Do you know these people?

Meet the online learning team!
From left to right: Debbie Mielke, Erin Roy, Kelly Haydukewich, Kona Bryson, Ted Green.

We celebrate every day, every time another person completes a course. This year we expect more than one hundred learners to complete courses through the online school at edcentre.ca.
In almost every case these are opportunities that would not be possible without a flexible approach to accomodating individual circumstances and schedules.

Completing high school means moving on to new opportunites. We are proud to be a part of the process and we are constantly discovering new possibilities through Internet based communication tools.

At our staff meeting yesterday we talked about getting out to communities to provide information and demonstrate how online learning environments and resources work. Stay tuned this spring for local news about sessions in regional centres across Northern Saskatchewan. If you are interested in hosting a demonstration in your community, please give us a call at: 1-888-299-5680.

Got something to say?

Canada wants to listen

Produce a short on-line video on what you think is the most important global issue affecting the real world.

HAVE YOUR SAY

visit http://www.videochallenge.ca/ for contest guidelines, video and other resources.

can you raed tihs?

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Where's Kelly?

Northern Saskatchewan has some of the best ski trails in Western Canada. This is one of the reasons why the Western Canadian Ski Championships are being held at the Don Allen Trails near La Ronge this week.

Kelly has attended countless meetings and put in many volunteer days leading up to this event. He is at the races wearing his edcentre.ca hat this week. We hope senior math and physics students are able to function without his assistance for a few days.
If you would like to see what is going on, follow the link to the Western Championships website: Where is Kelly?

Math students working on problems related to slope can easily find some direct application on the ski trails at the Championships. Ask Kelly for a fresh interpretation when he is back on Monday.

Air Search

Sometimes we get called away from what we are doing.
This happened to me yesterday while I was busy checking online activity responses. I was called away to arrange an air search for an overdue plane.
Every search is a new adventure with a different outcome. Yesterday was no exception. We were able to fly in a plane with skis and land in 3 different locations. The adventure had a happy ending as we were able to locate the plane and the pilot both in good condition.
Hopefully no one missed me. I see that the activity responses continued in spite of my absence. I was able to open responses this morning that had been composed yesterday afternoon while I was up in a plane. What fun!!!!
If you are interested in Air Search and Rescue, call me at the school. We are always looking for new people to help with searches.

February Break

For northern high school students this is the February break. Teachers working for Northern Lights School Divison are in Saskatoon attending workshops and presentations.
This is a perfect opportunity for high school students to get caught up or get ahead with online course activities.
For adult learners, not much will change this week except for parents who must turn their attention to children at home during the break.
Give us a call at the school if you have questions or need help with online activities.

Family Day......
Image source:Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

It is Family Day in Northern Saskatchewan and all the stores are closed. Last year was the first official Family Day in Saskatchewan. This is a time for family togetherness and quality time. Get out and play some street hockey, make a snow fort, have a winter picnic around a nice warm fire, go ice fishing.........call family members who live in other locations. Appreciate the fabric of family.

Encouragement

Anyone can give up..............

it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength."
-Karen Ravn

You can only get there if you keep going.

We can admire learners who force themselves to keep coming back to complete course activities in spite of distractions and obstacles in their lives. Working on your own is never as easy as it sounds. You face your own demons and find that you are the only one who has the key to getting where you want to go. We are all responsible for our own success or downfall.
.....Keep moving forward one step at a time. Thank yourself when you get there.

Happy "Day after Valentines Day"!

Teacher Appreciation Day

Did you know that it is teacher appreciation day today and we are all being treated to lunch at Northern Light office? Every year our employer gives teachers a little something just to say thanks - I wonder what they are giving us this year?

Responsibility: What do YOU think?

My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny.
-Elaine Maxwell


Do you think this is true? Do we react as life "happens" to us or are we the authors of our own success or misfortune? What is the key to success in an online learning environment?

