Virtual Artifacts

 This is the last full week of 2021. Hooray! Just when I think we've taken two steps forward with dealing with the latest iteration of COVID, we take three steps backwards. We significantly reduced the amount of people we saw this year for Christmas and avoided non-essential outings - although I am quite tempted to make a run out to the craft store to pick up items so I can scrapbook.

My immediate family and I spent a lot of time together, hanging out, playing Animal Crossing New Horizons and chatting. One topic that came up was the introduction of new vocabulary. My husband taught me about AWFuLs (Affluent, White Female Liberals) and about NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens). 

This is my husband's explanation to me: A NFT is a digital asset that represents a real-world object (e.g. music, videos, illustrations, or in-game items). NFTs are unique or have a limited amount of them in existence by design. The example my husband gave is when Vincent VanGogh painted "Starry Night". Someone owns the actual painting of "Starry Night". A NFT is a digital equivalent to that. That doesn't mean that people can't obtain prints or copies; it is just that the original item is owned by someone and worth something. Some see it as ridiculous and frivolous as collectible trading cards, whereas others see it as the next evolution in art acquisition and production. It has similarities to bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

I myself don't pretend to understand all of this, but I can relate to sentimental value being placed on digital creations. I've been playing Animal Crossing New Horizons and the special DLC (downloadable content) Paradise Planning. I've created over forty virtual vacation spots for various villagers. As one of my November blog post said, I've really enjoyed making these digital places. Unlike my scrapbooking, I won't print physical copies of the photos I've taken - but I can enjoy and share them via this digital means (my blog). Having said that, I always print out a copy of the year's blog posts in a bound book (thanks Blog2Print!) so I guess I will eventually have a physical copy of all of these builds. Be forewarned - what will follow is a ton of screen shots! (Some of the homes I have remodeled, so I will only include the most recent versions.)

1st = Eloise Relaxing Reading Room

Apple's Apple Orchard

Julia's Guitar Music Room

Cherry's Fashion Show Runway

Cleo's "Bathed in Elegance" Home

Nov.15/21 = Truffles' Game Show Program

Nov.16/21 = Patty's Grilling Place

Nov.19/21 = Pizza Power Island Restaurant

Nov.20/21 = Bianca's Winter Wonderland

Nov.21/21 = Ken's Dojo

Nov.21/21 = Second Sip Island Café

Nov.23/21 = Winnie's Stable of Stars

Nov.24/21 = Kevin's Planet Peace Force HQ

Nov.26/21 = Frobert's Bingo Hall

Nov.26/21 = Bertha's Basket Bungalow

Nov.27/21 = Shino's Japan Rock Concert

Nov.28/21 = Alice's Elegant Cottage

Dec.1/21 = Lucy and Brie's Toy Place

Dec.1/21 = Goose and Peewee's Muscle Mansion

Dec.2/21 = Alphonso's Cake Sky Castle

Dec.2/21 = Deidre's Little Slice of Fall

Dec.2/21 = Northern General Island Hospital

Dec.3/21 = Keaton's Beachside Cafe

Dec.3/21 = Prince's Robot Battle Arena

Dec.5/21 = Renee's Blank Slate

Dec.8/21 = Vivian's Dance Workout Place

Dec.9/21 = Harry's Messy Manor

Dec.11/21 = Poshingtons Island Boutique

Dec.12/12 = Cesar's Half-Built House

Dec.14/21 = Ketchup's Tomato House

Dec.16/21 = Ione's Diva Residence

Dec.16/21 = Melba's Fairy Tale Forest

Dec.17/21 = Phoebe's Flames

Dec.18/21 = Analise's Saint Eligius Sanctuary

Dec.19/21 = Elmer's Sock Store

Dec.19/21 = Julian and Timbra's Cloud 9 Chalet

Dec.20/21 = Egbert's Number Niche

Dec.21/21 = Olaf's Matador Ring

Dec.21/21 = Hazel's Comic Illustrator Corner

Dec.22/21 = Sasha's Moon Manor

Dec.22/21 = Velma and Ozzie's United Sq P.S.

