The Learning Journey of a Social Studies Teacher.

From Guest Blogger Mrs. Stevens - a Social Studies teacher at our school.  She shared her story of her learning journey this year in her goals making and learning for her students.  In my books, she's a star.  This is her story:

I’m a work in progress.  My goal was to learn 360 back in September 2011. I did have some training in the library with Roger Hayward, but unfortunately I did not put it to use right away, so I did not retain it.  However, now I have learned and incorporated Prezi with my Social Studies grade 9 classes in both semesters, and I intend to use the same program in Social Studies 8 next week.  I feel more comfortable with Prezi.  I repeated my learning, and now I’m retaining it. I’m not as scared.  I am a little more confident.

I have also requested and was given some time from the computer facilitator in semester 2 to learn new computer skills with one to one training.  I learned about Outlook, how to organize my emails, how to enter new contacts, and how to access my calendars.  I’ve improved my computer abilities by changing and updating my files so I can read them on my laptop.

I feel more comfortable with technology in my classroom; students are using PowerPoint and other technology, and I don’t stop them, I let it in.  They know I’m not strong in technology, but they’re willing to teach me, and I’m willing to learn.

Future goals – The old video resources in the library are decreasing. Some quality videos have come to the end of their lifespan, and the only way to get them back is by using 360.  So I need to do more one-on-one training with our librarian.  I will have to learn this program because fewer of my video resources are available.  I am also looking at getting a document reader for my classroom next year, and I want to learn how to incorporate that in my lessons.  I want to look into more peer assessment and rubric assessment with my students.  I used it with my prezi assignment, and it kept the students engaged.  Also, I hope to train on the iPads. 

Ms. Harding said I didn’t even know how to turn on the laptop when I started, but now I’m no longer worried about asking for help.  I’m trying to keep up with the times.  Nicole has been an invaluable teacher, patient beyond belief.

From Nicole's point of view:  The inspiration from a teacher who not only recognizes that they need to develop into a 21^st Century teacher, but who goes out of her way to arrange to grow by asking me for help, by taking the time to learn new things, to overcome a fear of technology, to let in that fear and ask for help, not only from me but from colleagues and from students, that’s a teacher that truly cares about her profession, her students and doing the best she can.  That’s what individual Pro D is all about.

The Learning Journey of a Language Teacher.

Ups and Downs of Technology Usage in Schools.

Two years ago a young enthusiastic teacher wanted to learn some web 2.0 tools online and asked me if I knew a few.  I sent her to a site I has worked on for a couple of years and off she went exploring. Last year she started to explore on her own and started to share new tools she found, I started to share back, and we began networking.  Last year Jacqueline started to explore and blog her learning for the grant graciously given to us by Surrey School District to explore different means of learning for us and our students.  Today you can read Jacqueline's summary of her learning for the grant at http://snfteacher.blogspot.ca/ .  You can also read her ideas of what she used in the classroom, what worked, what didn't and why for each.  Those Spanish and French teachers, start following her on twitter - @senoritaac ...  She's worth it!!!  You go Jacqueline!!!  You'll put me out of a job yet!!

End of the Journey

It has begun, the star of the  end of another school year and the end of the journey of Individualized Professional Development/goals for my colleagues and I at Sullivan Heights.  In 25 years of teaching and being on the Professional Development team most of those years I can honestly state that this year's "year of growth" was outstanding and extremely surprising.  Many educators have heard the research of students taking ownership of their learning.  Wang's (1980) Adaptive Learning Environment Program model was designed in part to foster personal responsibility and autonomy in students. The Learning-Team Model developed by William Glasser (1986) and the Cooperative Learning approach (Fogarty, 1990, Johnson, 1989, Kagan, 1989, 1990, and Slavin, 1989, 1990) also encourage students to take responsibility for their learning collectively.  Donald Platz in the article "Student Directed Planning Fostering Student Ownership in Learning ("Education", Vol. 114, 1994) discusses the implementation of Student Directed Planning in detail.  What I am suggesting is use the same principles in  directed Learning to teachers' learning - or in our situation we called it "Individual Professional Goals" for the school year. 

