by Donna Miller Fry (@fryed)
Earlier today, I read a post on the importance of the language we use when we talk about education. It made me think about some of the listening I have done this year when I ask educators why they are not using social media for their professional learning. At the OPC/CPCO/ADFO Symposium in November, many school […]
2014 is coming to a close, and as I read the many excellent reflective educator “end of the year” blogs, so many are asking how to move forward in 2015. There is no simple answer to that question. What will it take to transform our schools into the centres of learning our children need? What […]
This month, most of my writing time has been spent on a daily blog for OSSEMOOC, the project I co-lead with Mark Carbone in our current roles with OSAPAC in Ontario. We say that “connected learners need connected leaders”. We work every single day trying to convince education leaders in Ontario that they need to become […]
“I have a dream.” Millions were inspired by those words. Now if Martin Luther King had said, “I have a strategic plan” or “I have a set of performance indicators”, do you think the effect would have been the same? It is a dream, or a vision – a shared vision, that motivates groups of people […]
I wanted to tell a funny story on this Labour Day. I will share this entertaining piece instead: Teachers Don’t Sleep on Labour Day by @albertfong I have plenty of my own crazy tales, of course, having spent nearly 30 years of Labour Days ignoring my family in spite of it being my daughter’s birthday, our wedding anniversary, a […]
Why would we want to exclude other educators from our professional learning network? Stephen Katz, in his book Intentional Interruptions, discusses the problem of confirmation bias when it comes to professional learning. It is our tendency to “only look for things that confirm rather than challenge our beliefs and practices“. We need to make […]
It’s harder to follow than it is to lead. Leaders have passion for what they do. They have practiced sticking out their necks, taking risks, trying new things, and failing. For leaders, being the lone dancer in the crowd is their norm. Dancing to the music is the right thing to do, even if […]
A few weeks back, I was asked to work with some educators who were at the senior management level in their board. They told me that they wanted everyone in the organization to model the kind of learning they wanted to see at the classroom level. We were specifically working on ways to make thinking and […]
Over the past month, I have been blown away by all the connections and networks that are developing in the work that I do. Recently, I shared one of those stories on the #OSSEMOOC collective blog (June Pic and Post). Playing with Metaphors: The Ripple.
That “stop smoking” commercial, the one where the woman is at an almost empty high school, talking about how this is where she started smoking, and this is where she is going to quit, shakes me up. Why in the world do kids start a life-threatening habit in a place of learning? Shouldn’t we expect high […]