I haven't yet uploaded photos taken after December 23 (and I missed Mallory's November 30 house because it wasn't pasting in chronological order), but you can see that there's a lot!

I'm not the only one thinking about digital properties. The Association for Media Literacy recently announced an exciting collaboration about digital estate planning and the importance of arranging for what happens to your virtual assets when you die.

https://q107.com/news/8386984/canada-planning-digital-inheritance/

Inquiry Project Conundrum

 It's the "winter break" - which of course means that I'm still thinking about school. It always takes me several days to reset my brain.

Last week, I wrote about my collaborative partner classes. That's only part of my teaching assignment. I provide prep coverage to several in-person and virtual classes, for a variety of subjects. I teach health, media, "library", "problem solving", and social studies. 

I am a teacher-librarian, and I teach social studies. A huge chunk of the social studies curriculum in Ontario is based on the inquiry process. It's a natural fit, but natural doesn't equal easy.

Recently, I was pretty pleased with myself because I designed a controlled inquiry project for my Grade 1 and my Grade 2 students. I don't like inquiry projects that generate cookie cutter responses. I also don't like inquiry projects that lack critical thinking components, because then it's too easy to plagiarize content. I'm influenced by Carol Koechlin's Ban Those Bird Units and Trevor Mackenzie's Dive Into Inquiry. I was convinced that by now, four months in, the students would be ready for this type of task.

I've been working with these students online since September. It's not been easy. Many of them are at the early stages of their reading potential, so requiring written work was something I try to shy away from as frequently as I can. It took them a long time to become familiar with different sorts of file types (e.g. a Jamboard, a Google Slides deck, etc.) Attempting to schedule semi-private oral interviews with every student took a very, very long time, especially when I only have three forty-minute periods with them per week. 

Hello and thank you FlipGrid for providing part of a solution. I've done a few mini-tasks with the students to get them comfortable with the web-based, platform-agnostic video-posting tool. Most of them have figured out how to post a clip. Using FlipGrid meant that I could listen/watch the students outside of class and I have a better idea about how much is their own work. Part of the sharing for this inquiry project will involve a FlipGrid video.

For the Grade 1s, the unit theme is "Our Changing Roles and Responsibilities". I was actually inspired by one of the prompts in the actual expectations to help formulate this question template to guide their investigations: "Are you a better X or Y?" The goal is for them to compare two roles that they currently hold. There is no right or wrong answer. Here is my process outline I posted, as well as the single-point rubric that will be used to assess the project.

We also brainstormed the different roles that the students have and created a list of the actions a person good at that role would exhibit. (The snippets I snagged to show here on the blog do not show the entire list. Other roles include "friend", "member of a religion", "team member", and "pet owner".)

I was checking in with the students during class to see how they were progressing with their inquiry. I asked some of them to tell me about their personal inquiry question.

"My question is 'Am I a better chef or a driver?'", declared one student.

"My question is 'Am I a better sister or a ninja?", announced another student.

A third student showed me their Google document, where they are to write their question, and the sentence read: "Am I a better friend". 

I had to reiterate that we were supposed to pick TWO roles that we CURRENTLY held, so we could compare. Thankfully, other students selected roles that are part of their identities.

For the Grade 2s, their unit theme is "Changing Family and Community Traditions". We've already conducted family interviews as well as peer interviews, which was the inquiry prompt for this grade. Instead, the inquiry question I used was "How many different ways can we sort five holidays?" Here is the steps they need to take to complete the inquiry project, and the assessment rubric.

I'm trying not to compare the in-person Grade 2s to the virtual Grade 2s, but when I do, I worry about the online students. Mrs. Commisso's Grade 2 students were able to research several different holidays and use subtopics to organize their information. They used Jamboards and Google Slides and paper graphic organizers to sort and share their facts. I've simplified the task for the virtual Grade 2s. They only need to share one fact from each holiday, and they were allowed to select up to four holidays that they were already familiar with for their comparisons. We learned about a couple of holidays (Divali, Boxing Day) together. Despite this reduction, I'm really worried that many of the students are not going to be successful and I'm not sure what to do to support them even more than I already have. This is not to say that everyone in the class is lost. There are several students who have embraced the mini-lessons on making a chart and have developed several charts comparing their holidays. Once again, I'm not asking for a lot of writing; I just want evidence of original thinking. 

