School started up again this week. It seems ages ago that we finished the Canadian school year and drove away from Oakville for a weekend at the Grace's cottage. We seem to have been pretty busy since then, having done a lot of travel and living fancy free. But this week it was back to reality.

Kate moves into Grade 6 at Holy Family, and Alex started at Trinity in Grade 9. It's all a bit mixed up for the kids... they finished a school year last December in Australia, then arrived in Canada to begin the second semester of their next school year in late January here in Canada, effectively skipping the first half of that year. Now they move up a grade, and will be here until mid December when they return to Australia. When school goes back in Australia in February they will restart the current grade they just started here. Confused? They'll be fine.

I also returned to school at Trinity this week. I've been given some different courses to teach too. I had a phone call from the principal in the last week of the holidays asking if I would like to teach a subject called Communications Technology - it comprises graphic design, audio and video production, photography and design. Obviously I thought about it for about 2 milliseconds before saying yes! I'm looking forward to this course, and am planning to try out a whole lot of new ideas with this group of kids. I keep hearing about how much potential there is for blogging, podcasting and other Web2.0 technologies in the classroom so I plan to explore some of that. I've already hooked all the kids up with a blog so we'll see what we end up with.

I'm also teaching two business computing classes, BTT and BTA, both basically aimed at the more conservative, business-like use of computers such as Microsoft Office. It's a lot like the old Computing Studies courses that used to run in Australia before the new IST courses came in a couple of years ago. Still, I'm enjoying these classes and I'm sure we'll find opportunities to explore the digital world and have a bit of fun.

It's actually quite nice to be back and to see all the friendly faces around the school again. Trinity is a good school to work in, and everybody I've met there have been really nice to me. Like every school, there will always be a few things that can be frustrating, but the whole working and living overseas thing is a great experience.

I'll say it again... if you ever get a chance to go on a teaching exchange, take it.