As stated in a previous article, teachers at the start of the school year selected one goal to work on, a goal that would help improve their teaching in the up and coming school year.  The premise was to work on this goal/research/learning and try to incorporate the idea/concept for at least a month.  If in a month you can see it works you would continue on researching your area of learning or you can change to a new one.  If it failed or was not what you were interested in, you could choose another goal.  This personalized learning was conducted during our Professional development days with the majority of teachers looking forward (not against) the learning day, a positive atmosphere developed for these days of learning.  The staff would get together for a motivational small clip of learning, then off they would go.  In the afternoon, we would share some of our learning, and then continue on with our goals.  Teachers on staff began to network together in the interest of their goals, in the interest of learning new areas.  Other teachers would blog and network outside of our school.  The sharing began with enthusiasm, and as you can see from this site and the links to to the side, my colleagues and I "went for it".  The learning was enthusiastic, invigorating, and just plain fun.

There were some negative aspects of this learning.  Not all members bought into the concept with the same level of enthusiasm.  Some people explored a number of areas of learning, others stayed to one or two areas and did not move.  Some ventured out without fear, some with, but in the end, when asked at the last Professional Development Day if the staff wished to continue this way, there seems to be a feeling of yes.  

So the grant that we received from our district went hand in hand with this learning concept and for the next few blog entries, the results will be posted here as "Guest Bloggers" to my site.  Please enjoy the blogs and please go forth with some aspirations and inspirations from my staff.   Although I say this is the end of a journey, it is only the end of this years learning, we will continue on at Sullivan Heights to be the "Stars" that we aspire our students to be.  Thank you.

IPads - the Wave of the Future in Schools or Still just for One.

Catching the wave - will we crash or ride it through?

Don’t get me wrong; I love my IPad, the different apps, the versatility, and the ability to cloud with my mac computers, what’s not to love.  The simple fact is that the IPad was made for one person, not to share.  You have programs like OurPad, which allows you to make your IPad similar to a windows computer, having an individual login for each user.  We’ve done up to 5 users with no problems, but we’re still in the testing stage of this phase. 

So where does this leave us?  Any apps that say they can email the work will not work unless you set up an email address, but if you set up yours, then others can use it and you cannot delete the email unless you factory set it.  Similar yet different from some of the other apps (ITunes’s store) you can have an original email address, put in a second one but when trying to delete the first one (the original) you do come into some difficulty, so the original is the one that stays.  So we won’t put in an email for the students.

Because the IPads go onto the “GUEST” access for Wi-Fi, the generic emails we’ve set up (sullivanheights1@gmail.com) do not work through this access, so we can’t use generic accounts, let alone not being able to control this email account.  Students can go in and change passwords, etc. 

So where does that leave us (did I ask that question already?)?  We can only use apps that have logins on the web with Web 2.0 tools.  Apps like fotobabble, or Edistorm, these Apps feed into their Web 2.0 online site, making things a little easier, although not without problems. 

You must understand that the use of IPads in our school for a cart of computers you can sign out (all teachers use them, and different students use them at different times) is still in the investigation stage, trial and error, but at this point there is a need for teachers and schools to work with the creators of these apps to make these apps as perfect as possible.  Most apps are made for individual usage, personal usage or individual business usage.  Even the educational apps were created for students to have a one-on-one experience, and until that changes, using a cart of IPads will be hit and miss, finding the apps that work without emails.   

Edistorm on the IPads

I have always ranted and raved about Edistorm, a Web 2.0 tool that is perfect for brainstorming, for pre-assessment of student knowledge as well as organizational for students doing a project.  The different printouts help teachers to mark student work, and get a great assessment tool of critical thinking on the part of the student.  But like so many other Web 2.0 tools that don’t work on the IPads due to lack of Flash, I was concerned about the same problem with Edistorm.  To my surprise, they were building (as we speak) an IPad friendly beta site, using one finger and two-finger control.  So lets take a look.

