There is a lot to know about our school system here in British Columbia.  As a way to learn more about it, I decided to get involved with our local union branch.  I was specifically interested in being the TTOC Chairperson.  This year, three TOC’s nominated themselves, including myself, for this position; something that has never happened before.  The president of the union advised us that it would be more beneficial to only have one chairperson and a co-chair.  With this guidance, the third person could run for the secretary position or professional communications (PC).  Immediately I focused on PC.  Being secretary seemed like something someone with more union experience should do.  Of the three of us, who met at Starbucks one Saturday, it was mutually agreed upon, that I would run for PC.

At our union AGM, I nominated myself to the PC chair and was accepted.  I have three areas to focus on with regards to this position.   Monthly newsletter, website, and social media (Facebook and Twitter).

I met with one of the two current PC chairpersons last week to officially pass the responsibility over.

The first thing I read were 4 months of past newsletters, and our provincial collective agreement.  I learned a lot about our profession and the relationship we have with the Government of BC.  The collective agreement is long, but well worth the read.

I believe that this is a document that should be reviewed in University Teaching programs.  It is sad just how much the Teaching program that I took taught me anything about teaching.  It reminds me of a great Japanese proverb, “better than one thousand days of diligent study, is one day with a great teacher”.  I am starting to wander here, so I better end it.  Until my next post.

D.

says Albert Einstein.  It’s funny, from time to time, I DO feel like everything is happening at once, just not enough time to reflect on it and evaluate the meaning of it in our lives.

Yet again, I have been lazy with the upkeep of my blog.  Scrolling through my twitter feed, and occasionally looking at my profile, I see my link to this blog sitting there, passing time.  So much has happened since my last post, but I have a bit of difficulty figuring out what to write about first.

For the last three weeks of school, I was a substitute for one grade 4/5 class.  The teacher who was taking time off due to medical reasons, asked me if I was interested in this.  Of course, I was absolutely ready! I had previously worked with this class from time to time and had developed a great rapport with them; but before I knew it, it was all over.  I’ll post stories about this experience later.

As a Teach On Call (TOC), we are sheltered from the internal communication at any one school.  Being included in this communication ring during this past moth, really expanded my view of the communication that happens, behind the scenes.  I love it!  Previous to this small position, my inbox would maybe have 1 or 2 messages per week, but suddenly I was inundated with emails every hour or two.  I was a part of the ring!  It was great feeling.  I honestly didn’t realize so much was going on, and it suddenly sunk in, exactly why some of my colleagues cringed when the topic of email emerged.

Before I had “my own classroom”, I was running technology and math enrichment classes for all grades.  At one point I needed to send an email to all the teachers in the school.  It was a schedule.  It was simply meant to keep them informed of the times that the students they had personally selected to participate, were not going to be in class.  Having done this I still had to personally gather students from each class, using valuable time, and usually being met by the teacher with surprise.  I couldn’t figure out why they were surprised.  I sent them an email with the schedule.  Did I need to send out reminders emails and or use the meeting function in our email system? I wouldn’t think so.  Looking back now, I really should have.  What could it have hurt?  Another email?  No.  An attempt to keep communication rolling.

Having now been exposed to the internal school email ring, I can easily see how things get missed.  There is a lot.  Many of these email had nothing to do with me, but I still needed to keep up with the conversations.

Anyways, I think that is enough for this post.  It feels better that I wrote something now

D.

During my practicum, I was introduced to a very nice grade 4 student.  He has many difficulties socially and mentally.  This at times resulted in him being absent from school.  His class is extremely supportive of him and wanted him to return to class.  He had been away for 3 weeks when I heard an idea floating the hallway that students were thinking of writing him a card, letting him know that he was missed, and that he had a group of supportive friend’s that cared about him.  Immediately I had an idea.  Why not make a video?  Right away I found my camera and started recording a message from each student.  This was later mixed with the music “Thank you for being a friend”.  I had no idea how he would respond to the video, but I had a tiny bit of faith that it might just prompt him to return to school more often.  I can not post the video due to privacy issues, however I can post what his aunt (who takes care of him) had to say after she watched it:

“Well that was just the best!
 I can’t wait to show ***** tomorrow. I think it is really going to make him feel motivated to come to school when he sees what everyone says.  
Thanks to all of you for this fantastic encouraging video for *****.”

Reading this message, which was sent to me from the classroom teacher that this student is registered to (my final practicum mentor), was an amazing feeling.

