Tag Archives: Year in review

What I Read in 2023

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A little roundup of what I read in 2023. And some general blog thoughts about my reading routines below. All of these graphics come from my stats on Goodreads.

I always struggle to pick a star rating for what I read. So take it with a grain of salt. The yellow stars are my rating & the average is from all Goodreads users:

I think those last two I just never bothered rating, rather than being 0 stars.

Favourites

I think if I had to pick favourites, it would be two:
No Fixed Address: a middle school book that was really a clever read about the topic of a boy and his mum that live in their van & how he navigates that with school & his social life. Great exploration of the issue of being unhoused from the POV of a tween.
and
What We Saw: a pretty difficult read as it deals with teen rape, but I thought it was a really interesting way to tackle the topic as it did so from the perspective of another girl who was at the party, and not the victim herself. Plus I thought it was a pretty realistic look at teen lives & social interactions.

What / Who do I read?

I read a mix of fiction (physical books) – both adult & YA/middle school, graphic novels (more one-off stories rather than manga series), and non-fiction (always in audiobook format). I read books folks recommend to me, ones I’ve seen recommended for high school libraries, ones that are in our school library that look good & interesting. I tried to read more muslim authors this year as I was also trying to build our collection of muslim authors in our library (mostly by me buying the book, reading it, then donating to our school library since there hasn’t been any budget allocated to us in 2 years). I think my reading list is fairly diverse, but if you spot any holes in what I read above, please let me know in the comments! Every year for a while now, I try to read all 5 books on the Canada Reads shortlist before the radio debates begin; that list comes out tomorrow!!

Where do I get my books?

Once upon a time I bought all my books as I wanted to have bookshelves full of every book I’ve ever read. Since our latest house move, I pared down. Those bookshelves are now in a guest bedroom where folks, unless staying over, don’t see them. So I gave away everything but our favourite / meaningful books. Our absolute faves line a shelf in the living room where folks can see them; hopefully it gives a little insight into who we are & what we like. The rest I donated to our school or other people.

So now I try to borrow books from our school library or the public library (I purchase an Ottawa library card annually to have access to their collection which is bigger than the library in my small village, especially audiobooks). Some I purchase when I want to read them now, but they aren’t available to borrow yet, or if I know I want to donate it to our school library so our students have access to it. I dropped my subscription to audible & just purchase from the app when I can’t get an audiobook from the public library (more rare than the number of free credits I got with the purchase plan).
I am subscribed to the free ALC (audio listening copies) program for educators & librarians from Libro.FM, which I love. Some ALCs & graphic novel ARCs I’ve gotten from NetGalley but haven’t done so lately – I should get back on there. But I don’t do fiction from there as I’d rather be off screen for the majority of my reading.

When do I read?

Most days I get some reading time in before bed. I try to make sure my last 30 minutes before sleep are off screens, so reading a physical book in bed is perfect! I have also started doing screen-free Saturdays so I tend to read a lot more on that day of the week. I listen to my audiobooks while driving, cooking, or doing other chores around the house. I don’t think I spend all that much time reading, but others suggest I must based on my annual book count.

What was your favourite book of 2023?
What book do you want to read in 2024?
What reading routines do you want to establish for the coming year?
Let me know in the comments!

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

2023 Review of My Year on Twitter

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Each year I try to look back at my top tweets as a way of reflecting on what I’ve shared on Twitter. Twitter analytics is a great tool for this. It uses stats of views, replies and retweets to determine your top tweets. Some I include here because they got a lot of views, others got fewer views but had a high “engagement” rate. Here we go . . .

Each year I keep a thread of the books I’ve read pinned to the top of my profile & here was the first book of 2023; a pick from the free library at my mum’s community pool house when I visited her in Florida over winter break.

Doing my best to drum up an audience for my OLASC session:

This idea that my colleague, Ms. Lavallée, put into play caught a lot of eyes on Twitter:

Then the aforementioned library conference took place & that’s always likely to give me some top tweets for the month. A little tweet to try & get the hashtag flowing on the first morning of the conference:

Every year sketchnotes get lots of attention on Twitter:

This one got a quote tweet from keynote speaker Elamin Abdelmahmoud himself:

This post in support of nurses to start off the month of March:

And the wrap up to my 4 part Learning in the Loo series of Aleda Klassen’s amazing Thinking Classroom sketchnotes:

My lukewarm review of Lauren Graham’s audiobook (not the top tweet):

Thinking Classroom + sketchnote = popular tweet every time:

Some words of wisdom (sans sketchnote) from Peter Liljedahl:

When we chose to live at our cottage full time we knew it was a long commute. But we leave early in the morning to beat traffic and carpool together when we can. But the end of the school year saw some really terrible traffic days in part due to a school bus strike in Western Quebec:

After listening to a segment on the morning CBC show about cell phones in classrooms I tweeted this:

My final LITL poster of the year which also got featured on this podcast:

And again anything Thinking Classroom is popular – even just my reply to this tweet:

I won’t post this category of top tweets for every month, but last year (or the year before?) I started posting my weekly workout collage to Twitter (in addition to FB & IG where I’d been posting them):

July is a slower month for education content, so a more popular post was one of the books I read & keep in my annual “what I’ve read” thread. The books was This Place: 150 Years Retold:

Another Thinking Classroom related tweet:

Another book in the thread coming in top for the month. The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers Are So Tired, & How Parents and Schools Can Help Them Thrive by Lisa L. Lewis:

Then end of August our Breakfast Chat started back up for the new school year, asking about our best time we had over the summer:

And then back to school in September. Breakfast chat again:

My “top tweets” lately have far fewer impressions than ever before … are people just distancing themselves from what’s now called X (formerly known as Twitter?). My follower numbers haven’t significantly decreased that I can tell. Or just algorithm changes that don’t favour my tweets? Interesting as I have noticed myself feeling like the things I tweet aren’t getting the same interaction they used to. So “top” for the month, but not huge numbers, was:

This had some good engagement per view:

Teachers are hungry for more Thinking Classroom learning & materials so this tweet gained some serious traction (and still is seeing replies, reposts now at year’s end!).

