World wide web, spider web, and webs in between

Crop faceless developer working on software code on laptop
Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels

As I’m thinking about our World Wide Web, I can’t help but to also think about a spider web image- that connects everything. It’s so similar and so very different at the same time.

Our online world is interconnected in so many levels, yet also much more fragile than a spider web. The video by Wesch here describes, among other things, how it brought space for many new original ideas. A platform and voice of so many video hours, yet not by a few mainstream channels and rather by many creative individuals- showing many varied ideas. Individuals participate and not just stay passive.

Taken from Youtube

The world wide web demands us to bring awareness to participatory culture and how we play a role in it. As reflected on a few blogs ago, on the Twitter impact, I think this demands us for an increased level of awareness of how we use these tools, and HOW do we participate in our everchanging culture? How are we using it to empower/ inform/ learn, rather than to be involved in hurtful, uninformed, or otherwise unkind impacts.

The world wide web has so many sides, and it can sure be fun. As Wesch speaks of the Numa Numa going viral, I remember how it was such a hit, and how my friends found sounds that could be words in Hebrew, how we spotted the words that are in other languages, and made our own versions of it. It was such a fun way to connect over recess. But it can also be harming, and lead to online bullying as everyone can comment and reach what was unavailable before.

Arachnid artistic blur bokeh
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels

I am terribly scared of spiders, but learned to appreciate their webs. It’s strong, one string at a time. It can hold more weight than seems, and when we’re looking at the pattern it can even look beautiful. It’s also sticky and can trap someone though. So how do we make the interconnectedness more aware and strong, rather than sticky and trapping? By a few steps:

Turned on computer monitor displaying text
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels

First, by considering digital citizenship. I am excited to learn more about it in the next few classes and get more involved! We can consider online citizenship as a way to be aware and active towards managing our online presence rather then letting it manage us. I’m still learning how to do this (social media is a hard one!) but getting there. This article from Katia from our EDTC300 class explains some of it’s aspects such as security, health, access and more. It helps us be aware of key components. When we bring this to the classroom we need to consider it with ager appropriate content. This means lots of adaptations, reviews and informing parents on the learned content, ongoing. I think cross curricular connections can also help, as we see how useful it is. For example, using a podcast to share learning about a science projects, etc. We use lots of connections and overlapping subjects in EDTC300, and it can sure help the classroom too! It can make more sense when topics are not learned in isolation to other themes.

Second, we can be aware of ongoing changes and adaptations. The world wide web is ever changing, and so we need to ever-change with it. What was working yesterday may not work today. I think this is the case as anything in the classroom. I often have a plan A, and also a plan B and C to go by for adaptations, if the students need to move more, move less, and stay dynamic and attentive to their needs.

Smartphone with white earphones on wooden table
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels

Last, when working in the classroom, we can make sure we create a safe environment for the students to explore and create with. We are so often taught to be scared of the internet, and of course security is so important, yet it’s also important to teach the students how to work with it, with awareness rather than lead by fear. We should learn about the difficult consequences, and also how to learn from them and how to use the same tools for other directions that can lead to positive outcomes. We can learn how to use the same tool, our world wide web, in different ways.

As mentioned before, one way to do so can be using a classroom podcast (I am learning to work with Anchor ) as a collaborative project to learn how to use our voices, literally, to make an impact! This is something I started exploring and will continue to for a while 😉

Web text
Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán on Pexels

What are your thoughts on this matter? How do you see the www? what are your thoughts from Wesch’s video? Would love to hear from you!

Chat soon,

Maya

Success is in the details… in French!

This week I’d like to share more about the app I’ve been working with and focusing on- Doulingo, our French local newspaper and Screencastify . It has been my baseline as I’ve explored more apps, resources, and tools to learn French. This week I learned about travel. The last topic was art (colors) and future topics include food and treats! But for now, I’m off traveling in French!

Person pointing at black and gray film camera near macbook pro
Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels

First, I’ll travel locally. This is the local French newspaper I wrote about last time, that I’ll keep exploring. It is in Canadian French, and my app is European French, but I’ll try to not get too confused. This is the screencastify video I took this week to show you how I can use the newspaper to learn French and keep improving it with more interest, community, English-French connections, and just have more fun while learning it.