It is safe to say now, that this video served its purpose, to some degree.  He has since returned to the school, only to do the things he wants to do, such as feeding the fish, baking, swimming and horseback riding.  His attendance in the academic world, with his peers, has yet to happen.  This video is by no means, the only thing that prompted his return.  He also has a very supportive and caring group of EA’s (Educational Assistant’s) that spend many hours working with him.  Their work is often easily overlooked/overseen.  I appreciate the hard work they put into their passion, working with students like *****.

Some people mock, or have negative feelings of this profession, however, I get to do what I love to do, each day, and be happy doing it!

I have now been working as a Teacher On Call (TOC) for 3 months, with a 2 week spring break and a few professional development/ non-instructional days mixed in.  What an experience!

There are so many things to write about I don’t know where to start!

There really is a sense of accomplishment when I arrive at school now and see practicum students in the hallway and staffroom.  It really feels good and makes me appreciate what they are going through, so I always make sure I offer my assistance.  I have been asked a few times, about the hiring process after graduation – what it’s like, what to expect, and things that can be done to increase probability of being hired.  Some of these questions are harder to answer than others.  What I have come to realize, is that these questions , are very ‘skinny’, as we would say in Elementary.  They are being asked as if there is a magic solution or answer someone is looking for.  The answer to these questions really come down to passion.  If you have the passion that is needed, have secured an interview, then the rest is the easy part.  Being able to articulate your passion for me was easy.  When someone wants to talk education, I am all in, and could go for days.

The next few posts will detail more of my TOC experiences.

Anytime we have to deal with the Government it feels like it takes forever.  It makes sense though;  I think many people are addicted to procrastination and take it out on any dealings they may have with Government because “I pay my taxes”.  Although I was not mad, nor irritated, just anxious, waiting for my Teaching Certificate felt like it was taking an extremely long time to be processed.  Just out of curiosity I decided to check on the Ministry of Education’s website for my name as a qualified teacher.  I had two questions:  1. What happens when someone who is not approved yet is searched for (as this is what I expected to see when I searched for myself )? and 2. Have I been approved yet?  I didn’t have to answer question 2. because my search for myself showed that I was qualified.  I hadn’t been notified yet, nor did my account that I log into show anything; so I decided to make a few phone calls to confirm what I was seeing.

To the public, it looked as though I was qualified.

FINALLY! But was it true?  So a quick call to Ministry of Education I figured would do the trick; sadly this was not true.  I had called at 2:30pm and everyone that the switchboard could transfer me to just entered a meeting at 2:30pm, but will be out at 4:00pm, closing at 4:30pm.  I figured that I would just wait and call back at 4:10pm; my subconscious wouldn’t wait the 1hr 40mins.  How could I verify this NOW?  Should I contact the school board? The Teacher Qualification Services?  Who?  My next call went out to the Teacher Qualification Services (TQS), the branch of the Government that decideds how much we get paid.  The man I spoke with said “I just processed your information this morning”.  I asked him if he knew when I might expect to see my TQS card; he said I should have it next week.  Excellent.  Now, how can I start working?  I know I have opportunities ready, it’s just that I hadn’t received my cards yet.

It was time to call the School Board.  I figured that if the public can look me up and it says that I am a qualified teacher in British Columbia, then I should be ready to go.  I emailed the school board asking them if there is any way of verifying what I had found out;  I received an email back 10 minutes later letting me know that I have now been marked as ‘active’ in the TOC callout system.  How awesome it was to read that email response.  Everything I have been doing for the past four and half years was now starting to pay off; i’m not negating how hard it is to get TOC positions in this district,  it’s just a milestone for me.

I didn’t call the Ministry of Education back at 4:10, instead I received a phone call from my mother saying she had some mail at her house from the Ministry of Education and did I want her to open it up for me.  It was my Teaching Certificate and Teacher Card.  It had been sent from Vancouver on Monday, I was calling on Thursday.  It is amazing how things work out sometimes.  Had I have checked the website on Monday I would have been working earlier, however I can’t look at it like that.  Everything happens the way it is supposed to.  Now I am just waiting form my TQS card.