Another BFC530 contribution:

While we’re at it, this is likely the last annual roundup of top tweets I’ll make as Twitter is kind of a ghost-town these days compared to the good old days when engagement was through the roof:

A couple last tweets that did the best in December to close us out:

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

Library Year in Review 2022-23

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In June of last school year I created my first “Library Year in Review” that outlines all the great happenings in our school library for the year. I got the idea from Cathy MacKechnie at Nepean High School who creates one for her library every year. Following her lead, I sent ours to all the teachers at our school, the parent-school council, our admin team (Ps & VPs), our superintendent, plus a few more folks. While I received some nice feedback on it from a few teachers, I was disappointed not to hear anything from our admin team or superintendent, especially given the great things that happened in our library despite being given 0$ in budget for the year! I will still absolutely do this again this school year and I thought it might be worth sharing here on the blog as well:

Hi folks,

Thank-you to all of you that brought students and classes to the library this year. A little summary of our year here in the library to share . . . 

We now have an amazing “Thinking Classroom” space with lots of whiteboards and a new projector set up in seminar B to make it a true classroom space (thank-you Brian & José for the installs). Classes came to participate in workshops on:

  • research skills
  • student vote
  • formal citations
  • speed dating for books
  • time management
  • sketchnoting
  • general introduction to our library space

These are the top 10 books checked out from our library this year. You’ll notice a trend; graphic novels & manga series are the biggest hits!

Since manga series can be costly to add to our collection, and with no library budget this year, we started an online wishlist that allows folks to purchase books for our library that have been requested by our students or determined to meet our goals of diversifying our collection to have more authors & characters that better reflect our student body. Our wishlist can be found here if you know of anyone who would be interested in donating to our library. We received a few donations already this year for which we are very thankful:

We implemented a new “free book” shelf outside the library doors where any student, staff or visiting community member can help themselves to free books to take home. These are books that are weeded from our collection because they haven’t been checked out in many years by our students, that we have more copies of than we require, or that are donated to the library but deemed not to fit the needs of our collection at this time. It’s been a popular attraction with books being taken home, and the shelf has been refreshed regularly all school year.

One of our big undertakings this year in partnership with Brittany Melia, the Teen Librarian at Greenboro – Ottawa Public Library, has been getting all of our students a public library card. We’ve handed out more than half of them so far with another batch still to come in. Students have told me this has been super helpful so far even just to access the members-only stronger wifi at their branch to download Mr. Lesser’s slide decks faster 😉 In September we’ll do the same for the incoming grade 9s & any new students. This means teachers can make use of the many online resources from OPL (like Curio, etc) as all students will now have the ability to login & access them.

We had our first author visit post-Covid! Local authors – one of whom is a Ridgemont parent – Alison Lister & ‘Nathan Burgoine spoke with our students about writing books for teens, healthy relationships and dealing with systemic biases and microaggressions on the daily. Students had great questions for these authors on some very important topics.

They also kindly donated many copies of their books as well as others from their publisher, Formac-Lorimer, to our library & students:

Finally, I’d like to call attention to a portion of a letter written by the OSSTF Library Subject Council (OCDSB Secondary Teacher-Librarians) to Michele Giroux, Director of Education, advocating on behalf of OCDSB Libraries with respect to the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan: 

“The Library Learning Commons can be a significant strategic player in addressing equity issues among students, because we are a central, welcoming, unstigmatized hub that all students use, regardless of economic or social factors.

However, many Library Learning Commons do not have adequate budgets or staffing to provide . . . a resource collection that can respond in a complete and up-to-date manner  to students’ needs, cultures, and identities.

Larger schools with larger budgets can provide expensive digital resources and help students develop skills for using them, whereas smaller and less affluent schools can not provide this access or this education.  . . . 

Furthermore, Library budgets should be protected and prioritized to ensure that students across the OCDSB are experiencing equitable access to resources.  There should be a per-student funding model, based on the Ministry allocation of Library funds that is designated directly for purchases within the Library Learning Commons at each school site.  A consistent funding model would allow for stable, long-range development in response to student needs at each school community level.”

Thanks for reading this far. Looking forward to new (& of course returning) students, new ideas & new partnerships next year with you all. Keep up the great work & see you in September.

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

What I read in 2022

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Ever since attending my first OLA Superconference I have kept a thread of books I read each year pinned to the top of my Twitter feed, inspired by Michelle Arbuckle who share the idea there. I also keep a visual of my current reads/listens in my email signature for work:

I thought I would share my list of reads (physical books & audiobooks alike) for 2022 sorted by my rating from top to bottom here on the blog. I’m just pulling this order from my Goodreads list so within a given star rating, they are not in any preferential order. And I should probably throw in the caveat that I always struggle with assigning star ratings to a book, so take it all with a grain of salt. But the general hierarchy is more less correct. Here goes . . .

Goodreads says I read 51 books. My twitter feed says 53. But I don’t have the patience to go find where the disparity is 😂.

