Day 2 in Barcelona

We wanted to experience more of Barcelona, so we took a big walk on Monday once we were better rested. We saw many beautiful buildings, historical places and went on a food tour.  Our favorite area was the Gothic Quarter. We got lots of exercise and had a lovely day! 

 The Gothic Quarter - beautiful narrow streets with lovely buildings!

Placa Reial

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The first stop on our food tour.  

 We were really brave and tried several new foods!

The yuckiest thing we ate was cold anchovies flavored with vinegar and oil

We enjoyed a variety of meats, cheeses and breads.

We walked around the Gothic Quarter during our food tour and got to see many more sights in this interesting area!

The most delicious part was eating gelato for dessert!  It was very creamy and delicious!

We've Arrived!

Mrs. Devon Caldwell and I were selected to be a part of Team Canada at this year's Microsoft Global Forum.  We are in Barcelona, Spain for the week for this special event, which focuses on recognizing innovative teachers and schools, providing relevant professional development and improving learning for students around the globe.  We will be working with educators from many different countries and we are so excited to share the Little Hands Extended project - we are very proud of our students' work and we always enjoy showing their learning to others! 

 Although we love to have coordinating outfits, we did NOT plan our matching black and purple traveling outfits.  Starbucks at the Winnipeg Airport was a must, since we are both big fans of their lattes. 

It was a long journey to get here.  We traveled 2.5 hours from Winnipeg to Toronto, then boarded a very long 7.5 hour flight from Toronto to Frankfurt.  Next, we had to wait about 3 hours in Frankfurt, which was really hard since we were so sleepy (Mrs. Caldwell even had to have a nap).  Finally, we boarded our last flight to Barcelona, which was about another 2 hours long.  We were so exhausted that we slept soundly for our last flight and were ready to see the sights when we got to Barcelona!

We checked in at our hotel and were excited to have a view of the sea from our tenth floor room. 

Next, we went to explore Barcelona.  We walked around and then decided to take a bus tour.  We got to sit on the top floor of the double decker bus, which was really fun.  We got to see lots of the city from the bus.  We decided to get off the bus and go for a walk at Park Guell. It is a lovely, green park and we were excited to enjoy warmer weather here (16C).  You can climb up the hills in the park to get a great view of the city. 

Microsoft Partners in Learning Hot Topics Blog

 

I was really pleased to receive this nice certificate for my guest blogging contributions.  Educators, administrators and other education stakeholders, you can check out the Microsoft Partners in Learning Hot Topics Blogs at http://www.pil-network.com/HotTopics

Topics include:

Project Based Learning

Professional Learning Communities

Change Management & Culture of Innovation

Building Teacher Capacity

Accessibility

1:1 Learning

Workforce Skills Development

Games Based Learning

Student Voice

Virtual Learning Environments

Personalized Learning

Leadership & Strategic Innovation

Project Based Learning: Our Project Launch

My latest guest blog post has been posted to the Partners in Learning Network.  It explains how we launched our project based learning this year and gives teachers ideas for starting project based learning in their own classrooms.

To start talking about learning projects for this year,  my Grade 1 students Skyped Mrs. Caldwell's Kindergarten class in Oak Lake and we talked a bit about choosing projects that would help us learn and help make a difference for people, animals or the earth.  Students that have done projects with Mrs. Caldwell and I previously were guest speakers for the call and they explained some of the projects they have done.  Older students explained highlights of their polar bear adoption, work with animal rescue, Recycle for Good garage sale, litterless lunch competitions, lemonade stand to save Oregon spotted frogs and reusable bag reminder campaign.  It was really exciting to have students share all of the great projects they've done in the past!

We've got some really exciting ideas for this year's special learning project - I am really excited to help the Grade 1s get started!! Stay tuned for more updates on our project!

Project Based Learning: Our Steps

I've just posted my second contribution as a guest blogger for the Microsoft Partners in Learning Network Hot Topics blog.  Click here to read the post and learn more about the steps Mrs. Caldwell and I use for project based learning in our classrooms.  

Introductory Lesson/ Project Launch
Collaborative brainstorming
Selecting a topic of interest
Identifying a problem
Developing an action plan
Executing the plan
Reflection, feedback & suggestions