inspire connect teach – ecoo 2009

My first ECOO (Educational Computing Organization of Ontario) Conference experience felt, at times, Just like Heaven (The ‘Tweetup’ with my Twitter comrades) and left me feeling a little Dazed and confused (Ian Jukes inspiring & dizzying workshops).

The common thread running throughout the two days that I attended would be best ‘ecooed’ in the 60’s Dylan tune The Times they are a changin‘.

Though mainly ‘preaching to the choir’ (many of the delegates had their own mobile device,  laptop, netbook or some other such ‘geeky’ gadget in tow) conference dynamos like Ian Jukes and Alec Couros both enlightened and entertained the masses assembled for the 30th anniversary edition of ECOO.

Using the Twitter hashtag #ecoo – many of the conference participants (myself included) tweeted during the workshops so that those who could not attend in person, could participate virtually.

Not waiting for the dust to settle from ECOO 2009 – kudos to conference chair @brendasherry and her committee members for all their wonderful work and for creating a post-conference wiki – ECOOnections – to help capture the energy, ideas, emotions and reflections that simmered, percolated and bubbled to the surface over the 3 day conference.

I plan on carrying the enthusiasm from ECOO 2009 into my role as ICT consultant for the Waterloo Catholic DSB and to my own workshop at the RCAC 2009 conference in December in London, Ontario.

What is your plan?

Let us go forth and continue to ‘marinate’ the minds and hearts of those with whom we work so that our students will ultimately benefit from our labor – otherwise, “The future is going to jump out at us and catch us with our paradigms down.” (Jukes).

BTW – I never saw the gorilla! (inside conference reference)

Photo: alykat’s photostream

Catholic educators must be ‘voices that challenge’

To effectively engage and evangelize the students in their care – catholic educators need to take the time to nourish and nurture their own souls.

The recent When Faith Meets Pedagogy 2009 conference in Toronto provided such an opportunity. From the richly inspiring musical stylings of the talented teacher-choir, to the animated youthful Haitian dancers, the grand ball room of the Double Tree hotel was alive and charged with the spirit of God.

The opening keynote address by Father Thomas Rosica, CEO and founder of Salt & Light Television Network, challenged catholic educators to be ‘Prophets, witnesses and lovers of life’ and to be true to the theme (‘Voices that challenge’) of the 2009 conference.

Craig and Marc Kielburger of Free the Children took center stage on day two and held 1,500 catholic teachers in the palms of their hands. Poignant stories of their teacher-parents and details of their precious encounters with such great souls as the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa of Calcutta moved many teachers from laughter to tears.

The Kielburgers urged their teacher-audience to tell their students that they are leaders and implored them to teach the 3 C’s – “Compassion, Courage and Community” – the keys to inspire our youth to make the world a better place.

The closing comments of Father Rosica’s keynote address are a passionate call for all catholic educators to be champions of hope and voices that challenge:

“Let us not be afraid to open our hearts to Jesus and to proclaim him to those around us.  We are his friends, ambassadors, witnesses, servants and prophets.  Your playing small in the Catholic School System of this great Province and in Canada doesn’t serve the world, the Church or the educational system.  Each of you is called to make manifest the glory of God.  And that glory is nothing small!”

Paint Your Dream in 2009-2010

Like an artist’s fresh canvas, the official start of the school year is usually rife with the promise and potential that new beginnings offer us. This year is no different. 

As a JK-12 Technology consultant for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board some of my main duties include:

1. Chairing the elementary and secondary software committees.

2. Co-ordinatoring the Elementary Skills Canada Regional Competition in
partnership with my Waterloo Region District School Board counterpart.

3. As the DeLC (District e-Learning Contact), I will assist student success
teachers as they use the ministry of education’s LMS (Learning Management System) to help students recover their credits.

4. Supporting teachers in their efforts to integrate technology in curriculum delivery. This includes technology such as interactive whiteboards and web-based resources (e.g. Learn360 video streaming, ExploreLearning interactive Gizmos, Adobe Connect etc.).

Other plans for the upcoming school year include:

- more blog posts

- refining my PLN (Professional Learning Network) on Twitter

- presentations on Using Web2.0 to develop a PLN at: the Educational Technology Conference at Nipissing University (Brantford), When Faith
Meets Pedagogy Conference (Toronto)

- completing the final course for the Master of Catholic Thought Program at St. Jerome’s University, then starting my thesis.

What will your painting look like? Carpe Diem!

Photo Credit: immarkcz

The Book of Negroes: To Hell & Back

I always began the same way. Unrolling a map of the world,
I would put one finger on a dot I had drawn to represent my village
of Bayo, put another finger on London and say: “I was born there,
and we are here now, and I’m going to tell you
all about what happened in between.”

And so it was how an elderly Aminata Diallo, the female protagonist in Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, always began to retell her life story to her daughter’s students during her Friday morning tales.

What happened “in between” is a soul and heart-wrenching saga. It begins when 11 year-old Aminata is captured by slave traders and brutally torn from her African village one day in 1745.