A Little Bug

The edcentre.ca school server was unavailable Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning (February12,13). We were very happy when learners called the school to find out what was happening. If you were one of the people who called to report the problem, congratulations! You are one of the people who are programmed for success.

Fortunately the problem was a "little" bug in the classroom management program. Unfortunately little bugs are often hard to find.

Thanks to Roland Corrigal, our technical support person at Northern Lights School Division everything is back to normal. Roland tracked down the bug and has "exterminated" it.

Everyone should be able to log on, post to forums, respond to activities, check grades, and all of the other things you regularly do in the online learning community.

We hope that this didn't cause too many upheavals for learners at the online school.

Hi Everyone,
Hope you are staying warm out there.
Kona

End of first semester assembly

NEWS from the “End of the First Semester” Edcentre.ca ASSEMBLY

We had 21 students attend our assembly on Wednesday February 6, 2008. For those of you who missed the assembly you can watch the recording by clicking on this link: http://breeze.edcentre.ca/p52668059/

We put 30 students into the completion draws that finished one or more classes in the first semester. There were two lucky winners: Melodie Sewap from Pelican Narrows won a personal DVD player and Gillian Linklater also from Creighton won a MP3 player.

We also picked out four more names from the completion draws for smaller prizes from our Edcentre.ca clothing/gear (see picture below). The winners were Rachel Madsen from La Ronge who picked out a camouflage hoody and Kimberley Nagyl also from La Ronge who picked out a gym bag. The two other winners were Andrea McCallum form Cole Bay and Anthony Polley from Chaplin.

We also recognized nine “Superstars” from our school and made a draw for them as well. The winners were Jill Froehlich from Chaplin and Chelsea Moar from Denare Beach.

All the assembly participants were also put into a door prize draw and Margaret Sewap from Denare Beach, Brittany McCallum from Ile-a-la-Crosse and Jeannie Highway from Pelican Narrows were picked out.

The winners need to let us know what they want for their prizes and let us know. If anyone wants to order anything from our Edcentre.ca gear they can also let us know. Congratulations everyone and thank you to all participants.

In the assembly we asked people which is better Bebo or Facebook? Most people picked Bebo so our school staff at Edcentre.ca is going to add themselves to Bebo. We’ll let you know the link when we complete it.

EMAIL DRAW
If you fill out the questionnaire below and email it back to us, we will put your name in the draw for your choice of Edcentre.ca Gear. Deadline is February 29th, 2008. (Yes it is a leap year.)

1. What day of the week and time of day would be best for you to attend our online school assemblies? (Remember our office hours are Mon-Fri 9-5).
2. What kind of prizes would you like to win? (under $50)
3. What kind of Edcentre.ca gear should we have for sale?

Email this back with your answers to be put in the draw for a prize.



EDCENTRE.CA GEAR

Almost everything you need to know is online

Here is a lesson I keep learning over and over........almost everything you need to know is online.

One of the online learners was figuring out how to hook up a laptop to her cable connection. My main role is an online teacher, not a technician, but there are things that people end up needing to know every once in a while, and Google often saves the day.

Is your computer connected to Cable?
Checking for your MAC address is one of the things that come up every once in a while when someone changes computers and is connected to Cable.
I keep forgetting that I can find the answers to almost anything using Google. I caught myself reaching for the telephone to bother a technician with this little detail. Instead, I "googled" how to find a MAC address, and came up with the following instructions:

(click Start, then Run, then type cmd in the text box.)
Type in ipconfig/all in the Command Prompt Windows.
The 12-digit Physical Address is the same as MAC address

I hope I can remember this lesson now........when in doubt, you can probably find a fast answer by using Google.

Tawaw

This blog is the result of talking about how to promote a more interactive online learning community. We hope that everyone feels comfortable posting replies and comments here.

If you have ideas that you would like to share please let us know.

We hope that this site will keep you informed about what is happening around the online school. This site may provide an opportunity for everyone to share ideas, opinions, pictures, video from around Northern Saskatchewan.

If you have something you would like to post here, send it to school@edcentre.ca