I'm officially clueless and haven't even seen one of the nominations for Best Picture. Here's the full list of Oscar Nominations for those of you (like me) who need to get a little pop culture into your life. These are the things many of our kids talk about so they become important to me.
Nominees for best Picture: American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave, and the Wolf of Wall Street.
Many of these are a bit dark (understatement) and thus may not be something I choose to watch, but we can at least be familiar with the themes and what they are.
Another Infographic app for schools. You can use just a few themes for the free price and there are prices for schools to use Piktochart. This is another option for creating infographics with students.
Students and teachers are taking the 4 liter challenge. Here's the curriculum and information to bring resources and instruction to children of all ages.
"To make the 4 Liter Challenge an even more enriching experience, we've created a free curriculum that introduces themes of water, poverty and human rights to any 7-12th grade classroom. The 4L Curriculum is multidisciplinary and designed to align with national standards. It's built on an innovative "See, Judge, Act" model and will greatly enhance your students' 4L Challenge."
Read the open access magazine online. This month's issue has a 'Learning For All' theme, with articles about special education, inclusion, behaviour management, feedback techniques, and EdTech for your lessons.
Apple app to make and publish beautiful interactive magazines and documents quickly and easily. It has a wide range of themes, fonts and you can add your own images. Students can type or use the speech-to-text function, which make it accessible for a wide range of abilities.
The twelve first-person films that make up this series explore three related themes, each in its own way at the center of current debate about what works, and what's needed, to help students succeed during school and in life.
60-Second Civics is a daily podcast that provides a quick and convenient way for listeners to learn about our nation's government, the Constitution, and our history. The podcast explores themes related to civics and government, the constitutional issues behind the headlines, and the people and ideas that formed our nation's history and government.
Great post from Cathy Nelson that I agree with so very much!
"If an assignment can be plagiarized it isn't a very good assignment" theme that Doug Johnson and Will Richardson also echo.
via http://freetech4teachers.blogspot.com/2008/12/secret-builders-virtual-world-for-ages.html\n\nSecretBuilders is a virtual world for children 5 to 14 years old powered by a web 2.0 community of children, parents, educators, writers, artists and game developers. On SecretBuilders, children will explore virtual lands, undertake quests, play games, maintain a home, nurture a pet, and interact with their friends. Three features which form the backdrop for SecretBuilders distinguish it from other online worlds:\n\n * Children learn through immersing themselves in the stories, themes, and concepts from the best in literature, arts and humanities. They will interact with famous historical and fictional figures and be introduced to content and characters from world civilization and the great thoughts and ideas of human creativity. \n\n * Children will create this site, not just consume it. They are directly involved in creating this world with their ideas, critiques and contributions on virtually every aspect of the site and many of their ideas will be implemented!\n\n * Children publish their works - writings, art, videos - making SecretBuilders their own personal store of creativity. They can invite friends and family to view their works, and comment upon them. Seeing their works published and enjoyed by others instills tremendous for self-confidence as well as motivation to do more.\n
A good blog post concerning James Boyle and his talk where the 'central theme was the relationship between where we are today with open science and where international computer networks were in 1992. He likened making the case for open science today with that of people suggesting in 1992 that the networks would benefit from being made freely accessible, freely useable, and based on open standards'.
In my earlier post, I mentioned how Twitter played such a prominent role in the TLt experience. There was another theme that threaded through almost every presentation and deep into the private conversations; the importance of family. I've never been to a conference where so many presenters boldly expressed how their family motivated them to share, learn, and create. My family sacrificed quite a bit for me to attend this conference, and I greatly appreciated being in the presence of others who recognized the importance of incorporating family values into your work life. Everyone I met was just a pleasure to be around. I would like to share a little about some of them. I can't list everyone I met, because I didn't spend much time with some of them, but hopefully I can help you get to know a few of those with whom I connected.
Time for K12 online conference proposals:
"We are pleased to announce the call for proposals for the third annual "K12 Online Conference" for educators around the world interested in the use of web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year's conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is "Amplifying Possibilities." Participation in the conference (as in the past) is entirely free. Conference materials are published in English and available for worldwide distribution and use under a Creative Commons license. Some changes in the requirements for presentations are being made this year and are detailed below. The deadline for proposal submission is June 23, 2008. Selected presentations will be announced at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, USA on July 2.
Braids around the Globe
Main theme - Global Travel
Goals
* to become familiar with different locations / cultures around the world
* to participate in the Vendee Globe trip (see below)
* to follow-up by creating our own Global Adventure
Dubbed "the Everest of Yacht Racing", the Vendee Globe is the ultimate in single-handed endurance: around the world, single-handed, non-stop with no assistance from shore.
The Vendee Globe spans 25,000 miles, ~100 days, France to France, leaving Antarctica to starboard, starting in November 2008.
Rich Wilson is the ONLY American registered for the 2008 Vendee Globe.
The first race was held in 1989-90, and has been run every four years since the 1992-93 event.
Two sailors have been lost at sea since the race began in 1989, and others have been dramatically rescued.
Make yourself or someone you know into a hero. --> i haven't yet tried this, but am hoping it can fit into our hero theme for junior secondary students. i will try it out this weekend and add another comment. if you have used this, i'd like to hear from you!