Students can start brainstorming online by creating a new “Storm”—a project page. Or the teacher can set one up, type in a name for the project, add a goal or description, and start inviting collaborators (her students). You can make it public or visible to anyone. Once you’re on your Storm page, you’ll see a wall and a virtual stack of sticky notes on the left. You can change the wall to a SWOT or Venn diagram or many others, depending on your needs.  Anyone you’ve invited to participate can type an idea on a sticky note and place it on the wall wherever they want. You can change the color of the sickies as well.  Notes can be moved and organized in an endless number of ways, or grouped by color to better illustrate whatever point it is you’re trying to make.  There are drop down menus to help you with this feature or the users can use one finger to move the stickies or two fingers to  enlarge the screen or make it smaller.  Because Edistorm operates in real time, you will SOMETIMES immediately see whenever another users adds a sticky or makes adjustments to the wall.  On the pads you need to refresh the browser every one in a while to update what has been added to the wall..  The best part of this app is the ability to think on the fly and to share ideas instantaneously.

As stated before two fingers will shrink or make larger your screen.  One finger moves the stickies around.  There is a voting system, you just click the sticky by the number and that creates the vote.  You can assign how many votes each student gets when you set up the storm. 

I still love this program for the pre-assessment value, the post-assessment value and just the idea of being able to jot down all your ideas at once, then organize them, and get others to help you consider everything by commenting on your ideas and stating which ones are the best.  The possibilities are endless. 

Thanks to Jennifer Spain @jennifer_spain for trying out this program with her French class.  Both the teacher and the students loved it (they used the browser to work with the program).

Get your storm going!

Babbling about Fotobabble.

Fotobabble  is a program online (Web 2.0 tool) that lets you upload any picture and then using the computer or a microphone record your voice with the picture and you can share it with friends through Twitter, Facebook and many other ways.  There is even a email system to send to your teacher. 

Students need to make an account to get on this program, but it doesn’t take long at all to do this.  They make their account and then get to work. 

What can you use Fotobabble for?  Anything you can think of. Here are just a few examples for using it in a language class:

• ·      Home-made greeting cards
• ·      Talking postcards from different countries.
• ·      Review products, songs, movies, TV shows, anything!
• ·      Citizen journalism: Reporting from the scene of something newsworthy.
• ·      Enhance your Facebook Fan Page
• ·      Provide commentary on a photo found on the web
• ·      Promote your brand, products or services
• ·      Create contests
• ·      Instant photo/voice messaging between iPhones
• ·      Narrate the story behind a special photo
• ·      Talking Photo Facebook status that plays right in Facebook
• ·      Adding a visual element to your poetry or music
• .   Adding comments in Twitter.

It is supported by both Mac and PC, but you need a speaker system to listen to it as well as a mike or built in microphone system to speak into it.  For elementary teachers you should get parent permission before hand, and students should put the content in the general public section so that they can embed the program in their electronic portfolio or share the finished product with their teacher through the URL (email the address to the teacher).  It’s fun, fast, and great for assessing vocabulary, accents, grammaire, etc. 

From Teacher First  there is more information as well as other ideas. 

Thanks to Aaron Davis @aarondavis47 for trying out this great web tool and also the Fotobabble App on the IPads.  One special notation about this App from Mr. Davis, when uploading your photos (you can use the camera on the IPad and record into it as well) to their account from the IPad, you need to get 5 – 10 students at a time only.  When Mr. Davis tried to do it with the entire class, he began to have error messages of “Not connecting” or server down.  At first we suspected the WiFi in our school but later, when the students left, Mr. Davis easily uploaded each and every Fotobabble that previously did not work.  The FotoBabble server got too busy or too many people were using the server at the same time.  Please take note of this small problem.