I try not to worry about how many books I read in a given year. It can vary so much depending on length of each book, how many are non-fiction and thus I listen as audiobooks while I drive, … I just want to read as often as I can. I try to make sure my last 30 minutes before sleep are reading off-screen.

And for 2023, I’ve decided to add 3 days per week of zone 2 cardio on my spin bike to my exercise routine and I’ve been reading while I pedal!

Have you set yourself any reading goals for 2023? What was your favourite book of 2022? Leave a response in the comment section below!

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

2022 Review of My Year on Twitter

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Each year I try to look back at my top tweets as a way of reflecting on what I’ve shared on Twitter. Twitter analytics is a great tool for this. It uses stats of views, replies and retweets to determine your top tweets. Some I include here because they got a lot of views, others got fewer views but had a high “engagement” rate. Here we go . . .

At my first OLA Super Conference in 2020 Michelle Arbuckle shared the idea of keeping a thread of every book she reads in a year. I started doing this right away & have kept it up. Here’s my start for 2022:

And of course we all went a little nuts with Wordle:

I taught BTT (Introduction to Information and Communication Technology in Business) a few years back – what a great course!

The first few weeks in January we were back to remote learning from home. I can’t even remember which teacher friend posted this now, but it seems they were at school in person?

February saw the “Freedom Convoy” move in and take Ottawa hostage.

I took an AQ (additional qualification course) to start the year; the Junior division AQ w/ a leadership focus & this tweet hit a nerve:

In March I started considering the possibility of creating a teacher planner that could be sold from a site offering print on demand:

March must have been a slow month for me because one of my weekly workout recaps made the top cut for the month 🤣

The province of Ontario announced masks wouldn’t be required in most indoor spaces (including schools) when we returned from March Break. However, there seemed to be no talk (especially from our board) about the fact that anyone that travelled out of country WOULD be obliged to be masked at all times in public for 14 days upon their return:

April is Autism Awareness Month and this tweet wasn’t top for views, but had higher engagement (click through on the link I think?) than most:

This spring our board offered PD with Peter Liljedahl’s Thinking Classroom framework to help folks get ready for destreaming many courses next year. And despite seeing him present many times already, and illustrating his book, I learn something new every time I hear him speak:

And related to the Thinking Classroom is the whiteboard vs chalkboard debate:

And a little political engagement for the month of May:

Sketchnotes always increase a tweet’s stats:

And then a series as the school year wrapped up:

July got a little more quiet for teaching content on my Twitter:

Near the end of July I took my first ever solo paddling & camping trip ever:

We started to see the beginnings of a new round of negotiations this year & the MoE is already starting to scapegoat teachers:

Each week I post a round-up of my workouts & activities:

With the return of the school year in September I decided to make a Tik Tok series of my Getting to Know You Question of the Day list; 1 per day all semester long. Are you on Tik Tok?

And the return of the #BFC530 chats:

Our staff tends to pick a Hallowee’en costume theme for those that need inspiration. My goal is always to avoid buying much new stuff that is costume-specific & can’t be reworn. This year I bought some face makeup and a toque:

Another Tik Tok video tweet that did alright:

This year I’ve noticed a marked increase i the use of the N-word by students around the school. And not always (but mostly) our BIPOC students. I haven’t heard it used with the intention to insult yet, but still …
And I’d still like to hear more thoughts on this from folks within the community but older than teenagers.

A retired friend & colleague asked me this question & I when I didn’t know the answer I went straight to the hive mind of my Twitter PLN:

Perhaps a fiting last tweet to include: I was scheduled to fly to Florida at 8am the first Saturday of break. Our board called a snow day for Friday before end of day Thursday. Westjet cancelled all flights but never notified me. I found out from folks texting me – only getting said texts by placing my phone in the one window of our house that sometimes gets cell reception as our hydro, internet & landline phone were all out due to the snowstorm. My husband had to drive into town for an urgent errand so he dropped me at the airport so I could deal with the issue & arrived to find this:

The lovely agent at the 1 desk, working past the end of her shift b/c others didn’t show up to work is my guess, rebooked me for a boxing day flight and I made it South for winter break 🙂

Wishing you all the best as we start 2023. I hope it’s a great year for you.

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

2021 Review of My Year on Twitter

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Each year I try to look back at my top tweets as a way of reflecting on what I’ve shared on Twitter. Twitter analytics is a great tool for this. It uses stats of views, replies and retweets to determine your top tweets. Some I include here because they got a lot of views, others got fewer views but had a high “engagement” rate. Here we go . . .

From our first #Thinking Classroom book club meeting of the year:

Sharing out a list of Chrome extensions that might cause issues:

A new one for me, I took a thread from Twitter – replies to a great question from a teacher – and turned it into a blog post with some extra ideas & reflections from me:

This year the OLA Super Conference was virtual (along with everything else in life!):

And I say this every year but the #BFC530 daily morning 15 minute Twitter chat is where I have some of the best conversations about education and learn so much from other teachers:

… and another:

From our #ThinkingClassroom book club:

And more #BFC530 chats:

Our March Break was postponed to April due to Covid; government wanted to discourage travel as we came out of the 2nd wave. But this meant that the break fell between quadmesters when teachers are in their heaviest marking load. Ministry & board messaging was all like “teachers, relax this week! you deserve it” with no awareness that the timing of the break made that all but impossible for many:

Side note: Looking at the stats, the rates continued to rise through March when they had us stay in school & then dropped significantly at the April break. So perhaps we should have left the break back in March??? I’d be curious to analyse how much of that was due to the school break vs vaccine roll out …

In April I took part 2 of the Teacher Leadership AQ via ETFO (love them for AQs – and you don’t have to be an elementary teacher to take AQs with them). I created a sketchnote for one of our readings/postings & decided to share it on Twitter also:

I bought a shirt on Etsy that perfectly summed up how the ministry has handled the pandemic:

To finish the month, I was very thankful to get vaccinated. I teach in Ontario but live in Quebec & my province pushed teachers up the priority line before Ontario did:

(I wound up getting to move my 2nd dose up & was fully vaxxed in time for summer. Wahoo!)

