Elizabeth Wallace

Wow, Tamara. I Can't begin to tell you how impressed I am by the activities you describe. I have a 14 month old grandson who is (of course) wonderfully curious and bright, and I've begun to dread the day when he would have to go to school. I'm encouraged by the fact that there are teachers like you in the system, and hope that the approaches you use will be adopted widely. Thanks for telling us about them.

How encouraging to read that you are building communities in your classrooms, Tamara. What a huge difference from when I was an elementary teacher in the last century! I so disliked the teacher directed, administration dictated model of teaching that was expected then that I put my teaching certificate in a drawer and swore I'd never teach again.

And then I discovered Adult Education, and what I loved most was the bonding that happened between the adults because of shared life experiences, common goals and so on.  But adults are usually (not always) self-directed learners and many have developed the kinds of skills needed to join, build and thrive in a community of learners. Isn't it difficult with elementary aged children whose social networking skills are only just emerging? Please share some strategies you use with them

I am chairing a working group that is developing some guidelines for classroom observation. We are gathering input from others who have experienced success. Please tell us how the observations were structured, and what approaches were used. Suggestions very welcome!

I still consider myself a newcomer to British Columbia, and an even newer member of the UCIPD network. As I understand it, the UCIPD members have been a loosely knit community for quite a while and many are looking for a way to create closer ties.

At SFU, our Learning and Instructional Development Centre (LIDC) is undergoing quite a few changes, and we would value input from other centres like ours. Rather than exchanging emails, we'd like to see all the discussion housed in one place, with resources and links all easily accessible.

I'd like to suggest that the UCIPD members consider using SCoPE as their "home" for a month or so, to see how useful and feasible it is. What do you think?

Like Karen Ragoonaden in another workshop, Phil gave us a glimpse into the Knowledge Forum online platform that is being used in the Faculty of Education at UBC. Phil is using the software with his graduate students to foster discourse.  It allows students to post comments and receive responses from co-learners.

One of the questions that came up was the issue of debating sensitive issues in a public forum. That led to the question of whether an online forum built for a class is really public debate. What are the questions about confidentiality that we should be asking when we ask members of a community to "speak their minds" online?