So plan accordingly, and good luck.  This program/App is fun.  If you don’t believe me read Meg’s Notebook to get her review and some of her ideas on using FotoBabble with a class  trip.  You can follow her on twitter @megsnotebook.  Excellent work Meg!!!

The Problems with Sharing the IPads in a School...

If you're sharing your iPads in your school in the senario of a cart of iPads being signed out by a number of different teachers every day, you've probably encountered one of its most glaring shortcomings -- the iPad was designed primarily as a one-person gadget.  Most of the apps typically only supports a single user account that may be hooked to the email setting of your iPad.. That's a major problem if you've bought the iPads to share with the entire school.   Now there is an app that lets multiple users share a single iPad and maintain separate identities.

Our Pad lets a number of users access a single iPad, each with their own separate password-protected accounts.  It may not be the answer to every problem you may encounter, it's made for one family who want to share a device, but that doesn't mean you can't use it in a different area.  

Our iPad does not actually create separate log-ons and user accounts like you'd expect with an OS like Windows. Instead, it's an app that sets up any number of unique accounts for identity-driven services like Gmail and Facebook. That means most of the apps on your iPad are still community property, but there's a firewalled zone users can go to to get webmail, so this helps when it comes to emailing your work in programs like ComicLife, and such, that use the email setting on your Pad.Right now, Our Pad supports Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Twitter, and Facebook, with more services promised. Users don't need to enter passwords to get to their accounts; the program recognizes a user-specified lock pattern for easy access. It automatically signs users out when the iPad is idle or goes to sleep for added security.  

This may solve some of our problems, we'll see if we can bust this program or not.   As LifeHacker stated "It's not as good as Apple allowing multiple user logins, but it works well enough so people who share an iPad don't have to constantly log in and out of social networks and emails when they hand it over."  I'm also considering how many users can you put on this IPad?  Not for every student I'm sure but can we not make generic email accounts and try that?  Will have to try.


So, here are some considerations and questions to answer in no particular order:

1.  How many users can you have on one IPad with this app?
2. Do you have to reset everything when you factory set your computers?  Or rather you can then go with the backup if you want?  Do you have to reset when you upgrade to a new OS system?  There's a lot of time and effort (close to an hour a pad) to update.
3. Can you break into the system?
4. Will this help the saving issue?
5. Will Dropbox have the same problem?
6. Do I need generic accounts (30 of them) to assign to a classroom of students to be able to use this feature?  
7. How do I fix the problem of Web 2.0 tools not working with IPads because of the flash?  
8. There is a dilemma of constantly updating all these apps.  So we have to limit the apps we use.

Hopefully these will be answered in a later blog.


To see more check out the reviews below:

AppAdvice

MacGasm

LifeHacker

This App supports the following:

❏ EMAIL    ✹ Gmail    ✹ Hotmail    ✹ Yahoo    ✹ ZohoMail    ✹ GoogleApps Mail (without SSO)    ✹ AOL    ✹ Inbox.com    ✹ Mail.com    ✹ Gawab.com    ✹ GMX    ✹ POBox.com 
❏ SOCIAL    ✹ twitter    ✹ Google+    ✹ Facebook     ✹ Myspace    ✹ LinkedIn    ✹ Bebo    ✹ Flixster    ✹ Friendster    ✹ Hi5    ✹ myYearbook    ✹ Orkut    ✹ BuzzFeed    ✹ VK    ✹ Hyves    ✹ Tumblr    ✹ fotki    ✹ tagged 
❏ BLOGS    ✹ Blogger (Blogspot) 
❏ MEDIA    ✹ YouTube    ✹ Last.Fm 
❏ CHAT    ✹ Meebo 
❏ PHOTOS    ✹ Picasa    ✹ Smugmug    ✹ Shutterfly    ✹ Shutterstock    ✹ Webshots    ✹ Flickr    ✹ Photobucket 
❏ EVENT    ✹ PunchBowl    ✹ Evite 
❏ CLOUD    ✹ Dropbox 

What to use with your Students for putting their learning online.

