Digital Magic #12

Digital Magic #12 :: Big Thinking

Google is sponsoring a contest:

Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.

May those who help the most win!

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Also, here are a few people making a difference:

Students here in our district are using: Kiva.org.

Craig and Mark Kielburger: Free the Children.

Sarah McLachlan: World on Fire.

 

Click for World on Fire Video

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Things that make you go hmmmmmm…

Are these ideas worth talking about with students?

How can you use one of these links/ideas in your classroom?

Do our students believe that they can make a difference in the world? 

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Did you miss an edition of Digital Magic? Is there one you want to look back on again? Here are all the editions of Digital Magic in reverse order, (most recent first).

Have a great week!

Digital Magic #6

Welcome to Dave’s Digital Magic #6

Here are 5 links for you to explore.

This week we have a video theme. I was tempted to discuss them, but instead I will let them speak for themselves… comments are welcome.

1. THE FEATURE OF THE WEEK!

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2. The Power of a Signature

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3. Talking to Teens

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4. Miniature Earth

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5. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

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Video’s are a great teaching tool! One way to start collecting them is to sign up for a free YouTube account. When you are signed in, and you find a video you like, just click ‘Favorite’ and you can collect videos there. Then from any computer you can sign in and find all your favorites.

You can also make Playlists, which lets you create video players, like the one seen on this wiki.

I like this because you can show a number of videos without students seeing the comments under the videos (which can sometimes be very inappropriate for classrooms). You can also use playlists to separate your favorites for different uses.

Start with the simple task of signing up for a free YouTube account, and then I’ll be glad to help you.

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Did you miss an edition of Digital Magic? Is there one you want to look back on again? Here are all the editions of Digital Magic in reverse order, (most recent first).

Have a great week!

Digital Magic #5

Welcome to Dave’s Digital Magic #5

Here are 5 links for you to explore.

1. THE FEATURE OF THE WEEK!

26 Learning Games to Change the World

To be honest, the only one I’ve tried is Free Rice, and I wrote about it here.

If you use and like another one, please let me know!

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2. GLOBAL ISSUES… continued

World on Fire – by Sarah McLachlan

A typical music video costs about $150,000. Sarah only spent $15 on her World on Fire video, and then she took $148,270 and spent it in ways that positively impacted the lives of thousands of needy people! (Donations list)

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3. MORE ON MATH

The Math Playground

If you click on the K-7 Mathcasts you will get to see Voicethreads in action... (I linked to Voicethread in Digital Magic #2)

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4. STAR WARS

R2D2 in the classroom?

OK Lawrence, this one is for you, although I have to say, “I want one too!”

Sorry to say there is no money in our budget to get these into our school.

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5. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

Academe’s Dirty Little Secret

This blog post is written by Darren Kuropatwa, a brilliant high school Math teacher.

Here is an excerpt:

“You can require your students to demonstrate their understanding of what they are learning by having them apply their knowledge analyzing and evaluating relevant novel situations or problems. Better yet, get them to create content that educates an interested learner and they will automatically incorporate all those levels of engagement while they make their learning sticky. I don’t need to tell you that there’s nothing like having to teach a thing to make you really learn it.

Darren walks the talk! His students will go home and spend hours helping to teach others, when it is there turn to scribe the class notes and post them on a blog for the other students in their class. You can see this in his Scribe Hall of Fame… or if you aren’t into Math, just check out the link to the article.

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Did you miss an edition of Digital Magic? Is there one you want to look back on again? Here are all the editions of Digital Magic in reverse order, (most recent first).

Have a great week!

Digital Magic #1

Welcome to Dave’s Digital Magic #1

Here are 5 links for you to explore.

1. THE FEATURE OF THE WEEK!

Want to use games in your classroom to help teach or study for a test?

Try out this ‘Make your own games with Powerpoint‘ site.

“The Parade of Games web site was created to provide educators and trainers with easy-to- assemble educational games in a technology- enhanced environment to support key learning points. The site demonstrates the creative use of popular game shows and other familiar games to reinforce learning.”

I tried out the Jeopardy game. It is this simple to get started:

• download the game.

• Highlight the Category Headings on slide 3 and put your own in there.