The screencastify wouldn’t upload as a video or HTML (has this happened to you? please share what you did! I found a solution as I uploaded it as a Viemo link, but there must be a more simple solution. Anyway, here is the final video! Wehooo!

Than, I’ll travel further as I learn travel words in French in case a trip will be possible at the distant future! For that, I appreciate working with Doulingo for a few reasons, and mostly for the details in design, simple and useful features and content.

First, it covers the base of speaking, listening, writing and reading.
Second, it allows for your chosen time windows- you can set a 5, 10. 15, 30… or any amount of time for daily practice.
Third, it has goals and tracks your days of practice, reminds you of it, and had helps keep on track. It also has little points and treasures to find like a game, but as I’m not much into gaming I let this part go. But if you’re into it- it’s there!
Fourth, it covers the basics very well. It has lessons and tips with the rules to learn. I explores more apps and videos, and they help, but this has lots of comprehensive information I’m using daily, that seems easy to get also when compared with varied resources. I did add some youtube videos to help me out, but they helped me add and stick to the base Doulingo gave me.
And last, it has a lovely design and simple tools to use it when you can and can’t make noise to adjust the class accordingly.

I’m learning now masculine and feminine differences, reviewing common verbs, pronunciation. This is how my lesson the other day looked like. For masculine and feminine, it had the differences, examples, and rules for words that start with a vowel.

It then continued into some verbs (reviewing Aller) and how to conjugate it. I later continued to practice it (again with the special vowels- they always through me off but I guess not just me as the app keeps giving it as examples and reminders!) and moved on to the verb Avoir. I use google translate to see what the verbs mean if I don’t know.

The lesson than continued to pronunciation and gave me an audio to check it out, and examples of how to say “G” in different words. This is the kind of details I may catch when listen to French songs/ friends, but won’t know how to differentiate it or tell the difference on my own. It made so much sense to read it!

I like how Doulingo helps with all four aspects of learning a language (speak, write, listen, write). This makes me type in the translations, and the better I get the longer the sentence gets. After this 2 words translation I got a 4 words sentence to translate, and so on.

It also helps with listening and then speaking, and has an “I can’t speak/ listen now” button which is great as I can practice when I am waiting in line but don’t want to make noise. This feature was such a motivator- as I can practice of I have 10 minutes between errands, without worrying about the sound.

I than has some more verbs (I appreciate that it was broken with a speaking part – switching between listening/ speaking to writing and reading helps me a lot to stay focused. This is something I learned about how I study better through the app! This may also be why I do better on classes with both zoom/ reading than just the reading and independent 100%.

And last but not least- the game points and daily goals target! It does make it look more cheerful and fun 🙂

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This week I focused mostly about this, and will keep up with the daily work and pronunciation until I feel better and go on the podcast again!

One more thing I like is that the characters in it are from all ethnicities, this makes it feel a little more inclusive and fun. All in all- a great app! I needed to go back to the basics lately- and now feel that I am ready to keep exploring!

Woman looking at the map
Photo by Leah Kelley on Pexels

Thanks for tuning in, and see you next time!

Maya

Learning French with local stories

Thanks for coming back to my blog! This week is a check in to see the bigger picture. An exploration of a new ideas, and how to use it simply within context.

I’ve been working with Doulingo which gives me the regular practice. I’m learning there mostly about feminine and masculine differences at the moment. I also did some research and saw the common thing for the resources I liked most is that they are more applicable daily. May it be daily in practice (apps) or daily in content (commonly used verbs) or daily in ways if use (focusing the present tense at the moment, and using my verbs and sentences in forms of “I am doing…. I am learning… I am seeing….” to make it as useful in my classes as possible. After coming to the conclusion that it is the daily practice I need to keep focusing on I tried to find more ways to use French daily in a fun and useful way. I Here is how I uses French daily this week, and hopefully in many more weeks to come:

Bringing French to the classroom

Girl in white long sleeve shirt holding blue and white globe
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels

I’ve decided to start using it in my class when I have students that speak French, in a simple, inclusive and fun way. This week we learned art with line work styles (continuous line, outline, broken line and decorative lines). By the way, this is also a great cross curricular for literacy at grade 1 as it helps them learn how to write letters! Ok, back to French. We drew whales and learned with them how to draw line works. I asked than how do we say Whale in French and tried to use it in the class, normalizing multilingualism, and ensuring the French speaking students felt ok with it and that they got to share a word in their language. They were so happy!

