Zack's Teaching Adventure

Since last week I have continued looking into potential reasons why different European countries have varied traditions of how they prepare perogies.  As it turns out, a lot of it stemmed from the economic status of the country/area, specifically when it came to the concept of refrigeration.  The area of Ukraine that my grandma is from was traditionally a fairly poor region.  As such, their access to refrigeration was very limited and food items like potatoes do not expire when kept at room temperature, which is why the perogies I grew up with always contained potato filling.  Wealthier areas in countries such as Poland, who could afford luxuries like access to fridges, are where perogies tended to be filled with types of ground meat.  As meat needed to be kept below room temperature, and spoiled quicker, it was more likely to be kept around these wealthier households.  A similar explanation can be used as to why I had never heard of fruit perogies until th...

This week I was tasked with a making a short, 5 scene storyboard and since How to Train Your Dragon is one of my favorite movies, what better to do than make somewhat of an actual how-to slideshow, enjoy!

Genius Hour: Over the last week I have begun doing some of the research on my genius hour pierogie project.  I thought it was best to start off with the historical research before getting into the cooking process with my family (also they're all coming over for thanksgiving soon so I'll be swimming in them soon enough).  Specifically, I was trying to determine what regional/cultural differences exist regarding how pierogies are traditionally made across different countries, and if there is a particular reason for that. One example of this I found was the phenomenon in Poland of a dessert pierogi containing fruit.  Up until this project I had no idea that a sweet pierogi existed as when I was growing up we always traditionally used cheese and potato.  It was also surprising to see that a number of eastern European countries tend to put ground meat in their pierogies, as again I was under the impression it was a potato based food. Julie Rosendaal. (25 April, 20...

Hi everyone!  This week I made a short quiz down below about the physiology of the animal cell, try it out and see how much you know!  This was the result of me exploring different ways that I could assess students utilising different forms of technology. Loading...

This past week we've been learning a bit more about what exactly genius hour is and the intentions behind it.  Essentially, genius hour allows students time to work on projects in any subject area that is of interest to them.  This helps them customize their education towards an area they are passionate about and gets them engaged in what they are learning as it is likely they will find connections between their genius hour topics and other subjects already being taught. For my personal genius hour project I have decided to do it on what else, but food.  Specifically my Grandma's pierogies.  Her pierogies are an iconic symbol of my families Ukrainian heritage, something I have never fully explored myself.  My genius hour is a way to ask myself, which variety of pierogie tastes the best when comparing my grandma's and the Ukrainian church next door, as well as which method of cooking is the best. A subset of this question also involves me examining the histor...

Over the last few days I've been reading up on copyright and have definitely learned some new things. Copyright is important as it allows people to protect anything they create, it encourages people to come up with new, original ideas, knowing that others cannot use it unless they've followed specific guidelines that still allow them to take credit for its creation. A lot of new information that I learned was how copyright is applied to teaching and teaching materials.  An interesting situation I found was how if used for a test, a teacher is allowed to copy a material if it is not commercially available.  At the same time, if this resource is being copied for one-time use, such as a page of a workbook, that is not acceptable under copyright law. It was also interesting to read about how these laws affect alternative formats of certain works, as would be often used for students with perceptual disabilities.  In these scenarios it is permissible to make copies of wor...