Then of course, after the April break, we pivoted (they loved that term this year) to remote learning again which we all predicted would be the case. I set up shop in our loft again. And my tweets reflecting on my work from home setup – and the changes I made to it -were a hit through the month of May:

Turned those tweets, & the replies to them, into a blog post:

And that was extra fun because Doug Peterson & Stephen Hurley talked about my blog post on their weekly podcast!

The BFC530 chat in June was winding down but still brought some good conversations & sharing:

Another work from home set up tweet was popular as we finished up the school year still in a remote learning model:

To start summer break, this Canada Day July 1st tweet was popular:

Since I don’t tweet as much content in the summer, last year I started a weekly photo post summarizing what I’d been up to. Again this year they proved popular as evidenced by these 2 tweets:

This tweet did well I think because the author retweeted it:

And, as always, everyone loves a sketchnote:

September rolled in & we were back to school:

This tweet about audiobook versions of educational books seemed to ring true with a lot of folks that felt the same as me:

And not a sketchnote, but still a graphic, this tweet with a cell phone lockscreen image of material from Peter‘s Thinking Classroom book that I illustrated was a huge hit (open tweet & click image to see full image):

… and it was equally popular again 2 weeks later when I shared it as part of a morning #BFC530 chat:

This tweet calling out a rude response to a colleague’s sketchnote got a lot of engagement:

Sharing about the Thinking Classroom AND in sketchnote form is usually a recipe for a popular tweet:

Then in December came the news that a teacher in Chelsea QC, where I lived up until 3 years ago, was being removed from the classroom for wearing a hijab, in accordance with the discriminatory bill 21 in Quebec. This was my first time being confronted with the bill actually being upheld and impacting someone’s ability to keep their job. To add to the schock, my colleague recognised that the teacher, Fatemeh Anvari, had been a student at our school years ago. Ridgemont has a large muslim population and it was important that we showed our outrage over this news to our students and community. So I organised having all the students come down to the library over the course of the day that Friday to sign posters of support that I then hung on the Chelsea schoolyard fence that evening (we also sent Fatemeh scans of the posters that she could keep).

On a more cheerful note, I made a small (& what should have been obvious) change to our library shelves that had a big impact:

Of course since then we’ve had an exponential increase in Omicron variant Covid cases (including my own household!) over the holidays and a return to remote learning to start the 2022 year. Should make for another year of interesting tweets to report back at the end of 2022!

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

Books I read (& listened to) in 2021

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In early 2020 I attended my first OLA Super Conference where I heard Michelle Arbuckle share the idea of keeping a pinned tweet thread of books you’ve read for the year. I started right away. And that meant that 2021 was my first year with a complete year in the thread. I thought it might be nice to keep a record here on my blog of all those books. So without further ado, here are all the books I read (or listened to) in 2021:

3rd (audio)book of 2021
Atomic Habits
By @JamesClear
Small changes can compound to build a better life. Focus on your systems that will get you to your goals.
This book has practical applications. I have already implemented changes to my home workspace as a result of this read.

4th book of 2021
Jonny Appleseed
By Joshua Whitehead
Book 1/5 for #CanadaReads
⚠️ Lots of explicit sexual content
Jonny is two-spirited & Indigenous. The story of Jonny working to make enough money to get home to the rez for a funeral is intertwined with his life story.

5th (audio)book of 2021
The Awakening of Malcolm X
By @ilyasahShabazz & Tiffany D. Jackson
Via @librofm educator ALC program.
The formative years of Malcolm X; surviving prison, systemic racism, becoming the kind of person he wants to be & finding his way to the Nation of Islam.

6th (audio)book of 2021
Songteller
By Dolly Parton
"I look like a show-horse but I'm a work-horse".
Recorded interview with Dolly about her many many songs over the years. The combo of music clips with her behind the scenes info is great.

7th book of 2021
Hench
By Natalie Zina Walschots
Book 2/5 for #CanadaReads
Loved this book so much! I didn't expect to, given it's about superheroes & villains (not usually my thing). It's funny, real & genuine. I immediately wanted there to be both a movie of it & a sequel book.

8th book of 2021
Visual Thinking
By Willemien Brand
I have a weakness for buying books about #sketchnoting. First part was good about drawing skills. 2nd part about using graphic skills in business contexts was of less interest to me (my fault) but also not well explained IMHO.

9th book of 2021
The Midnight Bargain
by C. L. Polk
Book 3/5 of #CanadaReads
Young ladies are presented at bargaining season where they match with a young man to marry. But marrying requires that young ladies give up their magical powers & Beatrice & Ysbeta are not downfor that.

10th (audio)book of 2021
All Together Now
By Alan Doyle
A fun, light set of stories of his time on the road, on the stage and home in NL as a young guy. Loved listening to him narrate the audio version. Truly like sitting in a pub as he tells you some stories.