This will be the last big assignment dedicated for this unit of study. I hope that my inquiry project was not too ambitious and that students will be able to demonstrate that they have learned a little something during our time together. Fingers crossed!

Latest Collaborative Partner Units

 As we prepare to end the 2021 calendar year and take a hopefully short hiatus from the 2021-22 school year, I wanted to reflect on some of the collaborative units I've helped plan, teach, and assess with other classes and educators. I'm really pleased with how some of them turned out.

Community Helpers with Connie Chan and Jennifer Cadavez - Virtual Kindergarten

Connie and Jen already had some fantastic things happening for their community helper inquiry but they let me join in. Our goal was to expand some of the typically gender-rigid and upper-class notions around community helpers and jobs. Another goal was to try and provide even more small group time with students for conversations and activities. The library contribution was to find great read-aloud resources that celebrated work that Mike Rowe often champions. With three adults present, we were able to create much smaller groups. The final product is a pattern book that students insert themselves into with different careers / jobs. 

Technology Integration and Guided Reading with Kerri Commisso - In-Person Grade 1-2

I can hear Kerri's voice in my head saying "I didn't really use you as best as I could ...", but there are times where we can do shiny WOW projects and times where we can get the nitty-gritty work accomplished, and our most recent collaborative work has been more of the latter this term. To be honest, I feel bad that she carried all of the planning responsibilities for our work together. Kerri organized all the guided reading groups and during our periods, we'd divide ourselves up among the various guided reading groups. Our goal was to ensure students knew how to log onto the school Chromebooks semi-independently so they could use the TDSB Virtual Library resources for language and social studies learning. 

Communities in Canada, Past and Present with Brenda Kim - Virtual Grade 6

I had a slight advantage entering this partnership, as last year I taught Grade 6 social studies with my own classroom. Brenda's hopes for this partnership was to use engaging and effective methods to deliver what can be dry content to her large class of very mixed abilities. I think we did an excellent job of using both educators in the space, especially when we had a note-taking session; I provided the "lecture" and Brenda monitored the students' progress in creating dot-jot notes using a tool that was new to me: Whiteboard. We used memes, short- and long-games to understand the concepts of immigration and community evolution. We played Gather Town and will have a quiz before we all leave for our winter holiday.

Changing Traditions and Celebration - In-Person Grade 2-3

This teacher prefers that I not mention her by name on my blog. She and I co-planned and co-assessed both the Grade 2 project (a stop-motion animated mini-film) and the Grade 3 project (an I-Spy page), while she taught the Grade 3s and I took the Grade 2s. As you can imagine, it was a HUGE undertaking and quite impressive that we completed it on time, considering we only met for two periods (80 minutes) a week. The Grade 3s have already been clamoring for *their* turns to make movies. 

Media with Maha Ngo - Virtual Grade 1

Maha and I are still finding our footing with this collaboration. Our current eclectic approach (playing charades, reviewing the definition, looking at FlipGrid) demonstrates that media is much wider than students might have originally anticipated. We hope to connect some work to her read-aloud book in some way. 

Honourable Mention: Land Auction of Nadcaa with Shanu Thiyagalingam - In-Person Grade 4-5

Technically, this partnership was completed a while ago, but it was such an enjoyable collaboration. I wrote about it in late September, when I revised part of an old unit for reuse. I have to tell you that the final task, an auction, was an absolute blast! We had so much fun. What I loved seeing was the "growing of the groups" from pairs, to trios, and so on, until for the most popular property, everyone in the class combined their money together to make the purchase! I still have not posted the final reflection questions in their Google Classroom, but I may still do it to see if, months later, they remember the experience. 

Worth Effort? Time? Money? Pain?

 How do you determine an object's worth? What factors prompt you to accept or decline an activity?

The above two photos (of me using a barbell IRL at my CrossFit gym and online in my Animal Crossing New Horizons video game) might suggest that this post is going to be about physical activity. It isn't. As much as I gripe about going to the gym, I know that it's necessary for me to be active. However, it's a good visual for effort (physical effort in lifting a heavy weight), time (we go three times a week and it's still taking a long time to see the kind of results I want), money (it's not cheap for this type of gym membership) and pain (because I'm super-sore after a workout).