This can be used in simple ways as google translate, but beware- it works for words individually, and even so I still check with French speaking parents just in case, plus the longer the sentence the more lost the meaning will be. I tried it once in Hebrew, my first language, and it translated a “do not eat and drink” sign to “please eat and drink” ! haha!!!

Taking down the overwhelm

Fashion people woman office
Photo by C Technical on Pexels

As I continue with my Doulingo app, I’ve had less time for it this week. So I decided to stay committed to 5-10 minutes daily (sometimes I go more, but there’s not pressure) and this way I’m not overwhelmed (which makes me procrastinate).

I also save more time to practice it in daily opportunities when I can, and staying flexible when I miss it.

I’ve learned so many words, and I need to start using them and practice them in a daily context otherwise they’ll leave as soon as they came.

Local Newspapers

Wood dawn caffeine coffee
Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels

Which is why I added more local context to my reading and practice by reading some of our local Yukon Newspaper called “L’aurore Boreal” and is ALL in French! I may not get most of it, but I’ll scroll through and just get in the habit of immersing myself with the language and culture. I know the places and people they write about, and can get some from context to fill in the big picture.

This is a collection of stories about the awesome woman we have in Yukon! will be fun to share this in class sometime!

Optimizing your efforts

I’ve looked for the most commonly used words in French to make sure I’m investing my energy in the right place. I checked here in a website called Language Daily a saw I have been keeping well with Doulingo so far as it covered the most common verbs well. This is a good check in that made me feel good about choosing doulingo, as I’m still exploring that app.

Keep exploring!

For future classes, I checked out this link that has 35 free resources to learn French. I also read this article at Read Naturally about learning to read- because what kids do is exactly what I do now too- learning a new language. So going back to the basics. I loved especially the contexts references, showing how it matters and impacts the reading to learn in context and connections to our environment. Easy to remember when making a unit plan for the kids but easy to forget when learning my own subjects!

So now that I feel like I’m getting more resources, a handle on the context and new ways to keep my online platforms supportive, I need your help! I’m more confident in speaking for my final project. What should I start focusing on for my final project? This is all within context haha, I love eating, looking forward to traveling again one day, and love art! Can’t decide….


What’s your experience with google translate? how do you use learning a new topic in a daily way when needed? or balancing the daily practice/ weekly big ideas classes? Would love to hear from you!

Colorfully yours,

Maya

Podcast and coffee time!

Thanks for coming back! This week I’ve checked out Anchor to learn French (my learning project) and discover how to write a classroom podcast. Honestly, I was not sure what to choose- a podcase (and which one?) a class plan website, a video editor…. too much to choose from! So I decided to start with the podcast to see how I can embed this in the classroom and engage students in new ways, and maybe check out more options later too. Anchor felt more intuitive for me so I went with it.

Close up photography of cup of coffee
Photo by Jason Villanueva on Pexels

So starting where I always start first when I’m excited/ overwhelmed/ anything in between: the very first part of the very first step. In this case- podcast short intro. I called it hot chocolate (for the kids) and coffee (for me!) break. This can be a way for me to learn French now, and provide the verbal practice (additional time to Doulingo ) and have a fun way to experiment on myself and try this later in the classroom.

Selective focus photography of gray stainless steel condenser microphone
Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels

It was not easy- it took me a few days and some road blocks. First, I learned how to set it up, and then have the courage to actually talk in it – in French! haha…. then it would not submit for reviewing for some reason. So I played around with it, got frustrated, stopped, got back to it later, and eventually figured it out.

This took a week haha…. learning French AND patience! Now that I’ve explored it for a while, and still got lots to learn (like placing sound effects, etc.) I think it’s a good tool overall- just got to learn how to make it work and be more familiar with its system. I also have so much more to focus on, especially talking slower when I’m nervous.

This is how my Anchor profile looks like when I progress with the steps (which is how I realized that I was stuck at the publishing stage! smart app design)

and how the main page looks like now that my podcast is approved and ready to go (taken with zoom, the glue of my life lately!) which shows you where the podcast is available, the embedding links, etc.

And that was followed with the very happy victory email that I got declaring my podcast is available online!