Many people are into Wiki, many are doing Blogger, some are into easy web designing programs like Webnode and Weebly.  So which do you do use with your students? It all depends on what reasons you want to start putting up your students work on the internet.  I have done Blogs with my students using Blogger, have helped teachers with their Wikis, used Facebook for e-portfolios for student work on Illustrator and Photoshop, and now I'm trying Weebly with my Grade 8 students for e-portfolios and ease of marking.  So which ones do I recommend?  I show a number of them to the teacher and let them decide.  It may take some time but in the end they can do their own comparisons and take responsibility for their own choices.

The following are some advantages and disadvantages of each program for you to consider before you make your own choice.  These are a few that I have come across or thought of.  I hope this helps you

Advantages	Disadvantages
Facebook
·      Great for using the photo albums ·      Students can “Poke” you when they add something to their photo albums. ·      The program gets the other person’s comments on your desktop when they have added something. ·      Great for peer assessment, students all become friends  and can comment on each others work. ·      Easy for the teacher to assess with comments, for instant feedback without giving a mark. ·      Can add videos if doing animation in your classroom. ·      Security is good, to keep others out. ·      Parents can become Friends so they can check out their own child’s work.	·      Additions are not sortable ·      Hard to search what was done. ·      When you have 30 or more students doing work and adding to their desktop, your desktop gets flooded. ·      Need to have a YouTube channel to add videos. ·      Cannot embed other Web 2.0 programs (ie Glogster, Prezi, etc)  in Facebook. ·      Need to watch student’s friends, sometimes they invite their friends and  they don’t watch their security, so their “desktop” gets crowded if garbage. ·      Students add games to their  account so they can play online during class time.  It also adds to the teacher’s desktop. ·      Students can hide through security what they are doing.
Webnode
·      Free ·      Easy to set up and use. ·      Can be individualized with your own pictures, colors, etc. ·      Many different Templates and different pages you can put into your Webnode. ·      Has stats you can see. ·      Has RSS feed ·      Has different types of pages you can choose including a Portfolio section. ·      Can embed any other program using the HTML code, like YouTube, Prezi, Glogster, etc. ·      Can have more then one web site on your account. ·      Can have as many pages as you want. ·      Many designs that are free. ·      Easy to use and self explanatory. ·      Can Tweet anything on the page. ·      Has many gadgets you can add to your web page, ie poll, codes, different videos from different web sites (educational sites). ·      Can have a list of student sites to your list.	·      To embed you need to know some HTML coding. ·      Does not feed in well with Blogger “Blog lists”. ·      Does not appear well if you use the RSS feed for a newspaper program like “paperli”. ·      Cannot lock it down.
Weebly
·      Free ·      Easy to set up and use. ·      Has RSS feed ·      Has a page for a blog. ·      You have 5 pages and as many photos as you want. ·      Easy to add in columns with picture on one side and a write-up on the other side. ·      Can embed any other program with easy, a copy and a paste. ·      Easy to embed a video ·      Instantaneous so there is no need to wait for a publisher to create a new edition or update information ·      Teacher creates the account for all students, giving them individual user names and passwords. ·      Teacher has access to all accounts, so it’s easy to assess as well ·      Can set it up so that you cannot see the site unless you have a password to get on the site.	·      When you embed other programs sometimes they affect the running of the program on the Internet.  An example is “Prezi” will freeze your Weebly home page. ·      Open to SPAM and Vandalism if not managed properly. There are easy ways to restore a page however, and on WikiEducator you must be logged in to edit pages so this reduces vandalism by automated spam bots. ·      Only get 40 accounts to set up.  So if you want more, you either pay or get a colleague to join and this gives you more accounts for students. ·      Limit of size of a photo.
Wikis
·      Free ·      Easy to set up and use. ·      Some wikis allow for a lot of formatting. ·      Can use this program to collaborate – giving control of different pages to different users. ·      Can be password protected. ·      Can check to see when the last update of the Wiki was. ·      Has RSS feed ·      Give permission to anyone that you want to have access to edit ·      Wikis are instantaneous so there is no need to wait for a publisher to create a new edition or update information ·      People located in different parts of the world can work on the same document ·      The wiki software keeps track of every edit made and it's a simple process to revert back to a previous version of an article.  All the drafts of a document are saved.  If a team of people have altered a document several times and feel that using the original introduction would now work better than the revised version, they can easily go back and retrieve the original. ·      Some of the Gadgets you can add to your Wiki are very interactive, and easy to do. ·      Has Stats.	·      Does not feed in well with Blogger “Blog lists”. ·      Does not appear well if you use the RSS feed for a newspaper program like “paperli”. ·      Not to crazy about the look of the Wiki. ·      Need to know some HTML coding if you wish to embed some programs. ·      Wikis do make it easy for several people to brainstorm and collaborate on projects by adding content to a group website, but if no one is keeping tabs on the content, it can get pretty confusing.  ·      Although this program is user-friendly, it doesn’t look like it.
Blogger
·      Free ·      Easy to set up – step by step, easy to use. ·      Can be individualized. ·      Create your own design. ·      Can save drafts of post and work on it later. ·      Has a number of apps you can use with an IPads. ·      The App lets you take pictures with your IPad and then put it up on your Blog ·      Teacher can have a “Blog list” of students blogs and this makes it easier to mark. ·      Instantaneous so there is no need to wait for a publisher to create a new edition or update information ·      The “Blog list” can be set up so that when students add something to their blog the blog address goes up to the top of the list, and you can see the date of when it was added. ·      Can embed anything in your Blog. ·      They can add their own blog list ·      Easy to embed a poll, a video from your YouTube account. ·      Once you set up Blogger, you have a gmail account and a GoogleDoc account as well.  Easy to embed all together. ·      Parents can follow their own child’s work, see what is happening in the class. ·      Easy to make a homework list or embed a Twitter school account for tweeting homework. ·      You can add pages to your blog for different subject areas.	·      There is a limited number of setups for the template but you can change the look of it.  Does take some time to set the template.  You may lose the kids in the initial setup so give yourself and the students time to play with the look of it. ·

