Monday 19th

Today was Election Day in Canada, it was a Pedagogical Day too, therefore there were no classes. We, the Spanish group, had a workshop, "Digital Resources Across the Curriculum" with Sam Bruzzese. Most of us wished it had lasted longer; we really enjoyed it and thought it was both fun and useful. 

Mr. Bruzzese believes in using technology to engage students at school; he also believes cell phones will be the technology of the future for education but he soon learnt that we are way behind for that in Spain. Here is why: he wanted to show us the use of a webpage, Poll Everywhere, which is based on texting, so he asked us to text him to start the activity going and we explained to him that texting is not free in Spain and that is the reason why most people use whatsapp. (In fact, when we arrived here, we were surprised to notice that most people send text messages, so that is why.) He went over the webpage with us but we coould not actually use it...

Next he asked us to take out our tablets - he had some devices for those of us who did not have one - and we did quizzes to learn how to use Socrative to create, give answers and assess multiple choice, true/false, graded short answers or open-response questions.

The third app we learnt about was Adobe Voice, with its own microphone, to produce short and simple videos and slide show style presentations.

As I mentioned before, most of us would have enjoyed staying there longer, but that was it. So off we all went and, since there was no school today, we decided to go downtown. We even knew where we wanted to go to and what we wanted to see but...

This is a video of one of Sam Bruzzese´s students - a class assignment in an undergraduate course, Integrationg Educational Technology in Classrooms. It was filmed at McGill University, a campus we are all familiar with, although not in snowy weather

We started at Jean-Talon Market, a farmer´s market in the Little Italy district. To our disappointment, many of the stalls were closed. We liked what we saw, though, because the products were nicely displayed and we were surprised by many of them, for instance,  the variety of pumpkins and squash (click here to know the difference between them)

As usual, everything was written in French... we had a few jokes about this: we are all afraid  we will greet our students saying, "Bon jour!", when we go back to our classes  ...

When we left the market, we meant to walk south St. Laurent Boulevard. but .... we headed the opposite direction, north... It took a while before we noticed it - we were so engaged in our conversations - and we ended up bordering Jarry Park a couple of times.... We had a few (many laughs) with this... 

We decided to get the subway (streets are several kilometres long in Montreal) and, when we asked a couple of kids from a school nearby where to get it (the metro, as they say), we noticed that these students wore no uniform but the prevailing colour was black.

We eventually found the subway, got off at Victoria Square to visit a part of the underground city of Montreal at the World Trade Center. We walked along the Ruelle des Fortifications, bordered by offices and some pricey stores, but a relaxing place with a black marble fountain and a piece of the Berlin Wall - donated to the city of Montreal by the city of Berlin to commemorate Berlin´s 350th anniversary. We took the last picture at the `Circulations´mural

And that was the end of our day...

Lunes: día de recogida de basura orgánica, compost, y restos de limpieza del jardín - siempre en bolsas de papel

Temperature in Montreal: 4ºC / -4ºC. It was really cold today, the cars were frosted over when we left home, and there were freezing cold gusts of wind during the day. 

Friday 9th

`O Canada´: National Anthem

Every single lesson today, but the last one,  was devoted to show students how to create a Google Sit,e to use it as a portfolio for their documents. To encourage them to pay attention and do it well, Mr.  Katz mentioned that those students whose Google Sites were updated by the end of the school year would get extra credit.

Choosing a theme for the google site

It was amazing to see how engaged and happy the students are in these lessons. They all seem delighted to work on their Chrome books. Mr. Katz introduced the lesson today explaining how useful it is to use the internet for school but he insisted that they should always do so with a good purpose. 

Apparently, 6 students were suspended at St. Thomas for two days -starting yesterday- because of cyberbulling online and Mr. Katz used this information to tell the students about the dangers of cyberbullying. 

Even though it looked as if Mr. Katz let them free to do what they wanted, it was not so, and a couple of students were sent out to the corridor for having done something that was not allowed (changing the wallpaper or searching for something inappropriate).

First of all, they had to take a self-picture for  their Google Site

Learning how to take a self-photo - in some groups, they were allowed to take a picture of a group

Next they had to write a 50-word description of themselves by their photo:

No students are left behind; when the students finish their task, they are asked to help those students who are stuck at some point. It is a very nice way of making students work cooperatively and, at the same time, keep the flow of the class.

Asking for help












Giving and getting help

 

At some point during the morning one of the administrators came in to distribute the photopackages; I did not get to see any of them but this is what they look like:

Today was the distribution day for the yearbooks, too; they include photographs of the staff:

Period 5: English 3 IM

These students had to work on their projects and they really did so; I do not know if it was because the class was with Mr. Katz today - and not with Madison, the assistant teacher- or because the projects are due next week but the truth is that there was a pleasant working environment in the classroom today - one student was sent our to the corridor, though, there were no shouts; he was asked to log out and after some time outside he was asked if he wanted a second chance then he was invited in again.

