Brenda
Dyck
graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Education degree
and taught a number of years with the Calgary Public Board of Education as
well as several private schools in Calgary. After staying home to raise her
five children, Brenda returned to the classroom and has spent the past few years developing her newly discovered passion: technology integration and telecollaborative learning.
Brenda is currently teaching at Master's
Academy and has also taught at ABC Charter Public
School for gifted and talented students. She is responsible for
weaving online learning opportunities into the library program as well as
assisting teachers in their efforts to integrate technology into their
curriculum specific objectives.
Brenda's goals as contributing
editor are as follows:
1) To demonstrate how to provide
scaffolding for online projects so that students are able to meet the
benchmarks intended by the teacher. Brenda would also like to organize a
section on MidLink magazine that would provide a place for our contributing
editors to share the thinking behind their projects. Understanding the
"method behind the madness" would help teacher to implement the
projects in an authentic manner.
2) To expose teachers to various
tools that when used will challenge students to implement higher level
thinking skills while participating in online project learning.
3) To maintain a collaborative
project called "Beyond Wild Justice." Through this project students will
explore constructive ways to deal with the confusing issues of justice in a
violent world.
Brenda writes the "Elelctronic Thread"
Column for NMSA's Middle Ground and co-authors a monthly column for
Microsoft's Teacher Learning Network and has written recent articles for Educatation
World; Technology and Learning; Middle Level Learning; and Middle Ground
Magazine. She is also an active contributor to MiddleWeb Listserv.
Some of Brenda's articles and commentaries are linked to the
MidLink Editors Publishing section at:
http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/ml.eds/ml.eds.pub.brenda.htm
Brenda
Dyck, Master's Academy Calgary, Alberta, Canada