I asked myself about whether things are worth it in 2016 while working on the Spring Concert and in 2014 about the Red Maple Marketing Campaign. I ask this again in 2021 because of a few events this week.

Eye Surgery

On December 2, my husband had eye surgery to remove a stye that had formed. He was quite anxious about the procedure because he says he feels "squicky" about anything dealing with his eyes. The operation didn't require an overnight stay or general anesthesia. I picked him up from the medical building and other than being irritated at the large patch he was required to wear, which made wearing his regular glasses (and normal sight) mostly impossible, he was mostly okay. He wasn't eager to provide a lot of details about what occurred with the doctor, other than stating that it lasted fifteen minutes and was painful and uncomfortable. 

"Was it worth it? Would you do it again?", I asked him as I wrote this post.

"We'll see" was his reply. 

His eye had been bothering him for over a year and had been misdiagnosed at least once before the cause of the soreness, leaking, and sticky residue was discovered. Will it be a case of "short-term pain for long-term gain"? Only he will be able to make that conclusion.

Christmas Cards

Two of my December traditions (one old and one new-ish) are to write Christmas cards and make garlic pork. Those photos we had taken last week are inserts for the cards; finding cards that would fit them was another matter entirely. The usual store I buy my cards from only sells individual cards, not packs. I searched other stores. I found some in bulk but they were petite, square cards that could not fit a photo. I nearly purchased cardstock, holiday paper, stamps, and envelopes to make cards the right size, but my husband and daughter correctly pointed out that this solution would be costly in terms of time AND money. I finally found packs of twelve cards and cleared the store out of a particular cover style. (I'm particular - I like my cards I sent out each year to be identical.) I told myself I'd have to mention this to Doug Peterson to add to his "Whatever Happened To" blog theme; it seems as if mass-card-giving is falling out of style. 

"I don't want to launch you into a rant, Mom", said my daughter, when I asked for ideas on what to write this week, "But maybe you can write about how hard it was for you to get those cards. Was it worth your time, the effort, and the money to do it?"

"Good question", I answered. 

Like my blog, I create my Christmas cards for me just as much as for others. When I see my card posted on someone's door, or that my card prompts a reply, then I feel happy that I can share my pleasure in the process.

Garlic Pork

My parents are no longer able to properly cook extensive multi-step meals for themselves. I've prepared this traditional meal before, but this year, I realized I'm missing wiri-wiri peppers. Driving to two local Caribbean stores yielded no results. I'm going to need to take time and effort to search for the right size and kind of peppers. I even had to buy more mason jars to store all the pork I bought. If it turns out tasty, then the answer to "Was it worth it?" will be a resounding YES.

Possible New Student-Teacher

While at the TDSB TL Facilitator Day, I spoke to a wonderful fellow TL who also works part-time at the Faculty of Education for a major university. She said she was looking for host teachers for her teacher candidates and even though they aren't often placed with teacher-librarians, she'd be eager to offer placements if anyone was interested. I immediately told her to add my name to the list. Why'd I do this? After all, 2022 looks like it is going to be very busy. I will be juggling multiple AQs, hosting TL network meetings, and working with a student-teacher involves many responsibilities and lots of paperwork. However, I learn so much from the two teacher-candidates I had, in 2020 and 2021, that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to grow more as an educator.

Extra Reading

I talk about Jen Cadavez a LOT on this blog and that's because she helps me so much to do better and be better for our youngest students. I asked Jen if she'd be my "accountability buddy" because I had stalled in my reading of Zaretta Hammond's book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. She agreed and we set ourselves an ambitious timeline. We have to read three chapters a week and be prepared to talk about those chapters every Monday. We aren't required to do this for our jobs. We chose to do this. It means a lot of extra reading (and now that we are about to relaunch our school's participation in the Forest of Reading program, I've got a pile of books I have to read before January). Is it worth it? I say yes. I love how Jen will text me or make a comment as we pass in the hall about how a particular section of the book made her think hard. 

