{"id":1182,"date":"2013-10-27T18:43:48","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T01:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2013-10-27T20:09:56","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T03:09:56","slug":"the-story-of-how-i-found-my-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/?p=1182","title":{"rendered":"The Story of How I Found My Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Diana Williams with Bob Harris.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have a confession to make.<\/p>\n

I’m terrified of flying. After the harrowing experience of a “non standard landing” (translation: plane crash) I had had a difficult time with flying. If I had a choice between a three day camel ride or a flight, I’d take the camel. No question.<\/p>\n

But this sunny Friday morning before the Thanksgiving weekend, there was nothing that could stop me from getting that airplane to San Fransisco. \u00a0I had to get there, the faster, the better!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So as I was sitting at the back of the plane, trying to remain calm, my mind wandered back to where this all began\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started with a single tweet\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I can remember so clearly the words of Bill Ferriter as he began his talk about teaching the iGeneration at our District Engaging the Digital Learner Dinner Series on a dark, cold evening in January.\u00a0 This was my first year attending the dinner series and my first year as a \u201cconnected\u201d educator.<\/p>\n

I had already had the honor of learning from great thought leaders such as Alec Couros, George Couros, Dean Shareski, and Shelley Wright.\u00a0 I had visited Apple Canada to learn about Challenge Based Learning.\u00a0 I had connected with a peer group on Twitter, and learned about the passions of my colleagues such as Global Classroom (Robyn Thiessen), Genius Hour (Gallit Zvi and Hugh MacDonald) Voice and Choice in Primary (Karen Lirenman) and Authenic Formative Assessment (Anne Middleton) and was making huge changes in my teaching practice.\u00a0 \u00a0The leadership in the Surrey School District is doing such an amazing job of giving teachers and administrators opportunities to learn and grow.<\/span><\/p>\n

I loved how my classroom was now a place of curiosity and connection.\u00a0 Something was still missing though.\u00a0 I had yet to find something that was truly my passion.\u00a0 Bill spoke about authentic learning tasks and how from reading a single tweet about KIVA on Christmas morning, he had used the KIVA lending platform to engage his social studies students in real life learning about other cultures, poverty and social change through microfinance.\u00a0 My jaw dropped.\u00a0\u00a0 This was truly where my heart lay. \u00a0I remember looking across the table at my Principal, Carrie Burton who shared a similarly stunned expression and blurted out to her, \u201cwe are so going to do this!\u201d\u00a0 And just like that, the next thing Bill said, \u201cif any of y\u2019all want to Skype with my KIVA club, we would be happy to.\u201d<\/p>\n

So of course we did!\u00a0 It took me a little bit to work up the courage to email Bill and ask, but as I should have known, his offer was genuine.\u00a0 He was authentic, down to earth and so approachable.\u00a0\u00a0 He offered resources and advice and soon my fantastic grade three group was ready to Skype with Bill\u2019s club.\u00a0 The Skype went really well and his club decided to send us a very generous gift card to help us get started.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we worked on needs vs. wants, community services and culture from the grade 3 social studies curriculum using Kiva as our anchor point, we also experienced hands-on learning about micro lending by taking out a small loan to buy beads to make bracelets to sell as a Kiva fundraiser. (you can read the project details here<\/a>).\u00a0<\/strong>Over the course of a few months, my little Kiva Ninjas had made over 20 loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, and their legacy continues today.\u00a0 The fact that 8 year olds from an inner-city school in Surrey can bring opportunity and hope to someone half way around the world through their school work, fills my heart with joy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>We had promised Bill\u2019s SMS Kiva club that we would make a little video to share about our learning though Kiva as a thank you for the generous gift.\u00a0 And, as luck would have it, my \u201cconnected educator\u201d Vice Principal, Tia Henriksen had the perfect connection for us.\u00a0 We had the great honor to work with Dean Shareski to make our video.\u00a0 (You can read about our day here<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We recorded a song that we had re-written the lyrics to and then Dean taught us how to use green screen technology with Discovery Education video footage to tell our story.\u00a0 (Another huge learning curve for me, you can read the blog post here<\/a>) .<\/strong><\/p>\n

We uploaded our video to youTube, \u00a0and shared it with Bill\u2019s club and our friends and families.