So- why is this good in the classroom? check out the podcast and find out! (and hear be learning French…) grab your coffee and chill for 6 minutes 🙂

The podcast will be a fun way to engage and get the kids vocal and creative in a positive way

It will help them be aware of their words choices

Share with parents and community members our weekly learning

Collaborate with other classrooms doing the same

Hear progress when learning a new language

And much much more!

Question mark illustration
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels

I still need to learn lots here… how to upload a full song, how to do transitions in the body of the episode, and much more…. if you got tips- please please share! This is all so new!

Taken from Quizlet

For my French project, this was helpful as I spoke my new words. This week I learned the colors. As an art teacher- this is extra fun! I pronounce it still a bit off, but can already hear progress and this is a big step for me. I used Quizlets for this one. And want to thank you all for the helpful tips and recommending so many good places to learn French- this is so much appreciated!

This is the super short video I found that also helps me practice along side Quizlets- unlike the other videos I posted before it’s around one minute so can be played anytime and is just there if I need to fix up my pronunciation. I like how simple it is, and how quick it is. Repetition and simplifying has turned out key to my progress in French learning project!

How is your project going? Why did you choose your platforms? Feel free to share and follow also on twitter!

Until next time!

Colorfully yours,

Maya

Sharing resources and community!

This week is all about community and resources! from learned about Saskedchat- an amazing recourse with twitter, to new colleagues and new resources.

I’ll begin with an honest confession – I never really liked Twitter. I only used it a handful of times and did not see the benefit it has. However, this class has changed my mind. I am slowly and surely learning it has some useful features, and already learned SO MUCH through the resources shared on it! The #saskedchat is one of them. Even though I’m at Yukon, this is amazing. I’m learning to connect with a wide community of teachers from home and afar. And this is a huge benefit. This covers twice the options and communities, and even more- as I’m connected to more and more places. I think it teaches me how to think bigger and wider- a much appreciated lesson.

One resource I found for Formative assessment is Plickers and pretty cool- using the program to collect into quick for a check in assessment to know where the students are at.

Another resource is @GarrickSchmidt on Twitter, thanks Shana Blenkin for suggesting it on Slack! I love land based education, and happy to collect more resources of how to get more involved with it.

I’ve started following new people from our #saskedchat and they’re amazing ! Some ideas just spark more ideas- and I am SO excited to connect with more art, science and math teachers! So now it’s official- I’m good friends with Twitter 😉 I think social media can be harmful when used negatively, but also as a great tool when used thoughtfully- and I’m glad to start changing my relationship with social media in this way. I truly depends on how we use it and it’s refreshing to learn the useful features and not just the rabbit hole feed.

Photo Credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/30478819@N08/50605145971/”>wuestenigel</a> Flickr via <a href=”http://compfight.com”>Compfight</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>

I’d also like to share my business blog for Art at home ideas in the spirit of sharing resources! It’s been made with an amazing team so I can’t take credit for the website (my designer is amazing! and probably happy I’m taking this course haha) I hope you’ll enjoy the content! It’s an art at home blog for, as I like to say, the young at age and heart, nothing fancy. But who knows- maybe just like seeing other art teachers ideas sparked my imagination- this will spark yours 😉 or at least keep the little ones busy for 10 min!

Photo Credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/188454520@N02/49917505631/”>chimpwithcan</a> Flickr via <a href=”http://compfight.com”>Compfight</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>

Let me know- what do you think of Twitter? what are some of your favorite online resources from this week? Or just share what’s on your mind and if you like doing art at home online too 🙂

Cheers,

Maya

Learning math to speak French

“Be Brave enough to suck at something new”

Photo Credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/141436406@N04/49675580438/”>homegets.com</a> Flickr via <a href=”http://compfight.com”>Compfight</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>

This week I struggled with differentiating sounds and meaning of similar words and numbers. I decided to focus on pronunciation first, with Doulingo and this new source by “French Truly” for conjugation of “avoir”, which I needed to keep revising longer than other verbs to remember well. Even my app gave up on me as Doulingo popped a message at some point writing “we’ll get back to this later” signaling me to move on and not get stuck on one part. I like that this app has such a useful feature- I’m the kind of person that can keep at it until I get it but I did not stop to eat or breath- and Doulingo proved to be useful at teaching the content and also at making me be productive and switching things around when I need it.

I than decided to go over numbers here at another blog by “Transparent Language”, a fun learning French blog. I love how it has a vocal and written clarity- was a super helpful source! Learning vocally and visually is key for me.

