Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Author: Tracy Rosen

  • The Experience Project

    I just this moment discovered this project through facebook – in one of those ads that usually annoy the crap out of me in the left hand column (they annoy me because a) they are usually about finding an adult friend or signing up for some kind of scammy looking deal; and b) when I am at home on my weak little 512mb of ram machine they slow down the page loading process). This time though my eye quickly snagged on the idea of teacher stories that was in the headline, so I clicked.

    My click brought me to a page with this header image:

    First browse makes me like it – a site dedicated to sharing inspirational stories about teachers and teaching is a good thing in my books. Any time we share stories that touch our deep cores about what matters most to us as people we are one step (or maybe, actually, a million steps) closer to creating more of those kinds of experiences.

    Once I scanned through the first page I was drawn by ‘The Experience Project’ logo, I like the font, the colours – simple blues (not so sure about the anxious little character at the front, though).

    Took me a few moments to find out how to get to the project main page (maybe they need a link that is more obvious…) but once I did I was glad I got there.

    I definitely need to explore this some more, but Chalk it Up seems to be but one element of the Experience Project – a social networking site dedicated to sharing the stories that make up our most positive experiences.

    Pretty cool stuff. I’m thinking this kind of thing can be a great way to collect and preserve stories shared during an appreciative change process in an organization.

    I’m going to join and find out some more about it.

    Maybe you can too.

    If you do, I am harmonicagoldfish :)

  • Interactive Whiteboard

    A few months ago I found this interesting video about a home-made interactive whiteboard (a la smartboard) made by Johnny Chung Lee, from Carnegie Mellon University.

    Outside of the niftyness factor of making your own cool tool using a wii remote, this project can also create huge savings for schools. A smartboard can set you back from 1000 (without projector) to 5000 dollars (with all the bells and whistles, including integrated projector) , while this project, on top of a projector, will cost you about 45$ for the wii controller and a few extra dollars for hardware.

    This morning I found detailed instructions, including free software downloads for LED pen calibration to help ease the process, for building the project on Johnny Chung Lee’s website. Very cool stuff.

    Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wiimote

  • Amen of the day…goes to Jose

    with these words:

    You are the strongest lesson planned for me

    I try to remember this each time I am challenged by relationship, in class and out. I love how Jose strung the words together.

    Read them in their full context here: Thoughts Travel at Light Speed and scroll way down…way down, baby.

  • Can anyone say…TIRED?

    (image from: http://www.signaturebooks.com)

    The other morning a colleague pointed out that we have something like 33 more days of teaching. Those are going to be some long days. I am a tired teacher. And this is the worst time of year to be tired! Lately we have had some glorious days of 20+ degrees (that’s celsius) and sunshine and no one wants to be in the hot stuffy classroom. The students are restless, and so is their teacher.

    I also have a major project due tomorrow (though I may not have it in on time – can Saturday be considered ‘end of the week’? I think so…). The first of many to come over the next few years as I make my way through this PhD program.

    And I need to write a grant proposal for the school. So hard to think of next year’s activity when I am so tired!

    And, we had so much snow this year that we have no more PED days left in our year!

    Yup, tired.

    Fouund this on Squidoo:

    Tips for Tired Teachers.

    Haven’t read it yet. I’ll get around to it when I’ve had some rest ;)

  • History, Oh History…

    At the bottom of this post is a link to a series of question and study sheets, including some sample essay questions, for the Secondary 4 History of Quebec and Canada course in the province of Quebec. I’ve only uploaded the questions and study sheets for module 4 so far. The rest should be up soon – 2 wee things called report cards and final classes are taking up some time this week :).

    I love teaching this course, though I absolutely abhor the end of year exam that is attached to it. It is a high stakes exam – without it you just can not graduate from high school in Quebec.

    The course and the exam are supposed to change with the education reforms in Quebec, though now that teachers and parents are calling for a moratorium on the reform who knows when that might happen.

    For now, students (and teachers and parents) still need to suffer through the injustice of the course and its exam, with the convoluted questions that can drive even the most knowledgeable history student crazy. The course has a bad reputation because of the testing. Unfortunately this dulls the short, though vibrant, history of Quebec and Canada for our students.

    http://history.tracyrosen.com