Mobile IPads

We've been doing something a little different at Sullivan Heights with our IPads, we've been using them as COWS (computers on wheels - yes I know, this acronym makes you smile).  That means that students get different IPads every time different teacher signs out the cart full of IPads - we're sharing.  This action would not usually make a difference except most of the Apps on the IPad use email to save your work or send your work to someone and most of these apps want you to put in your email address on the IPad setting.  Why is this a problem?  When the student sets up their email, they will then have to  removes the email before they put the IPads away at the end of the classroom period.  This procedure will take up valuable teaching time.  So what do you do?  The only thing is to ask the creators of the Apps to make some changes or to get a generic account that everyone uses to email their own work to themselves.  The second problem with this situation is that all IPads are on the "guest access" system in SD36 and this WiFi system does not let you email out.  Well, back to the drawing board....

As you can see, the booking calendar for the IPad COW is very busy, with teachers using them for projects for 3 - 5 days, but in between the project other students are using the IPads and the different Apps for different reasons.  We've had a number of incidents already where one student forgets to log out of their Twitter Account and the next classroom using the IPad uses this twitter account.  

One brilliant teacher (K. Phillips) is using blogs for students to record their learning, and to help in assessment of learning.  But when she was using the IPads and using Blog Press, once you log into this app you cannot log out.  So we've looked at others (BE Write HD - excellent look and great for sharing on Google Docs your work - I liked this one and Blogsy - we're still investing this rich one) and decided to use Blogger, a simple app specific for blogspot, and for the needs of the student.  They can add pictures from the photo roll with the IPad (to help record any scientific information they need).  I've seen their work and I (as well as Phillips) am amazed at the learning, the analytical evidence shown, the exploration of learning in different areas that the student chose.  