11th (audio)book of 2021
The Day the World Came to Town
by Jim Defede
The story of the folks in Gander, NL helping 6700 airplane passengers stranded there as a result of the tragic events of 9/11. I've been keen to read this ever since seeing the Come From Away musical.

12th book of 2021
# 4/5 for #CanadaReads
Butter Honey Pig Bread
By Francesca Ekwuyasi
The story of twin sisters that have grown apart & their mother struggling with her own demons.
Set in both Nigeria & Canada.
LGBTQ2+ & BIPOC #OwnVoices

13th (audio)book of 2021
The Answer Is…
By Alex Trebek
Narrated by Ken Jennings w/ a few sections by Trebek himself.
Learned about who Trebek was as a person outside of his hosting role. Early chapters felt like they ended abruptly but this improved a bit as the book went on.

14th book of 2021
Visual Doing
By Willemien Brand
2nd in the series… Following my 8th read in this thread. Similar feel. Had some good #sketchnote tips. But the bigger picture on how to use in a work setting was not as well explained as I've seen in other books.

15th (audio)book of 2021
The Skin We're In
By @DesmondCole
Should be mandatory reading for all non-BIPOC Canadians – no exaggeration. Stories you've heard of, but don't know all the details of. Prepare to be angry, disgusted, embarrassed & humbled. A must-read!

16th book of 2021
# 5/5 finished on the day the #CanadaReads debate begins
A book about the movement of a family from China, to Taiwan, to Canada. About returning to Taiwan to search for family and history. About nature on an island nation.

17th (audio)book of 2021
me and white supremacy
By Layla F Saad
Read this book 1 chapter/day & take the time to reflect on the journal questions. Every non-BIPOC person needs to read this book. If you're saying "Not me! I'm not racist, because…", then you need to read it most!

First DNF of 2021
Extremely rare for me. Got 25 pages in and the portrayal of indigenous ppl (whom we've only encountered on TV or in mention) as "savages" etc is too much. I know it's a story set in a certain era but it's no excuse. 😔 I've loved every other book by this author.

18th book of 2021
The Art of Visual Notetaking
By @emily_a_mills
One of the better guides to #Sketchnotes that I've seen. A good overview of all the basic elements for someone starting out & good reminders & style tips for those that have tried it before like me.

19th (audio)book of 2021
Untamed
By Glenn on Doyle
⭐⭐⭐
Kept hearing about this one so gave it a listen. Interesting personal & family story. I'm personally not into all the God talk. Sometimes goes too long on various vague & clichéd self-help pep talks.

20th book of 2021
Firefly Lane
By Kristin Hannah
⭐⭐⭐⭐
It's been a while since I cried at the end of a book. Follows two friends, who meet as teens, as they grow up. A look at how their friendship lasts and evolves through the years.
A look at love, friendship & family.

21st book of 2020
I Never Liked You
by Chester Brown
⭐
Grabbed this older (1994) graphic novel off our school library shelf. Did not enjoy it. A quick read luckily. Characters not engaging. Lead character totally apathetic. Not much of a storyline. Would not recommend.

22nd (audio)book of 2021
Policing Black Lives
by Robyn Maynard
⭐⭐⭐⭐
A very thorough look at Anti-Black racism in Canada. Emphasises the many ways our institutions perpetuate systemic racism. Covers a broad range of topics from a very academic lens. Not a light read.

23rd (audio)book of 2021
Quiet
By Susan Cain
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Super interesting to read as a person who presents outwardly as a raging extrovert, but in truth I have so many introverted traits too. I need alone time & quiet at home to recharge. I'm friendly but I have few close friends.

24th (audio)book
The Trauma Cleaner
By Sarah Krasnostein
Weaves together the life story of a woman who runs a trauma cleaning business & what that work entails with her story of childhood abuse, marriage & kids, & transitioning genders in an era when to do so could be dangerous.

25th book of 2021
Crow Winter
By Karen McBride
A story about Indigenous lands, coming home to the reservation, Indian agents of the past, colonisation, grieving the loss of a loved one, & Nanabush Trickster.
Set in the author's homelands of the Timiskaming First Nation.
⭐⭐⭐⭐

26th (audio)book of 2021
Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
By Mary Roach
Very interesting historical and current look at our views and practices around dead human bodies. Not for the queasy. I often listened while cooking but don't recommend!
⭐⭐⭐⭐

27th (audio)book of 2021
So You Want To Talk About Race
Ijeoma Oluo
"If you live in this system of white supremacy, you are either fighting the system or you are complicit. There is no neutrality to be had towards systems of injustice, it is not something you can just opt out of"

28th (audio)book of 2021
Just Mercy
Bryan Stevenson
Innocent people on death row. 13 year old children, failed by the system, getting life in prison. Systemic anti-Black racism.
Lawyer Bryan Stevenson works tirelessly to help these people & fix the wrongs of a broken system.

29th book of 2021
Murmures (Les chroniques de Virgin River #3)
by Robyn Carr
A light read. Started reading the books after watching season 1 on Netflix. I think I'll donate this to the school library even though I haven't read the second volume (#4) in it yet.

30th (audio)book of 2021
Crossing the Line
"…  the barn was safer, better, than home—an island in the middle of all the trouble that we couldn't escape otherwise."
Black brothers join an inner city Work to Ride program, learning to play (& eventually win at) polo.

31st (audio)book of 2021
$2.00 a Day; Living on Almost Nothing in America
by H. Luke Shaefer and Kathryn Edin
How families come to find themselves in extreme poverty (hint: it's not for lack of work ethic) & what they do to survive & provide their children with the bare minimum.

