Technolandy

Day 138 (of 2025/26) 3 news stories you may have missed (but definitely should not have) Ontario returns final exams; A couple of provinces doing a business model look at school boards; teacher training timeframes… 

1. Ontario mis-thinking what ‘accountable’ means by emphasizing attendance, participation, and final exams as weighing in on averaging (the wrong kind of averaging) final marks… https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-high-school-final-grades-attendance/
2. Alberta (and Ontario… and others!) looking to reframe the power structure by limiting and changing the role and power of school boards… https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/school-boards-eliminate-alberta-bill-25-9.7158461
3. Whereas once the fad was to elongate the teacher training program to two years (Mine was two years – got the equivalent of a ‘diploma’ with the extra work – didn’t get the extra pay, but got me into libraries!) now provinces want more teachers to be ready faster and are looking to speed up the learning process, at a time when more acknowledge that perhaps more training is needed for more complex https://ca.news.yahoo.com/opinion-fast-tracking-alberta-teachers-180023334.html and https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/ontario-fast-tracks-teacher-training-as-tdsb-cuts-600-jobs/gm-GM650B2D4B 

Bonus: Canada Reads sees a book featuring The Cure for Drowning by Tegab Quin is a historical fiction novel that follows Kit McNair, who was born Kathleen to an Irish farming family in Ontario — but doesn’t fit in with the expectations set out for them. A non-binary protagonist and a queer love story. Putting a hold on it at our local library!!