So where to next?  We're still experimenting with Blogsy, and BE Write worked for one student but not another.  We're looking at apps that have a "sign out" feature.  So beware, those that get a COW of IPads, make sure any app you purchase has a sign out feature and also has it so there are a number of ways to get your info to the teacher.

On a side note, I love Comic Book but if you don't finish your comic in that time period and post it to Twitter (the great feature I loved), then you're hooped.  Because you can't save it to your system without it disappearing when sharing the IPads.  Sorry Comic Book, you need to fix that  ;)

Passion for Motivation

What is your passion?  Why is it important for a person to feel passion about what they do?  This is a simple question to answer and to understand.  Have you every seen a teacher that was not passionate about the subject they were teaching?  Have you seen one that is?  Does that not answer your question?

A teacher needs to feel appreciated for the passion they show, and that means telling them.  Lately you don't see this, what with the news or the comments on blogs and news site in regards to the teacher's strike (not a first time occurrence in my teaching life time).   I feel battered and bruised, beaten down with negativity.  How can you feel passionate with so much hurt being hurled at you.  The most common one "Fire them all and hire new ones" doesn't make sense since the number of enrollment for people going into the teaching profession has lowered, and who can blame them.  It is a hard job, long hours of volunteering and or keeping up with your own homework of assessing students right away so they get instant feedback, developing your network of people, updating your learning of new innovations, etc.  The needs you have to meet are constant and as a 'giver' you the teacher wish to meet everyone's needs.  

But what is this passion? Passion creates excellence when mediocrity will do. Passion makes you laugh, when you feel like crying. Passion makes you open your mouth and proclaim something, when a whisper will do. Passion allows you to sit still, when you feel like walking away. Passion makes you close your mouth, when you want to talk.  Passion will make you stay up all night long, when you want to sleep.  Passion makes you continue on when most will give up.  Passion is a MUST for a teacher

Passion comes from within and what starts the passion is our inner desires, making the fuse for the ignition of this passion differs for each individual.  Passion comes from our belief and value system, which, in turn, creates a purpose for our very existence, both in work and in our personal life. A desire is something that you long to see or have happen, a desire to cause change to happen.   This is the passion that drives most teachers, a desire to help or change the life of a student. It's what drives me.

Observing passionate people is very uplifting and exciting. Working with someone passionate uplifts your creative drive and helps you to enhance your own passions.  People who are passionate don’t let anything stop them. They have a “do or die” attitude. They don’t accept “no” for an answer. They are first "to get bloodied", to try something new.   

Is passion necessary for life and living? No, but it is necessary for a better life, a life with purpose, not just going through the motions. It's the reason to get up in the morning and to look forward to going to work and making a difference.  To stand in front of 30 - 35 students every hour each day, to motivate them and to get them to feel passionate about something requires great strength and motivation.  But as they say, passion is contagious, and if the students see you passionate about something, they too will feel this. That's what makes a good teacher exceptional.  

So what do you do when you lose this passion?  You go looking for it again because being a teacher without the passion will hurt you and your students.  

And so to my colleagues and to my students, I dedicate this video that I found on YouTube.  I also thank Secrettosuccess for uploading this video.  Spending a day with my students today, seeing the growth in their learning for the past two months and their accomplishments has helped me to slowly recover my passion.  This video helped to put a smile on my face and to remind me where to look for that passion.  Thank you both.  

Uploaded by secrettosuccess on Nov 5, 2007

Although this web site is for the research and learning in my school, with the different means of learning (eportfolios, self-assessment, and Bloom's Digital Taxonomy), I believed I learned something today about myself.  I need to feel passionate for my students to grow as well.