32nd book of 2021
Return of the Trickster
By Eden Robinson
The final book in the trilogy. Jared deals with the full ramifications of learning he is a Trickster; what that means for him and the danger it imposes on his loved ones. Plus bad-ass magical grannies & a sasquatch.

33rd (audio)book of 2021
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy
By Emmanuel Acho
Young listeners edition of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man inspired by the author's YouTube video series with the same title.
Via the @librofm educator ALC program.

34th book of 2021
Amari and the Night Brothers
By B. B. Alston
Pitched to me as a #ReadAlike for Harry Potter fans (which I am) but with a Black female protagonist. A simpler read than the HP books.
Also #OwnVoices.
Really fun, quick read with a movie & book sequels coming.

35th (audio)book of 2021
Better Boys, Better Men: The New Masculinity That Creates Greater Courage and Emotional Resiliency
By Andrew Reiner
Via @librofm's Educator ALC program
A thorough overview of society's expectations of "manliness" and how boys and men navigate them.

36th (audio)book of 2021
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation
by Anna Malaika Tubbs
"Their lives did not begin with motherhood; . . . each woman had her own passions, dreams, and identity."

37th (audio)book of 2021
My Mother's Daughter: A Memoir of Struggle and Triumph
by @perditafelicien
Picked on the recommendation of @clarahughes on IG. Great story about immigration, poverty, housing insecurity, sports, resilience,…
Would be a great read w/ students!

38th (audio)book of 2021
21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality
by Bob Joseph
A very important read if you're beginning your own learning on this topic.

39th book of 2021
The Barren Grounds
By David A. Robertson
Two indigenous teens in Foster care step through a portal into a world with never-ending winter where the people are dying. With two walking, talking animals, they embark on a journey to bring the Green Time season back.

40th (audio)book of 2021
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
by David Epstein
Sort of same style as Gladwell's books but I found it meandering at times. Some chapters I was unclear what the take-home point was meant to be. Interesting idea to explore.

41st (audio)book of 2021
Breath: the New Science of a Lost Art
By James Nestor
😤💨🫁🌬️
Close your mouth
Breathe through your nose
More slowly
Breathe less
Exhale more
Chew real foods
+ Breathe more on occassion

42nd (audio)book of 2021
A Walking Life: Reclaiming Our Health and Our Freedom One Step at a Time
by Antonia Malchik
Good look at how we design the world for cars & driving instead of walking. Some sections, like protesting, didn't feel closely enough linked to walking per se.

43rd (audio)book of 2021
In Praise of Walking: The New Science of how We Walk & why It’s Good for Us
by Shane O'Mara
“Walking a city is the best way to get to know it. You can't get to know the mood of a place, its energy and pace, when you're driving”
Heavy on history & research

44th book of 2021
Greenwood: A Novel of a Family Tree in a Dying Forest
by Michael Christie
A story of nature & family, across 4 generations & time periods. Starting in a dystopian 2034 & working back to 1934 where we spend the most time before coming back to 2034 again.

45th book of 2021
The River
by Peter Heller
An à propos book for a canoe camping trip; about two guys in their 20s paddling a river towards Hudson Bay, rescuing a woman left for dead by her husband and he's now hunting them. A quick, easy read.

46th book of 2021
The Book of Awesome
by @NeilPasricha
This has been my bathroom book for the last year or so. I read & loved the author's 1000 Awesome Things blog over 10 years ago now. This book is a collection of those posts. I read one "post" each morning.

47th (audio)book of 2021
The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy and Sleep Well Every Night
by Satchin Panda
How we should light our surroundings to better support our circadian rhythms. How we can time our eating, sleep & exercise to best support health.

48th book of 2021
Normal People
by Sally Rooney
Didn't love this book. I kept seeing it & hearing about it so had high expectations. I didn't like the main characters much… Couldn't sympathize with their feelings and actions. The ending was unsatisfying.

49th (audio)book of 2021
Wildflower
By Drew Barrymore
Interesting insight into her life. Narrated herself… Could have done without some of the screams. Memoir rather than autobiography. Certainly influenced my decision to watch Ever After last night w/ my new Disney+ membership

50th (audio)book of 2021
This I Know: Marketing Lessons from Under the Influence
by Terry O'Reilly
Amazing story telling just like his podcast. So many insights into human nature through the lens of marketing. Narrated by Terry himself which of course then is perfection!

51st audio/book of 2021
The Chromebook Infused Classroom: Using Blended Learning to Create Engaging Student-Centered Classroom
by Holly Clark
Started as part of board-wide book club. Struggled to keep up w/ it last year.
A great overview, but for me it was not new info.

52nd (audio)book of 2021
Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone
by Eric Klinenberg
A good mix of anecdotal interview-based evidenced & data from academic studies. Looks at the topic across age ranges to get a fuller picture. Interesting stuff.

53rd (audio)book of 2021
Son of a Critch: A Childish Newfoundland Memoir
by Mark Critch
Hilarious of course. Perfect to listen with his own narration. A great slice of Newfoundland life & childhood through the 80s.

54th book of 2021
Firekeeper's Daughter
by Angeline Boulley
I loved this YA mystery/thriller so much! Can't wait for the Netflix series to come.
"It gnaws at me, the way they want bad stuff without knowing the good stuff too." It's like… you haven't earned our stories," I say."

55th (audio)book of 2021
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
by Beverly Daniel Tatum
"Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy?"
A very thorough, academic exploration of this question.
I read the revised 2017 edition.

