Group items tagged

The Cigar Box Project was a year-long, Canadian History project embedded in inquiry-based, 1:1 classroom. The Cigar Box Project has won two national teaching awards, and has been presented, locally and internationally

With the presidential election dominating the news between now and November, there's no shortage of timely material to bring into classroom discussions. If used as the starting point for project-based learning, the 2012 election can engage students in thinking critically about everything from media messages to voter rights to public opinion polls.

When students become media literate, they learn to ask critical questions about how political advertisements were constructed, who paid for them to be produced and aired, and whether the information is credible or distorted. Often, such projects lead to students producing and publishing their own media messages.

Civic Action Project (CAP) is a project-based learning model for civics and government courses. It offers a practicum for high school students in effective and engaged citizenship and uses blended learning to engage students in civic activities both in and out of the traditional U.S. government classroom. By using web-based technology and civics-based instruction and activities, students exercise important 21st century skills in digital literacy, critical thinking, collaboration, self-direction, and learning to be an engaged and effective citizen in a democracy.

What it is:  The Miniature Earth Project is a great website that poses the question: “what if the population of the Earth were reduced into a community of only 100 people?”  Based on this assumption, the site helps students understand what the breakdown of nationalities would be, religious representation, how many people would live in an urban area, how many people would have the majority of the world income, how many would live without clean world, those that live on less than $1.25/day, etc.  The purpose of the site is to break our quickly approaching 7billion people in the world down to a number (100) that we can more easily wrap our minds around.  The point of the site is to help kids (and adults) understand the real landscape of the world and cause positive action.

“Understanding our rights and responsibilities as individuals and the similarities and differences of others helps contribute to the development of world citizens.”

Welcome to #KidVote Mock Election for the upcoming US Presidential Election in November 2012.

DEADLINE TO SIGN UP: Friday, October 19, 2012. This will allow my students have time to prepare everything they need to track the data, and more importantly, get it shared on Election Day!

Thank you all for taking this event to the next level for our students. A mock election is fun, but a mock election shared with the whole country? THAT’s what 21st century learning is all about: collaboration and authentic experiences!

“Simple does not mean short. Writing in Simple English means that simple words are used. It does not mean readers want basic information. Articles do not have to be short to be simple; expand articles, add details, but use basic vocabulary

You can get to the Simple English Wikipedia by either “translating” the article from the standard Wikipedia with the link in the language list, as depicted in the image; or you can go to the Simple English homepage to search for a particular topic.

To help your students who have a higher comprehension of a topic, submitting an article to the Simple English Wikipedia is an excellent extension activity. Entire classes could even participate, all researching an animal, a historical event, or just editing/lengthening existing articles.