The netbooks we are giving out this year are Chromebooks.  Chromebooks used the Google browser.  

Here are two videos that help explain what Chromebooks are.

The first one is a RAW unedited CBC clip that provides a simple introduction to devices.

The second one is a glossy,  info commercial produced by Google Chrome.  Incidentally, the Google Chrome YouTube channel has several videos that help explain Google concepts

Given the scope of this project, there are lots of things to discuss and debate as we learn how we might use these tools to enhance, evolve and expand learning in 2015.

More posts to follow...

Resources:

"RAW: What Is a Chromebook." CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 20 Oct. 2014. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

"Introducing the Chromebook." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

"How to BEST Define the 1:1 Classroom." InCare 11 Technologies. InCare Technologies, 09 Feb. 2014. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

As a Communications Technology teacher, I also like the VMA awards for what it can teach us about the industry.

My favourite moment was when Taylor Swift invited the director of Blank Spaces to the stage to help accept the award.

He goes on to thank the producers and crew that made it possible. What I love about this moment is that it reveals that work of the invisible people behind the Hollywood machinery.

Very sweet moment....

Before I talk about more of the VMA awards, I want to share Jean Kilborne's media literacy work. I came across it when I was working in residence life at university.  

In this Tedx talk, she quickly covers  her core argument that  commercial media, through its construction of the "ideal human body", is leading to the "trivialization" and "pornification" of  sex.

It also "normalizes dangerous attitudes" that impact people.

This talk is a great background to why the images in the VMA awards needs to be deconstructed. The VMA awards (just like the music videos it celebrates) are ads for mainstream music.

Of course, the VMA isn't all bad.  Just like commercial media isn't all bad. There are values and voices that can inform, educate, challenge, grow who we are as humans.  Media is. as always, too complex to treat  as either black or white. 

For example, a week ago on my Facebook feed I came across this acceptance speech by Ashton Kutcher. I knew he was married to Demi Moore and was on a TV show once but what he says in this speech makes me a fan.  I need to figure out a way to help bring it my students.

Core Message:
1. Opportunity looks like hard work and it is.
2. Being smart, thoughtful generous is sexy.
3. Build a life. Don't live one.

Planning for September feels like hitting the 'reset button', in life -- a new beginning, a moment to pause and consider next actions.


To accomplish some of my long terms goals as a teacher, writer and parent, I want to become a consistent blogger.


 Here my goals for this blog:

1. Practice my quick, reflective writing without getting bogged down in perfection. As Jillian Michaels says in one of her fitness DVD's, "Perfect is Boring." This relates to the work I need to do on my writing process as a new part-time MFA student.

2. Reflect on my role as a teacher in the Ontario Secondary school classroom in 2015. I hope that my posts can become a point of conversation for other educators, parents and students. I am especially excited by the new initiatives at WRDSB and I am very proud to be an educator in the Ontario public system.

3. Articulate ideas and reflections I have stored in my mind about all things that so that I canget them out into the world so that I might sharpen my thinking through conversation and dialogue.