The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,400 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 57 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all the parents, students and staff of our learning community!  I hope everyone will have a safe and restful Christmas break.  I would like to thank you for all the Christmas and New Year’s wishes we received this season.  Also, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who volunteered to support the many activities throughout the month of December, including our weekly Advent celebrations, our Turkey Dinner, Santa’s Workshop, various social justice projects including Mission Mexico, and Christmas at the Fort.

Earlier this month I wrote how Advent is a special time.  During this advent season I have truly seen the themes of hope, joy, peace, and love.  This advent season we intertwined the advent themes with our faith plan theme of ‘Walking Together’.  Whether it was the dramatic increase in our sock collection (last year 40 and this year 734), our grade 6 students leading us in the 12 days of Christmas and the walk to find Jesus Scavenger Hunt, or the many community events like the Turkey Dinner or Advent Mass, I saw a community ‘Walking Together’ in the advent spirit.  I am truly looking forward to tonight’s Christmas at the Fort, where I am sure I will see more ‘Walking Together’.

As we bring 2014 to a close and welcome 2015 may we count our many blessings and pray that we ‘walk together’ filled with hope, joy, peace, and love every day throughout 2015.

Blessings to everyone in our learning community as we celebrate the birth of Jesus and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Greg Kostiuk

I am a learner!  In many ways I am still a traditional learner.  I take university classes, I attend conferences and workshops, and I try to keep up on current literature and research.  More and more though, I am learning using twitter.  Not nightly, but a few times a week I find myself getting resources, information, or thought provoking pics via twitter.  This blog will be short and sweet as I simply want to share some pics and ideas that I found on twitter.  Although I do not agree 100% with all of them, they make me think.  I hope you enjoy them, they challenge you, make you think, and encourage you to go on your own twitter learning journey.

Collaboration

Comfort Zone/Mindset

Fail Forward

Faith

Educational ‘stuff’

Project Based Learning

Quotes

‘Stuff’

Infographics

These are just a few of the resources that have made me think.  Twitter is a great place to connect with others (twitter chats), discover different perspectives, and find resources.

Here are a couple of people and links if you want to find out more about using twitter as a learning tool:

Alice Keeler @alicekeeler           http://alicekeeler.com/teachertech/?s=twitter

Jerry Blumengarten @cybraryman1            http://cybraryman.com/twitter.html

I hope you enjoyed this collection and I encourage you to use twitter as a learning tool.

@GregKostiuk

Advent is a special time.  To me Advent has two messages.  One is the buildup to the celebration of the birth of Christ.  This buildup includes the season of Advent and the call to “make ready the way of the Lord.”  By focusing on the themes of Advent we can definitely “make ready the way of the Lord”:

• HOPE – Our vision statement is “A safe and caring, Christ-centered community of HOPE and learning.” Let us be HOPEful tools to express God’s love to another.  Let us serve others not out of obligation, but in HOPE that the kingdom of God is in our midst.
• PEACE – We pray for the people suffering from conflict, whether the conflict is near or far. We pray for a PEACEful solution to all conflict, conflict in our community or conflict in our world.  Our actions for the common good allow PEACE to grow.
• JOY – May we JOYfully use the gifts that God has given us. Let us use our many gifts to spread JOY to everyone.  We experience JOY in understanding creation and serving others.
• LOVE – God, we know you are with us and in us. We thank you for the sign of your LOVE in the many gifts you give us.  By God’s gift of LOVE, we are empowered to make positive choices.  Every day, we choose to LOVE our neighbour.

The second message of Advent is that we do not have to wait.  God is with us now, here in our lives.  In the words of Mother Teresa, “It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you…yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand.”

May this Advent and Christmas season be a time of great hope, peace, joy, and love for everyone.

Greg Kostiuk

PS – If you see me after Christmas time give me a Ukrainian Christmas greeting.  In the Ukrainian-Canadian culture, after Christmas you say, “Khristos rodyvsya!” (Christ is born!) This is answered by “Slavite Yoho!” (Let Us Glorify Him!).