January 23rd 2015 marks my first employment situation.  I was hired as a teacher on call.  Immediately after my interview at the school board office I jumped on the bus and made my way over to Cordova Bay Elementary where I was invited to attend a seminar on Inquiry.  PERFECT.  I am a very strong supporter of inquiry, however have very little understanding of it in application.  That can be left for another post I think.  The purpose of brining that up was to lead into describing the feeling of returning to the school after having spent 11 weeks there (9 practicum, 2 volunteer) and then breaking for winter break.  Returning to the hallways of the school was an awesome feeling.  As one Educational Assistant (EA) exclaimed “everyone is talking as if there is a rockstar roaming the school”, only a few students had seen me, however, like social media the word was out and it spread fast.  I know this would be the same for any other teacher that had been in absence suddenly showing up too, however this was my first experience with that.  Some students would take any opportunity they had to pop their head into the hallway at the chance they may be able to say hi.

I was on my way to the seminar when one young boy I had taught during my practicum caught me.  Of course, he persuaded me to pop into the classroom.  It was dead silent.  They were all deep into SURF (Silent, Uninterrupted, Reading, Fun) time.  It took about 10 seconds for them to realize I was there by one student calling out “it’s Mr. Ball”.  Immediately hands were up higher than ever.  Almost everyone had something to say.  The few with their hands down received eye contact and a smile from me, and I received one back.  On a side note, it was those students that didn’t  put their hands up right away that gave me extremely thoughtful gifts at the end of my practicum along with personal letters.  Some of the first questions asked were about the movie that I have been working on for them of all the pictures I had taken during practicum.  On the last day of my practicum I showed them a trailer of the movie.  They loved it.  Unfortunately the movie is not ready yet.  They will have it before the end of the school year though.  I reminded them of the real movie system, that it can take a while before a movie comes out after seeing a trailer, they agreed.  The next few hands-up I attended to were about some of the challenge questions I had left with them two weeks before I finished my practicum. Some had kept working on them.  Others wanted to mention that one of the questions didn’t represent a real life situation (price of hockey stick and puck: would be “much much more”).  In response to this great observation I turned the question around and asked them to change the question so that it would work with real world prices.  They seemed to like the challenge.  Another question I received was “why are you dressed up so nicely?” (I was wearing a full suit).  They were elated to hear that those reference letters that they had written for me when I finished my practicum really helped me; they aided in me in getting a job interview in their school district which means that I may be able to teach them when Ms.###### is away.  I explained that I had just come from that job interview which was why I was dressed up this way.  I had to stop the questions short as A. I was missing a bit of the seminar and B. I was breaking the U in SURF.  Walking down the hallway just about to enter the seminar room I hear another “Mr.Ball!” from a young girl in grade 5 who attended the Photography Club I had taught at lunchtime and was also on the soccer team that I coached.  Sadly I couldn’t stop and talk to her right then.

The warm welcome was not only from students, but from teachers, administration and parents too.  It really was a great feeling.  I have to admit, after finishing my practicum and winter break happening, I really wondered how the relationships that were created would stand the time away.  I know it was only a short amount of time, however I am not at the school 8 hours a day anymore.  It’s nice to know that I’ll be able to work there now as a TOC.

As I was one of the soccer coaches for the school we finalized the season with a Jamboree.  At the Jamboree I received a passing wave from a student I had taught during my first practicum in 2011.  She was in grade 2 then.  Amazing!  Now, do I remember her name?  No.  Does she remember mine?Maybe?  But wow, one of the perks of being a teacher, hey!

During my practicum I was often given a ride home from another teacher who had been teaching for 42 years.  We would stop at the grocery store on the way to my place.  She didn’t have to venture too far before someone she taught any # of years ago would stop her to say hi.

It was hard to see some of the connections with students when I was going full speed during my practicum, but returning again with some time in-between was the perfect icing on the cake.

Wow.  Time fly’s.  It’s nice to read back what I had written while I was in the throws of the Education program at UVic.  I really had intended to keep up with this blog, however, and as I was told by many would happen, it just didn’t work out.  This post marks the end of that journey and the beginning of a new one.  I am currently awaiting confirmation from the Provincial Government that I have met their requirements to work in BC Public schools as a teacher.

So what was missed in the past two and a half years?  Well, a 3 week practicum in a grade two classroom at Keating Elementary School, a 6 week practicum in a Kindergarten classroom at Lochside Elementary School, and a final 9 week practicum at Cordova Bay Elementary School.  All of these wonderful experiences plus full-time school and work mixed with a few musicals and concerts here and there. It was…well…WORTH IT!

This past week we had a history mid-term examination.  I must say that I have not had to write without interruption for 80 minutes, with a pen and paper that is, for quite some time.  I needed every second in those 80 minutes in order to answer the questions.  All two of them.  I could smell our papers burning as the clock ticked on.  I know I wasn’t the only one feeling this as this picture was posted right after the mid-term to our Facebook group: 

The comments that followed were all in support of this picture being a great representation of OUR last 5 minutes.