55.5th book of 2021
DNF
Virgins (Outlander 0.5)
By Diana Gabaldon
The way the novel speaks about /focuses on the Jewish heritage of 2 characters didn't sit right. Then Jamie & Ian seem to justify/defend the rape of a prostitute and I just couldn't continue.

56th (audio)book of 2021
Call Me Indian: From the Trauma of Residential School to Becoming the NHL's First Treaty Indigenous Player
by Fred Sasakamoose
The true memoir from the man that inspired the famous Indian Horse novel… without even knowing he'd done so.

57th book of 2021
Modifying Your #ThinkingClassroom for Different Settings
By @pgliljedahl
With my illustrations again ☺
How to do it with:
✅ Desks in rows for social distancing
✅ Small classes
✅ Asynchronous virtual class
✅ Hybrid classes
✅ One-on-one teaching
& more

58th (audio)book of 2021
Nudge : the Final Edition
by Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler
"Nudge for good!"
"People have a strong tendency to go along with the status quo or default option" so how can choice architects arrange choices so that people benefit from the default?

59th book of 2021
The Midnight Library
By Matt Haig
I'm struggling with my rating for this one. Am I just disappointed that it fell short of all the hype & my expectations to really love it? Or was it actually just average?
Neat idea. It just didn't grab me; storywise or writing.

60th book of 2021
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
by Becky Albertalli
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 Loved this one!
Realistic high school gay love story without being cheesy or tropey.
Watched the movie last night but it wasn't nearly as good as the book.

61st (audio)book of 2021
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
by Stephanie Land
Read the hype when the Netflix show arrived but wanted to read the book first. It was just ok. Writing was so-so. General issue of poverty & unlivable minimum wages is important.

62nd (audio)book of 2021
Unconscious Bias in Schools: A Developmental Approach to Exploring Race and Racism
by @SarahFiarman & @DrTraceyBenson
Dont let the boring cover fool you. Every educator doing equity & anti-racism work should read this.
Thanks @librofm & @TantorAudio

63rd book of 2021
Dancing at the Pity Party: a Dead Mom Graphic Memoir
by Tyler Feder
My book light died & while I await my new one I've been using my iPad to read a graphic novel in bed at night.
At 18, Tyler's mum dies of cancer. Her story of grieving.

DNF book of 2021
Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (Outlander #9)
By Diana Gabaldon
150 pages in (of 888) and the story hasn't gone anywhere yet. Finding myself picky about her writing which I haven't been with the rest of the series. So putting it aside for now. May return to it?

64th book of 2021
Pumpkinheads
by Rainbow Rowell
Graphic novel
Wanted to like this more than I did. Predictable ending. I did like the realistic characters. Loved the artwork. Dialogue was just so-so for me at times.

65th (audio)book of 2021
Unapologetic Eating: Make Peace with Food and Transform Your Life
by Alissa Rumsey
Denounces diet culture & advocates for intuitive eating. At 16 hours, it's too long & overuses quotation marks. Great points wrt how we think & talk about food & nutrition.

65 books read in 2021:
24 books
38 audiobooks
3 graphic novels
+ 3 books started that I chose not to finish reading

Originally tweeted by Laura Wheeler (@wheeler_laura) on January 16, 2021.

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

2020 Review of My Year on Twitter

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Each year I try to look back at my top tweets as a way of reflecting on what I’ve shared on Twitter. Twitter analytics is a great tool for this. It uses stats of views, replies and retweets to determine your top tweets. Here we go . . .

In January I attended my first every Ontario Library Association Super Conference as I learned about my new role of Teacher-Librarian:

Unfortunately we started the new year with more strike days as negotiations with the Ontario government were not advancing as we’d hoped:

Sharing a strategy I used last year with my Math students on test days. Love our Breakfast Chat conversations!

After the OLA Super Conference I followed Michelle Arbuckle’s example and started a thread pinned to the top of my Twitter profile of the books I’m reading this year. Posting the first one:

Some discussion about visual representations of data from our province’s professional association’s monthly publication:

Another morning Breakfast Chat response:

Sharing my latest Learning in the Loo poster that I put up in every staff bathroom in the building:

Then, just like that it was a couple of days before March Break and with Coronavirus cases climbing exponentially we were told we’d be staying home for an extra 2 weeks following the March Break. I shared out about getting folks set up with the same at-home workouts I stream from my favourite online platform & many were interested in the free trial account to see what it’s all about:

As we all worked from home, folks’ schedules shifted. Many of us early risers that are usually up for the 5:30 am Breakfast Chat didn’t need to get up early & commute to work. The real-time #BFC530 crowd got a little smaller with some of us checking in later in the day once we were awake. BFC530 questions often focused on how we were coping with the realities of remote emergency learning & working from home:

6 years ago colleagues gave some PD on the Thinking Classroom framework that they had learned about from Peter Liljedahl at a recent conference. It totally changed how I taught my Math classes, creating more engagement and more success for my students. Along the way I shared some sketchnotes about the Thinking Classroom framework that proved popular. Then early this year I found out that Peter was writing a book (awesome news!) and the publisher asked if I would illustrate it. Talk about imposter syndrome. I sketch stick figures … not much of an artist. But I said yes and told them if my work wasn’t up to snuff they could tell me so & that was no problem. So I didn’t make a peep about the project until Peter announced it on Twitter … I figured they couldn’t fire me then 😉

And of course, there were lots of questions we all had about this whole emergency remote teaching & learning. Open the tweet and you’ll see the many replies – so many lovely teachers helping teachers … everyone sharing their learning along this journey.