During the next three months she is marched on a grueling trek to the coast of West Africa, branded, sold into slavery and imprisoned on a slave ship that carries her and hundreds of her fellow Africans on a harrowing journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

Sustained mainly by her courageous spirit, intelligence, memories of her loving parents in their African village of Bayo and echoes of their stories and precious life-long lessons, Aminata witnesses unimaginable horrors during her ocean crossing at the height of the 18th century Atlantic slave trade.

Everywhere I turned, men were lying naked, chained to each other
and to their sleeping boards, groaning and crying. Waste and blood
streamed along the floorboards, covering my toes.

A seamless blend of historical fact and fiction, Lawrence weaves an intricate tale of human joy and misery that, at various points in his novel and in almost the same breath, evokes in the reader a potent mixture of hope, pathos, anger, burning indignation and despair.

Like a solitary cork bobbing and buffeted in an ocean current, when she reaches America, Aminata is used, re-sold numerous times and swept from one emotional abyss to another. Caught up in the last days of the American revolutionary war and between claims of southern plantation owners versus British loyalists, Aminata describes the humiliation.

I despised the Americans for taking these Negroes, but my greatest
contempt was for the British. They had used us in every way in their war.
Cooks. Whores. Midwives. Soldiers. We had given them our food, our beds,
our blood and our lives. And when slave owners showed up with their
stories and their paperwork, the British turned their backs
and allowed us to be seized like chattel.

In spite of the profound pain and unfathomable losses in her life, Aminata finds a way to move forward. It is this paradoxical clinging to life, light and the flickering hope of freedom in the face of crushing odds and, at times, impenetrable darkness that propels the reader head-long into the novel and to its compelling conclusion.

No doubt The Book of Negroes will ensure Lawrence an honored place in the pantheon of contemporary Canadian fiction writers, now and for many years to come.

Photo: eir@si

Harry, we hardly knew you

One never completely ‘gets over’ the loss of a parent, so much as adapts to the gut, heart and soul-wrenching void, and eventually learns to live with it.

31 years ago today (August 5, 1978) my father, George (Harry) Redfearn sailed off this “mortal coil” all too soon at the young age of 50.

Born in 1928 – my father was the first of three sons whose father was a gregarious, hard drinking, one-eyed (no, he wasn’t a pirate; he had a glass eye) great lakes’ captain (Capt. Ralph Redfearn) and mother, a tea-totaling Christian fundamentalist lady (Pearl Edwards). Proof that opposites do attract.

Here’s a photo believed to be of my dad taken when he was about seven years old. As you can see from the photo, a number of the Redfearn clan commandeered sailing vessels on the great lakes. My father would have likely followed in the footsteps of his father and become a great lakes captain as well were he not color blind. To become a captain one must be able to distinguish the various colors of flags on sailing vessels.

One of the few treasured memories I have of my grandfather Capt. Ralph (seated just behind and to the left of my father) was the result of the time I threw a glass of milk in his face for no apparent reason.  Instead of beating the daylights out of me (apparently I was one of his favorite grandchildren) without skipping a beat, he wiped the milk off his face and all he said was “well that was one hell of a smart trick”.

Thinking back on this incident now, I can laugh and see the source of some my own father’s incredible patience and good humor. Another favorite memory of mine is the time my father took us aboard a massive lake freighter in about 1968 (one of the Misener freighters) on which my retired grandfather ‘kept ship’ a few winters. I loved losing myself in the cavernous engine room imagining that I was in charge of the humongous vessel.

My dad met my mother (Kathleen Mary Woods) on a blind date in Colborne, Ontario and they eventually got married in 1949. My mom and dad are located in the foreground of the photo, my mom’s foster parents (Gerald and Gladys Fox) behind her and my grandmother Pearl behind my dad. I’m guessing that Capt. Ralph was sailing somewhere on one of the great lakes at the time or maybe he took the picture.

Like many young men of his generation, Harry’s parents could not afford to fund a post-secondary education for him. He worked for a time in a canning factory as a teenager and, when he had the chance, loved to golf, play hockey and baseball, all sports that I would also enjoy playing and watching to this day.

As a young husband he worked full time for a few years as a teller in a number of bank branches around south-western Ontario.  His forte for numbers and managing finances landed him a job as treasurer of Superior Sanitation Services (later acquired by Laidlaw Waste Systems) in Kitchener, Ontario in the early 1960’s.

My dad got me my first job on the back of a waste disposal truck in 1971. It was back-breaking, grueling work, the ‘best’ education I could ever have wished for. I will be forever grateful to him for that incredible life-long lesson.

In 1977 my father accepted a position as general manager of Capital Sanitation in Ottawa and moved there with my mom. They lived large in the nation’s capital for awhile. My wife Barb and I were able to visit them and spend a few memorable nights out on the town.

Less than a year later he began complaining of horrendous headaches, fell ill, was diagnosed with an inoperable giant cerebral aneurysm on the basilar artery and within a few short months and two unsuccessful operations, passed away, though not before instilling in me, my two sisters and older brother a strong work ethic, love of family and enduring zest for life.

Other gifts my father gave to me were a love of: reading, history, political figures (e.g. JFK, RFK, Winston Churchill etc.), space exploration, sailing vessels, Scottish bagpipes and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

We hardly knew you dad, but your influence lives on.

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” – Ecclesiastes

Photo: Harry Redfearn as a dashing young man