Now why do I bring this up on my blog?  Well during this flurry or writing I found myself reverting to the shortened online writing style of abbreviations.  I found myself having to pay attention more than I’d like as a way of avoiding this, however, I did find it difficult to keep my train of thought going at the same time.  Which brings me to the question: does post-education promote this skill as much as it should?  I mean, having the computer and being able to reshape our ideas instantly is really great and all, but when it comes to good old fashioned writing are we failing?

I think of all the times that I write.  I write to take notes (generally another shorthand method) I write to…………………well I don’t write all that often and if I do it usually is shorter than the standard 160 characters allowable by Twitter and text messaging.  A quick post-it, a sentence or two in my notes for class.

When it came to writing this exam I found it difficult not being able to “backspace”, I found myself having to scratch out my use of abbreviations.  Now I’ve read a few articles on this topic and found that this doesn’t seem to be a problem for children in school.  Is it because they have grown up with this parallel language?  I do believe that writing with pen and paper serves a purpose.  It forces us to formulate our thoughts into a clear and coherent way PRIOR to scribing it.  When we use computers/technology we are constantly involved in this process and therefor develop only a short attention span to the structure and outline of our thoughts.  I couldn’t imagine writing a 20 page paper by hand; I could however, imagine that we would have better writers and thinkers as a result.  Some may disagree but that’s ok.

I also draw on the point that due to the sheer amount of information we had to spew out and the time frame we were given that maybe naturally my brain adjusted to a quicker way of communicating what I was trying to say.  As the ideas built up waiting in line to meet the paper I found urgency start to kick in, coinciding with the use of abbreviations and shorthand notes.

That’s all for now!

Three weeks ago I decided that I would start a wiki on my blog as a way to connect with my classmates.  We all have pretty irregular social/work schedules so I figured having a common place that WASN’T Facebook would be a great way to study.  We had a History mid-term on the way and having very little background in Philosophy/History but realizing the power of learning from my peers, I posted my idea to our Facebook group.   Since it was a requirement that we keep a double entry journal for this course, I figured my classmates would post their notes and we could all benefit.

Immediately I had Facebook “likes” and nothing but great comments, but NO contributions from anyone other than me.  This needs time to sink in, so I left it for a few days.  I checked back a few days later to find no contributions from others.  Alright.  I added a few more details to the wiki and did a general outline with pictures for each Philosopher.  I’ll check back in a couple of days again.

This time I left if for a week.  Upon checking back, STILL no contributions.  Hmmmm.  At this point I am getting pretty discouraged.  Did I spend my study time creating something that only I use?  I was starting to think so.  At this point, I naturally fell behind on keeping it up and lost hope for it all together.

Three days prior to our History Exam I get a notification of a post on our cohort Facebook group.  It’s @ae_hicks and she was making an announcement to our cohort of the wiki page I had created and how she was really benefiting from it as she used it to study.  I check back to the wiki.  What do you think?  Any contributions?  Nothing!  Hmmm.

I was departing from my PE class when @ae_hicks and @lazarukk approached me to tell me how they really have enjoyed and found the wiki to be useful and thanked me for setting it up.  They continued to tell me that it hadn’t gone unnoticed as it may have been looking to me.   They assured me that many of our classmates had recently checked it out and had planned to contribute.  I’m now sensing a very strong passive aggressive mentality here.  Hmm.  Some had mentioned that they didn’t feel their notes would benefit anyone else.  I didn’t say anything.  I don’t want anyone to feel pressured or feel like they are onstage, rather get used to sharing their point of view or angle on learning with the rest of us, we do have much to learn.  Who knows, maybe I might understand your notes more than you might think!

The night before the exam, Thursday, I attended the John Abbott lecture at Uvic on 21 Century Learning and Teaching.  As I was using my phone to keep an eye on the Twitter feed (which sadly consisted of maybe 5 people 3 of which looked to be streaming it online), my phone died.  It was at this exact point that my classmates decided to start using the wiki.  Some were in pairs studying adding to the wiki, some were individuals just popping in to see what’s going on.  That’s ok too!  But what was more ironic was that Edublogs had done something to cause my site to be redirected to a Mrs. Watson’s blog.  Many were using it and suddenly it copped out.  Facebook and Twitter was now furiously sending out notifications to me about all this, however since I had decided to attend the lecture without first charging my phone I was completely oblivious.  As far as I was concerned everything was still the same on the wiki.  Sparse.

