Year 2 team leaders present to Year 3 team leaders at June Orientation
June 22, 2009
Teams from the second and third years of the UDL project met at the Vancouver SET-BC office in June. On June 10th, the team leaders and the entire team from David Livingston Elementary attended a morning workshop by SMARTBoard trainer Jaimie Ashton on Differentiating Instruction Using the SMARTBoard. In the afternoon, Charlie Naylor from the BCTF spoke about the BCTF Teaching to Diversity initiatives and Action Research.
On June 11th, the year 2 team leaders presented to the incoming year 3 team leaders. UDL Project Leader Mallory Burton started off the day with interactive introductions using the SMARTBoard and an overview of UDL principles. Karina Younk (SD68) described her team’s journey from having no working technology to differentiating instruction using technology in an inner-city school. Jan Fraser (SD34) presented a unit developed by her team to introduce students to UDL by helping them to self-identify their own learning styles and writing preferences. This unit will be posted to the BC UDL LOR. Sharon Leung (SD34) showed how having UDL and a SMARTBoard has changed her teaching practices by showing a before/after version of an advertising unit she used with her class. This unit has also been posted to the BC UDL LOR. Jody Quiring (SD71) showed a video highlighting a number of her team’s successes with using e-text, claymation, and the flip video cameras. Jody’s unit on mythical Hybrids has been posted to the BC UDL LOR. Kathy Rice (SD58) showed how her team had implemented a number of Web 2.0 technologies including Voicethreads on student bullying, buddy reading via Skype, and tracking the Iditarod on a collaborative wiki with teams all over North America. Jason Stevens (SD19) presented a high school perspective on UDL, showing examples of student videos created in French class and the way he uses Kurzweil to display student work for group editing. Jim Batchelor (SD57) talked about how his team dealt with the many requests for information about UDL by presenting UDL cafes to other teachers in the districts.
On June 13th, the new team leaders learned about the logistics of the UDL project. Kerry Randle presented about the ARC-BC project and David Livingstone School principal David Brook shared his knowledge of best practices surrounding the purchase, installation, and training plans for SMARTBoards. It was exciting to see how far the year two teams had come in a single year, and there is no doubt that the year three teams will also have an exciting next year. The new teams are:
- SD 42 Maple Ridge: Mount Crescent Elementary K-7
- SD 46 Sunshine Coast: Halfmoon Bay Elementary Community School K-7
- SD 54 Bulkley Valley: Smithers Secondary 8-12
- SD 63 Saanich: North Saanich Middle School 6-8
- SD 79 Cowichan Valley: Khowhemun Elementary K-6
- SD 83 North Okanagan-Shuswap: Len Wood Middle School 6-8
- SD 84 Vancouver Island West: Gold River Secondary 8-12