Fun fact: in French numbers are spoken by doing math! to say 80 you say 20X4! And it gets more complicated: 90 is 20X4 + 10! Haha this will take time to get used to… good thing I love math!

Photo Credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/30478819@N08/50622083893/”>wuestenigel</a> Flickr via <a href=”http://compfight.com”>Compfight</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>

Hope you enjoyed this week’s blog and let me know- what are you willing to suck at to be a beginner with as you learn something new?

Colorfully yours

Maya

Learning Project week 2 – make croissants with me while I learn how to say I want more pizza!

Photo Credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/93799798@N00/4185194254/”>keepps</a> Flickr via <a href=”http://compfight.com”>Compfight</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>

Allright! Week 2- this week I’m learning so much about Food that this image was required. And let’s face it- French culture and good food and just one and the same! I think that culture is more than just words- it’s food, songs, stories, much more than we can learn through vocabulary and grammar. But grammar is a first step to get there. This week- to get into the French mode- I am focusing on food! I bought croissant dough and going to make some for my French lessons! I hope this will get me in the mood. I am great at burning my food- but will do my best to bake them well.

I’ve learned so far how to say the difference between I am eating pizza and I want pizza- which is pretty cool because I can actually use it! This week’s learning are the verbs Manges (to eat) and Vouloir (to want). I used Doulingo for the daily practices and conjugation (still only learning present tense). You can see how Doulingo shows the verbs clearly here:

https://www.duolingo.com/dictionary/French/manges/7607a8eb97fb67c7d390b8ae63bd8ab4

This video also helped. I found it was more useful for me as his style, both verbally and visually, were easier to follow along with. Here is the video:

Also- I finally found how to do polls! Help me choose my final project in the poll of last week’s learning project blog!

Hope this was fun for you to read and that you enjoy this French adventure! (as close as I get to travel now!)

Let me know what is your favorite French food? or just tips to learn a new language?

Colorfully yours,

Maya

EDTC300 adventures continue!

Photo Credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/69474058@N03/36658469274/”>Leo P. Hidalgo (@yompyz)</a> Flickr via <a href=”http://compfight.com”>Compfight</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”

This week I’ve experimented with Feedly. Do you work with it?

At first I was excited about the idea- I always get overwhelmed with al the regular info coming my way and this seems like a good way to categorize it and organize it. However like anything new it took a bit to learn and get a feel for it.

I first chose the content- the first theme was art education, and than some ed tech, and more (lots of TED talks in!). I got into a little road block about finding content with other topics but am lucky to have a great class and after reading some messages on slack it slowly gets more clear. My other themes are math and science, general ed (misc ed I’m not sure where to add) and a few more I may add are land based education / outdoors ed. Here is my Feedly screen shot for now! Lots of ed tech resources (and more to come!).

The first recourse is TED talk- I wanted to listen to it more and this is the perfect way to get to it without the overwhelm of allllllll the TED talks. This has two big advantages on other resources I have: it is time flexible (some chats are 5 min, some 15 and some 30) and this means I can always find a chat that fits in my coffee break timeframe. Second, it is audio based and I can listen while I do the dishes, walk outside, and move (which is for me the best way to learn- learning while moving keeps my brain happy!) Here is a lovely chat to explore. This can be a fun way to engage the students with a SpongeBob story before we dive into math! This gave me an idea for a cross curricular class for art- math, but this is a different post!

The second resource I want to share is “The art of Education University”. From this week’s Feedly I found a great reading about art mystery bag challenge– this gave ,e so many ideas! I’m a string believer in starting lessons with a “hook”- a creative idea, video, walk, chat, or even 5 sec weird face challenge. This blog (and class!) will help me find more ways to do so while using technology- either as a resource or as a place to get ideas to and from). This recourse has a nice idea to make a challenge and fun art activity that can be connected to other themes: what comes to mind is how wonderful it will be to have this class connected to recycling and local aft shows at the Yukon Art Center (they have tours for schools). Starting with the article ideas in the classroom, and taking it out, thinking from the classroom into the community impact of recycling.

Photo Credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/188454520@N02/49917505631/”>chimpwithcan</a> Flickr via <a href=”http://compfight.com”>Compfight</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>

What I love about both resources was that they had a way to adjust to online learning, making things at home, and being flexible- which is key for all resources now more than ever.

