, guts and gore or 'slasher' movies.

When I was a kid, my mom wouldn't let me watch anything scary.  My bedroom was down in the basement, and she knew I would have nightmares and be wandering upstairs to be with the rest of the family. But when my cousins would babysit me, they would let me watch the Sir Graves Ghastly show which showed all the old, campy horror movies.  I still remember one about an astronaut who dies in some sort of crash but his hand lives. There was a scene of his hand crawling out of the water onto the beach that gave me nightmares for weeks!  Now, thanks to You Tube, I can relive this nightmare over again.



I have seen some scary movies that I enjoyed - Carrie, The Shining, Psycho come to mind.  But I've never seen any of the Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th movies.  And I probably never will. The Simpson's Tree House of Horror is more my speed.


What about you?   Are you enjoying a horror movie marathon this month?  Or are you just enjoying all the decorations, the candy and the costumes?  Whatever your preference, Happy Hallowe'en!

Never Stop Learning

This week I celebrated a major milestone in my life - convocation for my Doctorate of Education degree. It's been an amazing, frustrating, fantastic, exhausting, wonderful learning journey. There were days when I was excited to be engaged in such rich learning and discourse and days when I wondered why I was doing this and why didn't I quit? I retired from our board in June 2016, so this degree would have no impact on my employment or my salary.

The speaker at our convocation was Dr. Charlotte Fischer.  She was born in 1929 and received her degrees in Mathematics and Chemistry in 1952.  She went on to study at Cambridge, was the first woman to win an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, has authored over 300 articles in her 50+ years of research. She currently, at age 89, is the Professor Emerita at Vanderbilt University's School of Engineering.

In her convocation address, Dr. Fischer reminded us that with today's modern medicine and health care, we can expect to live very long lives and we must endeavour to fill our lives with meaning far beyond the usual retirement age.

So, even though I have retired from full-time employment with a school board doesn't mean it's time to stop learning and growing. I'm not sure what the future may bring, but I know that my intention is to keep reading, reflecting, learning and writing for many years to come.

Congratulations to my fellow graduates!  It's been a pleasure learning together with all of you for the past three years and I can't wait to see what the future holds for all of us.

Official program from Western University

My bedazzled mortarboard from our pre-convocation reception

Take Me Outside Day

Today is "TAKE ME OUTSIDE DAY" here in Canada.  Take Me Outside (TMO) is a non-profit organization committed to educating and creating awareness with Canadians about our connection with nature and our time spent outside. As a teacher, I enjoyed spending time outside with my students and found that I got to see a side of them that I would have missed had we only done our learning indoors.

To participate in Take Me Outside Day you can:

1. Get outside with your class!

2. Let Take Me Outside know that you are participating by filling in the online form.

3. Complete the TMO Challenge - they have separate ones for students, parents and teachers.

4. Share your outdoor learning experiences on social media #TakeMeOutsideDay

5. Spread the word - let students, parents, colleagues and the media know why outdoor time is essential for healthy students.



On the TMO Challenge page, they note: A connection to nature and time spent outside is invaluable to building optimal mental, emotional, social and physical health for every child and youth. Research supports the links between a child’s connection with nature and their health. Increased outdoor time can be directly connected to improved physical activity levels, higher academic achievement, decreased child injury rates, increased attention spans, positive social interaction and increased engagement at school, home and in the community.

In addition to the resources on the TMO page, here are others you may find helpful:

Natural Curiosity: Building Children's Understanding of the World Through Environmental Inquiry - a free downloadable book for Kindergarten to Grade 6

Ready Set Wonder: Nature Prompts for the Early Learning and Child Care Educators - a free downloadable book from the Back to Nature Network
(also available in French at http://www.back2nature.ca/readysetwonder-version-francais-de-attention-prets-a-lemerveillement/)

Into Nature: A guide to teaching in nearby nature - a free downloadable book with lesson ideas for students in kindergarten to grade 6 from Back to Nature Network
(also available in French at http://www.back2nature.ca/teachers-guide-into-nature-french/)

101 Nature Study Ideas

25 Mighty Girl Books about outdoor discovery

9 books that will inspire your little animal to get out of the house and into nature

7 books to inspire nature play

The Importance of Risky Play for All Students

"Bravery is learned, and like anything learned, it needs to be practiced."
                 Caroline Paul


I saw this brief video clip of Caroline Paul, former firefighter and now best-selling author, on Facebook recently and was thinking about another post I had seen about the importance of risky play for children.

(Text of this sign: 

Risk & Play: When you take a risk, your brain changes. Do you remember climbing to the top of a tree? Or swinging as fast as you could until you felt like you might fall off? These risks are more than fun - they help brains develop. Risky play combines fun and stress - turbo-charging brain development.

It can be stressful to climb to the top of the tower if you haven't done it before but learning to handle that stress will make you more resilient under future pressures.

Risky play develops your executive function, the parts of your brain in charge of decision-making. Deciding whether or not to jump off something tests the limits of your judgement. The only way to learn to make good decisions is by practicing making decisions.

Bumps and scares are the vivid feedback you need to improve your judgement. Thankfully, you'll get better and your brain will have developed from the experience).

Risky play does not mean that we are putting children in danger. It means we are allowing them to push themselves and feel a bit of fear, and then overcome that fear. To climb, to jump, to hang upside down, to run so fast it feels like you might fall over, to swing so high that it feels like you just might go right over the top of the swing set!

Do we socialize our girls to avoid risk while encouraging boys to engage in risky play? What lessons are our students taking from our messages around risky play?

The full video of Caroline's TED Talk can be viewed below:

As educators, we need to be mindful - do we provide opportunities for girls and boys to engage in risky, physical play?  We want to ensure that all students will be resilient, confident risk-takers.

For more research on this topic, check out these online books and articles:

The Overprotected Kid - The Atlantic

No Fear - Growing up in a risk aversive society by Tim Gill

Is it our fears that are stopping kids? - Aviva Dunsiger