In my last post, I made the classic teacher complaint/observation that a few minutes spent working one-on-one with a student is much more effective than an entire day of trying to teach to a room of 30. Eggers also believes that and as his TED Talk will show, he’s put that belief into action and transformed after-school tutoring in the process.
Visit TED Prize for more on Egger’s wish and Once Upon a School to see what you can do to make it a reality.
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As I move forward with my teacher education, one of the key issues I keep reading about is student disengagement. Over the past few weeks working in a grade 5 class in Toronto, I’ve seen that disengagement first hand and much of it has been my fault. Part of my job is not only to teach the curriculum to students but to also make it relevant to their lives. I’ve got to answer the question: “Why are we learning all this stuff?”
I try to work that into each of my lessons, but math is one subject where I often forget to do this and it’s resulted in a few not-so stellar lessons. This week I remembered to answer that question and it turned a potential math disaster into one of my most enjoyable lessons yet.
This is a great surprise and very great honour for many reasons. Not least of which is that Hackmatack winners are chosen by the kids themselves (like the Silver Birch Award here in Ontario.) There is something truly special about knowing that the folks picking the winning book are the very ones for whom the book was written. I started writing for kids not only to tell good stories but also to foster a love of reading in young people. Competitions like the Hackmatack have the same goals in mind and it’s an honour to have my work be a key part to such a great literacy effort.
Another reason that I’m thrilled to be nominated is because, as far as I know, it’s the first time a graphic novel has been included among the nominees for a Canadian children’s book award (I’ve done absolutely no research on this, so could be totally wrong.) I thank the Hackmatack nomination council for being so open-minded to see the potential for graphic novels to engage readers on the same level as traditional books.
And of course, there’d be no Wild Ride if it wasn’t for the fantastic work of Mike Deas, whose illustrations give the whole Graphic Guide Adventures series that totally kickin’ look and feel that kids are obviously loving. Thank you Mike and I hope you’re enjoying the nomination as much as I am.
Also, big congrats to fellow Orca authors, Hazel Hutchens and the amazing Anita Daher, whose books for the Hackmatack Award too. I am definitely in good company.
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“Sid Meier pointed to the personal computer, Sim City, and Nintendo’s Seal of Approval as the three most important innovations in gaming history.” Not sure about the Nintedno thing, but I’m down with the other two.
I’m liking the mix of real and virtual worlds here, but I think the idea to base it around chores is going to make it a real tough sell with the kids. Seriously. Pretty soon, they’ll figure out that there are online worlds where their parents can’t bug th
“Soon real buildings will be monitored and taken care of remotely through cyber replicas on the net — and their inhabitants too.” Late on this, but still too cool to pass up.
“Do I really want the storytellers that are educating my children to be Sony, Blizzard, and Electronic Arts?” he said. “I think there are a lot of wonderful games out there that have good messages, but I think we as educators need to enter that market and start to develop compelling stories that kids will want to adopt.”
I just finished presenting Chillin’ at Club Penguin to a small but enthusiastic group at the OISE Dean’s Conference at University of Toronto. Happy to say that it went well, despite a few setting-up tech glitches (aren’t there always?)
Once myself and my fellow panelists got rolling, we explored how the theories of critical literacy can be applied to children’s in-school and out-of-school texts. For my part, I looked at virtual worlds for children, specifically Club Penguin.
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about
Award-winning children's author and educator specializing in creating curriculum relevant media for young minds.
Visit the books & graphic novels page to see everything I've written.
I just received word yesterday that my new graphic novel, Wild Ride, is nominated for the 
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