This naturally leads into education in general. Are the things we do in school worth the time, effort, money and pain that go into them? Someone tweeted - to my regret, I failed to save it to share it here - that the problem in education is that we keep adding things on our plates when we need to make it more balanced. Next week, when we continue our SIP Team professional discourse and planning time, we are going to talk about, instead of a "stop/start/continue", a "remove/rethink/repeat" series of considerations (related to equity). We have to remember that even if something is "fun", if it is not contributing to the positive growth of many students that maybe it isn't worth the effort. We can't keeping saying yes to everything, can we?

Taking Photos

 I love taking photos. It's a great way to preserve memories and capture moments. There were four main photo events this week for me (both in front of and behind the camera) in addition to the regular snaps I take during the school day.

1) I took "fun pics" of our Grade 6-7 and 7-8 students to use for photo collages for the digital Winter Concert.

2) I guided some Grade 2s in taking independent stop-motion mini-films for their social studies projects.

3) I received a sneak peek of some fabulous images from Christine Cousins (featuring me and my dear pal Wendy Burch Jones) that will be used in an upcoming issue of Voice magazine. (Sorry, can't share any of those yet.)

4) My family and I arranged a "photo shoot" with a talented and beloved family friend, Freddie Malcolm. I insert a photo every year into the Christmas cards I send out, and we had no decent pictures of the four of us to select. (I won't post the one we chose but I'll share a couple of others that were taken.)

A few stray thoughts:

a) Photography is an art (and a science). Freddie took note of so many factors while arranging shots, and also worked hard to make the photos as natural and informal as possible. He was the one that recommended the certain time of day to take the photos, and paid attention to the direction our house and windows faced. These "little things" matter.

b) Labels matter to some. I kept referring to our picture-taking time as a "photo shoot", which displeased my son. The term made it sound as if the "appointment" was a big deal, and that stressed him out. (This is why Freddie's calm presence was extra-beneficial.)

c) Colour vs black and white makes a difference. Compare these two shots. They aren't identical, but how does the "message" change when colour is added? 

d) We are hardest on ourselves. When Wendy and I looked at the photos of us, I was blown away by how absolutely STUNNING Wendy looked in almost every image of her, yet she texted me saying "I [Wendy] am horribly critical of most of the ones of me -- and think all the ones of you are gorgeous!"

e) Being goofy with friends for a camera can be fun. I took so many great pictures of the students clowning around with their classmates and it was hard to pick which ones to use for the photo collages. Would the experience have been the same if it wasn't in-person?

f) Some people love having their photo taken and some hate it. I'm a big ham so I don't mind posing for pictures. You can probably tell that I'm the minority with that opinion in the family. Look at my toothy smile. (Years and years of wearing braces gave me those teeth and I flash my pearly whites whenever I can!) 

g) Videos are twice as complex as photographs. There are so many more things to consider when taking a video. I really should begin with photo-taking before moving on to movie-making when I work with students. 

h) Sometimes little children can surprise you with what they create. I was skeptical and a bit scared to see what the Grade 2s created with their individual stop-motion animation. It looked like they were finishing way too quickly to actually have produced anything decent. However, when I looked at their clips, many of them were quite good. The topic was on how holidays, traditions and celebrations change, and we discussed - based on their request to focus on Christmas - how the contents of stockings were different in the past. 

I should not be surprised - Jane Dennis-Moore wrote a fantastic paper for Treasure Mountain Canada called If You Give a Kid a Camera that described the possibilities - but sometimes when you are harried with a flurry of questions, doubts creep in. I should also remember all the great things that Tina Zita did during her ETFO Summer Academy this past summer.

i) Photos don't tell the entire story. I'm reminded of my Kindergarten AQ course and our instructors Gail and Kenisha providing readings about pedagogical documentation that emphasized that it doesn't and shouldn't stop with just taking the photo. We need to annotate it with things we heard said, or what happened just prior to the photo. I need to do that more often with the photos I take during lessons.

j) Having good equipment helps. For the stop-motion animation, I remembered to bring my tripod and that made things steadier. Freddie and Christine had some high-quality cameras with impressive lenses.

Big thanks to everyone who helped out with these "photo events".