We Day Waterloo

It was great to be able to attend We Day Waterloo this year. Over 6,000 young people from the Waterloo Region were there.  A group of Laurier teacher candidates, as well as our dean and another faculty member, joined me as we listened to Dr. James Orbinski (Doctors without Borders),  Magic Johnson (former NBA basketball star), Romeo Dallaire (Canadian general in Rwanda during the genocide), Mia Farrow, and others.  Our teacher candidates are now following up with their schools and supporting activities there. Although We Day events are "shows", it is great to see the excitement of so many students and teachers as they consider how they can make a difference in the world!

Haitian Educational Leadership and Collaboration - Partnership Development Grant

I had an exciting skype meeting with Gaetane Jean Marie from the University of Oklahoma last week.  She is originally from Haiti but has lived in the US most of her life.  She is a well-known academic who has published extensively on educational leadership.  She actually contacted me while I was in Haiti a few weeks ago and we are now looking at ways we can collaborate - my experience with educators in Haiti + her experience with educational leadership.  I'm very optimistic about the possibilities!

The Canadian government, through the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), provides grants for universities and other institutions to forge collaborative relationships.  I met with our Laurier research office yesterday and will be developing a grant to establish a network of institutions interested in supporting educational leadership in Haiti.  This will include Laurier, possibly some other Cdn institutions such as University of Guelph, Western, and Alberta, as well as Haitian institutions such as the Ministry of Education and American universities such as Oklahoma.  It's exciting to see these collaborative networks being built!

Milton Lecture: Education and New Technologies in Haiti

Tomorrow I have the opportunity to be part of the Laurier Lecture Series in Milton.  Each month, a different faculty member is featured and provides an hour lecture on a topic which bridges academia with "the real world."  It's really about knowledge mobilization; taking research projects we're passionate about and getting others informed and excited about them as well.  In this case, it's also about building those glocal understandings. The title of my talk is Piti piti: Utilizing new technologies to support education in Haiti.

The lecture is Wednesday, November 9 at 7 pm at the Milton Arts Centre for those who are interested.