Some mornings I still woke early enough (we’re early birds) to check in with the BFC530 crew:

My husband and I started doing a daily live Facebook video check in. We started at the end of March & did it daily until the end of June. Our friends really liked it. My Twitter equivalent was to start sharing a few photos from each week beyond my teacher life:

In June the Thinking Classroom book was available for pre-order which was pretty exciting:

More teachers were interested in learning more about Pear Deck given the need to engage students virtually:

My weekly photo posts were still popular:

The BFC530 chat turned into a weekly slow-chat for summer:

And I kept posting weekly photo roundups – celebrating my first year in a long while of not working summer school:

https://twitter.com/wheeler_laura/status/1287143890999549952

In August, as teachers prepared to head back to school – some face to face, some online, some hybrid – more conversations happened around working with students remotely:

Back at school, physically, in September, this tweet got lots of responses with a mix of “I’ve been doing this for years, you haven’t???” to “I’m working on that too!”.

Pandemic teaching means looking for ways to get students out of their seats to move but remaining masked & physically distant. This was inspired by a colleague who shared some body break YouTube videos. But the videos mostly featured older folks I thought our students might not relate to so I looked for some videos w/ younger folks in them.

This one gained some traction (likely b/c the CBC morning show retweeted it?):

While working on my own work-life-online balance, I’ve started scheduling emails more to be mindful of the same for others as well:

When people started to get their copies of the Thinking Classroom book, I started to see if there was interest in a weekly Twitter book club:

In November a lot of my top tweets were those announcing the upcoming book club meets or the questions for the book club chats. I’ll eliminate those from this post, but these tweets from my own participation in the chat are fair game:

As December arrived I was thinking about snow days (which my board NEVER calls) and the potential to keep more people off the roads now that we’re set up to teach virtually. And I posed this question about the virtual teachers who – in my board at least – have to report to a school building daily despite not being part of the staff of that school since the virtual school is its own separate school.

As the holidays began (only after we had our last day of school for the year of course) the province announced a lockdown starting on Boxing Day which will mean 3 weeks of teaching from home in January.

I’m a big sharer of my own photos on Facebook & Instagram and so wanted to see people’s photos of their celebrations too:

What a strange year! A pandemic. I’ve actually really loved the time spent at home – but I’m a homebody. Who knows when we’ll be back to “normal”? Will we ever be back to what it was before? What elements of this “new normal” will stick around? Would love to hear your thoughts & predictions in the comments below!

Happy New Year!

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

My 2019 Review of My Year on Twitter

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Each year I try to look back at my top tweets as a way of reflecting on what I’ve shared on Twitter. Twitter analytics is a great tool for this. Here we go . . .

Sharing a cool project a former colleagues posted on Facebook:

In response to the BFC530 questions of the day: “Have you ever used brain breaks? What have you tried and do you feel like they have helped?”

February brought a snow day

and this repost of a tweet from 2018 that was popular but accidentally got deleted:

March saw tensions rising in the negotiations between education workers in Ontario and the Ford government that (still) spreads misinformation and outright lies at every turn:

Do we see a theme developing here?

This one struck a chord with my fellow teachers:

The OAME conference + sketchnotes is always a winning combo:

I have yet to bead another bracelet, but I do wear this one I made in June:

In July I share a bit of how my summer was shaping up (other than being a Math coordinator for summer school; a position I resigned from at summer’s end because it’s time to enjoy my full summers now!):

Some more sharing of summer in August:

And near end of summer each year I always march in the Pride Parade:

Then the new school year started up:

Some more well-liked tweets that are responses to the daily Twitter Breakfast Chat:

November brought new learning from the OCDSB Google Summit:

and more #BFC530 responses of course:

and unfortunately some informational picketing starting on teacher’s own time outside the school day:

Sometimes it’s nice to share a bit of our lives outside of the classroom with each other:

A sad cap to the year was a full walkout at the beginning of December by all secondary education workers in Ontario as well as many education workers from the elementary system. And followed by rotating walkout strikes around the province every Wednesday to follow & into the new year:

My reflections on all of this:

  • folks like seeing photos of our lives outside of the classroom
  • we are in a very tumultuous period of bargaining with a government that prioritizes slashing funding over student learning conditions with no sign of an agreement getting any closer
  • lots of great ideas and conversations coming out of the daily Breakfast Chat on Twitter. Join us! 5:30am daily (but you can answer/read any time of day), one question for 15 minutes (if tuning in live). Follow @BFC_530 and check #BFC530 to see the conversation each day.

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)

My year on Twitter in 2018

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I didn’t blog a ton this year. But I was still fairly active on Twitter. So as is the tradition, here is my year-end review of my Tweets that seemed to go over well this year according to the stats from analytics.twitter.com.

This tweet where I tried to summarize how I teach Math in 1 tweet:

https://twitter.com/wheeler_laura/status/967464065374310401

A tweet in response to a #BFC530 Twitter chat question – “What is one “best practice” that you do in your school/classroom that, if adopted broadly, could be a game changer for education quality?”:

The OAME Math conference is always good for a few crowd-pleasers:

Another #BFC530 response to the question “What is one thing you would like non-educators to know about education?”.

Seems like every year my Observe Me sign comes down for whatever reason then I decide it should go back up!

As in years past, sketchnotes are always a big hit!
Hope to see you around Twitter & the MTBoS.

– Laura Wheeler (Teacher @ Ridgemont High School, OCDSB; Ottawa, ON)