The talk on Facebook was about Edublogs possibly being “hacked” or something like it.  bmwallace17 even brought up the idea of creating a Google Document so they could continue anyways.  I really liked seeing that comment.  This is exactly what I want to see more of in our cohort.

Reading back the Facebook comments you can see the wave of frenzy in reaction to the event, the rationalizing, the questions and the collaboration for a solution.  All within the timeframe of one hour this occurred.  Edublogs corrected the problem and everyone realized that it was up and going again.  I also must note that there was much learning going on during this process.  Some people had questions.  For instance one comment was that all they could see was Deryck’s posts and no one else’s.  What she was reading was in fact everyone’s contributions.

So.  When I get home after the lecture I plug in my phone.  I thought my phone was having a seizure as immediately it lit up with over 30 notifications from Facebook (yes I Push Facebook notifies to my cellphone, but only the school related stuff).

I tried to go to my blog but it seemed to be doing the same thing to me even though everyone else by this time was able to access it again.  I logged into my account and messaged support.  Immediately they responded claiming they had done something on their side to cause this, that it’s been fixed and apologized.  Great.

The Wiki took off after all and I am so happy with it.  I figure that since there was an interest in it I created an actual wikispace for each of our classes.  Wikispaces has many more options and administration controls than that of edublogs (unless I’m missing something).

I have now created:

311.wikispaces.com

301.wikispaces.com

303.wikispaces.com

305.wikispaces.com

307.wikispaces.com

I realized afterwards that we really only need one or two of these classes to be a wiki, however having them there ready to go may spark some ideas from others that could be useful.  So who knows.

I plan on keeping the history wiki going for the rest of the semester as we have a cumulative exam.  I hope now that my classmates will use this for their weekly notes and comments on the readings so we can again use them to study with later on.

All in all I am extremely happy with this and my classmates.  Thank you to those of you who were active in gaining momentum on this.  It’s much appreciated.  I hope you can take something of this with you to your future classrooms.

I can’t wait to work with @natashakardos and @angelliu16 on our Psychology project on the construction of gender.  We want to utilize some technology such as Google Stories Search Creator, Wordle, visible tweets and QR codes, but that’s for a different post.

-Until then.

I sent the following to my cohort of 30 at the University of Victoria.  It was sent via a link on Facebook that directs them to a Google Form that I created as a means to getting all of them online with the Educational Network or PLN that is out there on TWITTER.

It’s not what you’ve heard, it’s what you make it! Twitter that is!

I’ve been thinking. I have found so many resources online and made many connections all over the world with Principals, Vice-principals, Superintendents, Teachers, Leaders, Educators and Authors, to name a few. What baffles me is how so few of you, my classmates – I actually like to think of you all as colleagues – participate in all this good stuff. There is very little “pre-service” presence on the Educational PLN. I think it would be awesome to be a group of pre-service teachers utilizing Twitter and other social media collectively, both for learning and fun! So, with that being said, consider joining us on Twitter. I’m kinda bent on getting everyone in our cohort to get with the program. Now. I know there are some of you saying to yourself “I don’t know a single thing about Twitter, I have no time, I don’t want to hear about the Kardashians’ breakfast…or do I?” Some of you may have already been interested as a result of our EDCI 336 class, but felt kind of lost. I ask you to consider joining with us. There are many quick tutorials on Youtube for starting up with Twitter. See link below for one I recommend first. As there are varied experiences with Twitter in our cohort already, I think it will be easy to get everyone up to date on the Twitter language and logistics. We seem to have a solid grasp of Facebook, let’s now explore Twitter. I think we have 30 people in our cohort, right? My goal then is to get all 30 of you on Twitter. Time for feedback. If you read this and think to yourself “yeah right! or no flippin way man! or he’s making a fool of himself” (thank-you Phil, for the mantra:”embarrassment is temporary”), please tell me by indicating below. If you’re even the slightest bit interested and want to hear more then please let me know. I Recommend this link to start with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDUF-qFsEno&feature=player_embedded#!

*Note: Although I do like to use Twitter, I am in no way a pro. I am still learning myself, and always will be. I might also note that Valerie Irvine and Jillianne Code have made Twitter use a MANDATORY part of EDCI 336 this term and from now on. Now let’s keep up!

Thanks for reading! Deryck