This is a post that was submitted by Daniel, one of my grade 5 students. The students have been challenged to write about their efforts to do at least one good deed per day, but Daniel took it a step farther and reflected on why we're doing this in the first place.
The Reason I Think We are doing 25 Days to Make a Difference
I think we are doing this to show that little things make a huge difference at home, at school, in your community and globally. If you do things like set the table for din…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on December 2, 2009 at 1:38pm —
2 Comments
This post was created by Erik, a grade 5 student:
November 25
I made a difference by doing a couple of things they are:
1. I gave the ball to Mr.Poluk in volleyball so he did not have to walk to the other side of the gym. This w…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on November 27, 2009 at 11:56pm —
4 Comments
Here is a blog post created by Michaela, one of my grade 5 students, outlining what she did on day one of our 25 Days to Make a Difference Challenge (I will try to provide daily samples of student submissions throughout our challenge):
Today is the kick-off of our making a difference program . For some this may seem challenging , but sometimes you make a difference and you don't even know it !!!!!! Our class is following Laura Stockman's example to prove that one ch…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on November 26, 2009 at 11:03am —
No Comments
I haven't blogged on this space for a while, and I certainly apologize for my lack of activity, but I've had an interesting start to my school year nonetheless. District-wide reorganization has resulted in me teaching in three different classrooms in term 1. Although this has disrupted the flow that I would normally be striving for at this time of the year, things have settled to the point where I have been able to begin to integrate service learning into the curriculum, and my students and I wi…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on November 23, 2009 at 5:07am —
2 Comments
A message was sent out recently to all members of this ning by Jenny Luca suggesting that connections be made between classrooms and teachers willing to collaborate on service learning initiatives. I'm glad that Jenny suggested this because I agree that this is an important next step in the progression of this community. There are several amazing projects underway that could lead to inspired conversations between teachers and students, so I think that we have a great opportunity to use social me…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on September 16, 2009 at 1:44pm —
1 Comment
Now that I'm almost halfway through my summer holidays I've had a chance to reflect on the experiences my students had with their Making A Difference program. I also want to add my personal perspective to
Angela's recent post in which she ponders how to inspire students to take a self-directed and self-motivated approach to service learning.
In her post Angela states that serv…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on July 24, 2009 at 2:21pm —
2 Comments
Now that the school year is over and summer holidays have begun, I am reflecting on what my grade 5 students have accomplished during our Making a Difference program. I have posted previously about our efforts to raise money and awareness for the
Light Up The World Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing energy efficient lighting to third world countries not connected to the power grid. The students created…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on June 29, 2009 at 6:30am —
3 Comments
As part of our Making a Difference program my grade 5 class has decided to become involved in raising money and awareness for the
Light Up the World Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing energy efficient lighting to 3rd world countries not connected to the power grid. We are working in conjunction with
another class in Ontario, Canada and we have kicked off our efforts by creating digital…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on May 5, 2009 at 1:53pm —
1 Comment
Today we pledged our support for
Spread the Word to End the Word, the
Special Olympics campaign that encourages people to stop using the "R" word (retard) in a hurtful and derogatory manner. We were inspired to raise awareness for this campaign through the service work of
Laura Stockman, a 12 year old blogger who also happens to be a member of this Ning. Laura org…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on April 1, 2009 at 1:30pm —
5 Comments
Now that we're entering into a week's holidays for our March Break, I thought I'd post what our next steps will be during the upcoming month or so. On March 31st we plan to be a part of
Laura Stockman's blog carnival to
"Spread the Word to End the Word." This is an issue that will continue to be a focus of our class for the remainder of the year, not just one day. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking that it wou…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on March 16, 2009 at 4:00pm —
2 Comments
I've been podcasting with my students for almost a year now, and I have witnessed some wonderful content being produced, but I haven't seen anything like what I just witnessed this past week! We have just wrapped up our Making a Difference at Home program, and the students recorded their reflections about how successful they were at implementing their action plans. Most of our podcasts are roughly 6-7 minutes long; however, this time I received so much content from the students that I had to cre…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on February 23, 2009 at 10:40am —
4 Comments
My class is two weeks into its "Making A Difference (at home)" program, and I was curious to see how the students were progressing with their action plans. They had created some very ambitious plans to "help out" a bit more in their homes in hopes that it would make a difference, but to be honest, I wasn't overly optimistic that the majority of the students would actually follow through with the plans that they had made. I guess I felt that they wouldn't follow through if I wasn't actually there…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on February 9, 2009 at 1:57pm —
4 Comments
My class has just finished
our first podcast based on theme of "making a difference." This was a brainstorming activity that the students did without a whole lot of input from me (although I did briefly mention the work that
Laura has been doing). What surprised me was that the students independently sought out more information on Laura's mission, and the work of others as well. As a matter of fact, it…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on January 12, 2009 at 4:00am —
2 Comments
My grade 5 class is brainstorming ways that they can make a difference in four different areas: Home, School, Community, and Global. We are just beginning the conversation, and we are using Laura's example as inspiration. We will be recording the students' ideas and creating a podcast to showcase their work (it should be ready within the next couple of days). The podcast will be the first in a series of many titled "Making A Difference." Our podcasts will be just one part of much bigger plans wi…
Continue
Added by Mike Poluk on January 8, 2009 at 1:49pm —
3 Comments