What themes did you add to your Feedly? How did you find it so far? Helpful/ confusing?

Looking forward to chatting with you!

Colorfully yours ,
Maya

French learning est magique!

I am so excited to flare up a passion I put on the back burner for a long time- learning French!


I love languages, and as a person that grew up with multilingual parents (I am fluent in Hebrew and English but all my family is fluent is at least 3-4 languages) I decided it’s time to pick up my French skills. I can use it in multilingual schools when teaching eventually, hopefully. I stated learning French about a decade ago for 1 year and then again about 3 years ago for a few months, though it never sticks because I do not practice it regularly enough. I was able to understand the basic, speak the very basic, and forgot so much of that little I knew.

I think the benefit of an online learning app is that instead of driving 20 minutes for a 2 hours class once a week/ month, I can simply practice a little every day. I can still get the same amount of vocabulary and grammar learned, but it will become a daily habit and maybe this time it will stick.

I’m lucky my Israeli accent can be mistaken for French accent, so I hope pronunciation will be a good start!

Photo Credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/30478819@N08/50568835128/”>wuestenigel</a> Flickr via <a href=”http://compfight.com”>Compfight</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>


My Goals:

  1. Practice: my plan is to have the Doulingo app and practice for 5-10 min 5 times a week. It is a small enough step that does not feel intimidating, yet will make it a habit on the weekdays and bring impact one practice at a time.  Small steps.
  2. Enjoy: have a delicious cup (or two) of coffee when practicing. Coffee breaks!
  3. Celebrate small success: have the weekly blog here to record my progress as small or big as it is  
  4. Motivate: have a written/ spoken piece at the end to show what I’ve learned and be my motivation to aim at.

Lesson 1:

Conjugating the verb “etre” – “to be” in present tense. I’m using TalkingFrench to learn the basics in reading. Than I’m going to practice listening in youtube:

Than I’m using Doulingo to speak it and write it (the active forms of learning). It helps me first listen and read, an d only than speak and write. Passive before active. This also brings me audio and visual ways to learn, and more senses = more learning! I know the video looks like it’s super simple and repetitive, but it helps me so simplify and remember I’m allowing myself to be a beginner and simplify.

We got this! What is your project? Feel free to share and I’ll be cheering for ya!

To finish here is one of my favorite musicians in French, from Quebec (which I discovered by accident through a friend of a friend of a friend) because music is a great way to start learning even if I only get every 20th word! 😉

Taken from Spotify, Coeur de Pirate’s account

Colorfully yours,

Maya

About me

Hi all! Thanks for stopping by!

My name is Maya Rosenberg and I’m a students at the bachelors of elementary education with University of Regina and Yukon University, at a collaborated degree program called YNTEP.

Credit of Christian Kuntz photography

I am also an art teacher. In the picture (taken a while ago at a fun photoshoot project with Kuntz, a super talented photographer) you can see my natural state – trying to balance school and work and making an artsy mess in the process!


How did I get into education? I’ll start with telling you a bit about myself. I was born and raised in Israel, and immigrated to Canada almost a decade ago. I’ve traveled across Europe, the states, was a part of a circus community in New York, got immersed in visual arts schools and then decided to change directions to arts education and experiential education. I discovered a passion to learn more as well as teach in an inclusive way that engages students in creativity and colorful ways, helping them not only learn but also learning how they learn best and what sparks their light. My first language is Hebrew, my second is English, and my favorite language is arts.



The more I traveled the more I leaned I love arts and education. Arts and education are such a vital part of every community I ever lived at. I run a local visual arts business called “Art by Maya” where I sell art and and teach acrylics, watercolors and mixed media with local studios and programs in and out of schools. Here is a link to my art at home activities if you ever need some colors! It tends to get less updates around mid terms and finals but has some activities for the young at age and heart!

Even though I changed my climate from + 40 to – 40, I still live and breath the same inspiration that often comes from landscapes, mountains and water. I love taking my students outside the classroom when we can, and learning science on the land, arts in the studio, and gym in the trails. I love teaching math and science and showing the kiddos how they can be smart and creative all at once.



I will finish with a happy outdoors moment above and would love to hear more about you too! Feel free to comment, reach out or share what sparks your light!

Colorfully yours,

Maya Rosenberg