Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d write about a few Canadians I’m thankful for today! Hope you all are enjoying your pumpkin pie! I had mine for Sabbath dinner. Yum Yum!

• Karen Andrews, Senior Manager, Research and Planning. Stakeholder Technology Branch. Alberta Education. I met Karen at NECC 2005 in Philadelphia. That was the beginning of a partnership that brought Read Around the Planet to Alberta, among many other collaborations.
• Daniel Maas, who is now at 2Learn.ca, who has served as TWICE Verification Partner for Alberta for the last few years. Thanks for coordinating a great Elevate 2008 Conference, Danny!
• Nurit Reshef, videoconference coordinator for Edmonton Public Schools, who has found us partners for several collaborative videoconferences over the years.
• Grant Elliot, from Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, Ontario, who has done several MysteryQuests with us, including a MysteryQuest International during a snowstorm where my class didn’t show up; but Grant’s students showed up even though they had a snow day so they could connect to India and Pakistan.
• Brenda LaRocque-Hill, from KCDC in Saskatchewan, who brought in amazing participation of First Nations schools in Saskatchewan and Alberta to Read Around the Planet. (Brenda’s schools use videoconferencing a LOT according to my recent research survey – still in analysis.)
• My friends at York Region District School Board, Ontario, who partnered with us to bring an ASK program to our 6th grade students who study Canada. Thank you Gillian Patrick, Ian Gowans, and now Jason Eygenraam, too.
• Fred Churchman, from Peace River School Division, Alberta, who has found partners for our classes studying Canada.
• Bruce McColm, teacher/librarian at Terry Fox Elementary School in Barrie, Ontario who emailed me last year for a partner and then ended up doing over 20 connections with one of my elementary schools!
• My new friend, Tracy Poelzer from School Division 73, Kamloops/Thompson, British Columbia, whom I met at Elevate 2008, and who hopefully will join us for Jazz in June, as well as collaborations throughout the year.
• Michelle Fontaine, who I met at Elevate 2008, who is bringing Read Around the Planet to Quebec for the first time this year!
• And a whole slough (slew for American spelling) of Albertans who have been hosts and friends and collaborative partners for projects between our classes.
• Finally, apologies to anyone I missed in my list. I’m thankful for you too!

And, for the Americans reading this blog, check out a little history of Canadian Thanksgiving. Did you know it was celebrated before the pilgrims landed in Plymouth? Wikipedia concurs. Wouldn’t that make an interesting videoconference, to compare the history and celebrations of Thanksgiving in these two great countries?!