Category: humanities

by Dave Scott, Grade 8 Humanities Recently I have been working on developing a series of integrated digital inquiry resources to support and enhance my grade 8 social studies and language arts programs. Here is my first attempt at a resource like this: [googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”viewer” query=”a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=false&embedded=true&srcid=0ByhAxBkEtrosNTY2NGI3ZTItOTZlNi00N2VmLTk0ZGQtNmU4NjNlZmJhYWNk&hl=en” width=”100%” height=”450″ /] My vision for this resources… Continue reading The Curricular Potential of Integrated Digital Inquiry Resources

By Ivy WaiteSocial networking has revolutionized the way that we interact with those around us, and educational networking is here to revolutionize our classrooms. Rather than networking focused on sharing personal photos and the latest scoop, educational networks provides teachers with a new way to facilitate collaboration among their students, and share in their learning… Continue reading Edmodo: Social Networking Reinvented!

As a school community, the Calgary Science School embraces the Alberta Minister’s Inspiring Education Vision for developing students who are: Engaged Thinkers and Ethical Citizens with an Entreprenurial Spirit We strive to embed these three characteristics into the learning experiences that we create for our students. From our own school community, perhaps there is no… Continue reading Engaged, Informed and Passionate

“New media provides powerful new ways of representing and manipulating information.” This quote, taken from the paper “Confronting the Challenge of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” by Henry Jenkins, suggests that digital tools and media afford teachers and students a variety of engaging and relevant ways to learn, create and express. With… Continue reading Remixing Worldviews

We believe that one of the key elements of inquiry based learning is designing student work with an authentic and purposeful audience in mind. It’s a key piece of the inquiry rubric that we use to guide our understanding of effective inquiry-based learning. We are continually trying to find places where student work can live… Continue reading Showcasing Student Work with QR Codes

Earlier in the year our grade 8 Humanities students completed a project where they retold a chosen novel in a graphic novel form. Our two grade 8 Humanities teachers, Dave Scott and Jaime Groeller, recently compiled all the materials they used for this project into an “integrated inquiry resource.” If you have an iPad, iPod… Continue reading Creating Graphic Novels

At a recent PD day, our staff had a lengthy discussion about iMovies. We’ve been a 1:1 school for 5 years, and had Mac labs for years before that – so our teachers have been doing digital storytelling in various forms for quite a while now. As the examples and uses of iMovie have spread… Continue reading Creating Trailers for Short Stories

Our grade 9 students recently completed a project where they were asked to take a complex idea (the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms) and explain it in a short, simple and entertaining format. To accomplish this, they used the Common Craft video format. What is Common Craft? Here’s the description of what they do… Continue reading Explaining the Charter with Common Craft