Most of them were working on this part of the project

So they were involved mainly with songs - creating a playlist of 9 songs and designing CD cases

But they had to refer to the novel quite a lot and it was nice to see them ask each other about certain scenes, pages or events or just getting the book to reread certain paragraphs or pages.

 

Next Monday is a holiday, Canadian Thanksgiving, so some students, the oldest mainly,  came to school wearing different objects related to this holiday

The colours of the Canadian fall:

Un animalito simpático para nosotros, una rata `para ellos´

Hoy llovió todo el día, pero había que hacer la cola del bus a la intemperie....

Temperature today :2- 10

Thursday 8th

As I came into school this morning, I noticed some boys walking along the corridors in their suits and ties. I was told there would be a football game at school in the evening and the boys in the team wear suits - or at least a shirt and a tie - to look professional when they show up to the game. By the way, they love it - just like they do for their graduation speeches with me.

Periods 2 & 3: English 1 IB

First of all, the students read the reminder on the blackboard: blogs (the next one, due tomorrow, is about Thanksgiving), test (Tuesday, 20 Oct.: they need a Hilroy Book for tests since no tests on a loose leaf will be accepted, and they need to write in blue or black ink, as it is a formal test; it will be an open book test so once again they are reminded of they way they must quote Shakespeare: act+scene+line); projects (videos must be ready to be watched in class on Oct. 26 - the project is group work but the reflections on the project must be done individually following the outline in `Google Classroom´).They are also reminded to bring their mouse to class tomorrow  because Mr. Katz is going to show them how to create their own Google Sites for their portfolios. I like the way teachers remind students of things over and over again: they tell them how to jot things down, what to include in their notes and they make sure everybody understands; I think that `we´ tend to say it one time and then mention it from time to time but not in a clear and relevant way. We take it for granted that they will remember and when/if they don´t, we get angry...

First activity of the class: students had to answer a question on their in-class writing books; this question was related to one of the scenes in AMNSD (= "A Midnight Summer's Dream): Have you ever been so upset, angry or annoyed that you have had to walk out/away? They had to write 50 words minimum in 7 minutes and they needed to focus on the situation and the emotions they had felt but they did not have to give too many details.

Once the students had finished, they left there books in a box (homework for the teacher - but, because of the protest, teachers do not spend so much time on correcting so, instead of getting the corrections in one or two days at most, students may have to wait fot a week or longer- unless Madison, the student teacher, corrects them in this case)

Next Madison chose the readers for Act IV, Scene 2 of AMNSD. As usual, there were lots of volunteers:

These were the lucky ones:

At some time during this lesson, a teacher came and asked for a chair for a student to write a test, why? I do not know and Glenn did not know. There was only one free chair so he sat at Glenn´s table to do it.

As the students were reading Act IV aloud, there was a fire drill. There are 6 fire drills a year in Quebec and one lockout (in case of a shotgun or a terrorist attack). So far, they have already had the lockout and 5 fire drills - including this one today; the last one will be in the spring. They do not do any drills in the winter: it would be too cold (the average temperature in winter  here is around -20 C) since the students leave their coats and jackets in the lockers . In case of a real fire in winter, they would go to the school next door,  Félix Leclerc or a church down the road - everything is planned. The good thing is teachers know in advance when the fire drills take place so they can plan their tests in advance. 






It was cold and little bit windy at times no students were wearing coats, but plenty of them were in t-shirts.

During recess, a former student of Mr. Katz came over to just talk to him. I find this so nice, all these students coming for small talk. 

Also, two girls came to ask for help to film a video for their project; they needed their cell phones, the whiteboard and the computer:

Period 5: English 3 IB

In-writing activity: `Tell me one thing that would make you happy right now´

While the students were doing the writing activity, Mr. Katz handed back a former homework assignment: a propaganda poster related for a character in Farenheit 451. These got 10/10 (and they were so proud when I wasked for their permission to take a photo of the posters!)

Mr. Katz read aloud quite a few pages of Farenheit 451, stopping from time to time to focus on some quotes or to make sure the students were following the story.As they were going over the dates of the next test and project, some students asked for a whole class to work on it, so they negotiated extra reading of the novel (pages 115-138) at home in exchange for a whole period for their projects next week.







Period 6: English 3 IM

The topic for the write-in activity for this group was: `If you were taken away from home for a long period of time, what would you miss the most?´Once more, this topic was related to the novel they are reading, Monster, where a boy spends a long time in prison.

This was the last period and this group, normally talkative, was specially fidgety (they did the planned reading, though) so Mr. Katz finished the lesson nearly 10 minutes before the bell rang. He told them they could just take some leisure time (they can never leave the room) but he played a mockumentary on his computer and in no time at all they were asking him to play it for all of them. This is the mockumentary they watched: `The Majestic Plastic Bag´ (The narrator is Jeremy Irons, so, enjoy the audio!)



Y las luces de la ciudad, a las 6:30 p.m.:

Temperature today: 8 (feels like 6)-12 (feels like 11)