• Go through the powerpoint and change the text boxes as instructed:

In other words, the page might say: “Enter text for $100-question-Category 1 here”

-Highlight the text and put in your question.

• Change the background- Why? Because the one they give you is ugly and distracting!

I went to “Format” -> “Background” and did two things, changed the background to blue (like Jeopardy) and I also checked the “Omit background graphics from master”- you don’t need to do this, but it looks better!

• Delete the instructions slide… you are ready to play!

The best part… Jeopardy music!

The only trick is that you have to hit the ‘home’ symbol after the answer to get back to the game board or else you just go to the next question or slide.

If you try out one of the other games and like it… please tell me about it!

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2. MAGIC TIME

Let Fido the 7up guy read your mind!

You don’t even need a computer for this one… just figure out the math!

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3. GLOBAL AWARENESS

“Against All Odds”

“You are living in great danger and must leave your country. Will you survive? Test yourself.”

A powerful, interactive look at what life is like as a refugee. Includes great teacher resources.

This is a bit disturbing in that wrong answers result in torture… try it out before showing it to your kids.

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4. LEARNING ONLINE

So what is a wiki? Here is a nice introduction!

Be sure to ask Stan, Sharon or Lawrence what they are up to with wiki’s in their classrooms.

5. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO

HMMMMMM…

Actually here are two links for you!

a) Feel like reading? 15 year old Kris gives her eloquent view about what’s wrong with schools:

How to Prevent Another Leonardo Da Vinci

b) Just want to watch a video? Mr. Winkle Wakes

What do these two links have in common? They both make me ask myself questions.

Do we do what we do because we are used to it? Or, do we do what we do because it has always been done that way? Are we doing what’s best for our students? What do we do well? And, what can we do better?

What do you think?

Making a Difference

[Cross-posted with my Pair-a-Dimes blog]

Here is a great thing to do with your online students:

Donate Free Rice to help end world hunger… (and improve your vocabulary while you are at it!)

Here is a news article about it, in case you would like to use it for current events.

Advertising at the bottom of the screen changes with every question to promote the companies that donate the rice.

Level 50 is all but impossible to get to without a dictionary, which I encourage… After all, what is the harm in having students looking up words in the dictionary? This is also a good time to introduce using Google as a dictionary.

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On a similar (Social Responsibility) topic, check this out:

“Make Your Difference is a contest to empower youth to impact the world through creating a new possibility in their school, community, city and beyond into positively impacting the world.”

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We really can make a difference, especially if we help our students recognize that they can make a difference!

The WayBackMachine

Welcome to the Internet Archive!

“The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.”

The neatest feature of this site:

“Browse through 85 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible.”

A perfect example of the WayBackMachine in use: I wanted students to go to this site:

http://careers.asia1.com.sg/st_recruit/r20050508.html

But I got the not-so-wonderful “Server Not Found” page.

So, I headed over to the WayBackMachine, put the address in and hit the ‘Take Me Back’ button. The page was archived once, in May of 2005. Click on the link…

May 10, 2005

…And there it is! The article I wanted on ‘The Future of Work’ for my class. It had � symbols instead of some punctuation… but what a wonderful opportunity to find those once lost-for-ever links!

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Lesson Idea: From ‘cool’ factor to ‘fear factor’.

The WayBackMachine can be used as a valuable lesson! Use it as a reminder to students that once they put something on the net, it could be around much longer than they think.

What secrets could I dig up about you?

Basic Blog Rules: Respect, Inclusion, Learning and Safety.

I posted my “Blog Rules- Just the basics” on my ‘Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts’

blog just now and realized that this could be ‘Practic-All’ too.

Details are on the other blog… but the simple basics are right here.

Student Leadership, Service Leadership, and Social Responsibility.

Student Leadership is a passion of mine. One of my favorite quotes, that I borrow from a good friend and mentor, Dave is “I teach leadership not followship”. Most of what follows has a lot to do with Servant Leadership and being socially responsible citizens of the school, and the world.

Here is a link to some Leadership Lesson Plans that I have either used or developed.

Here is a link to some wonderful Teaching Metaphors that I love to use.

Here is a link to my master final paper about Developing a Student Leadership Program in a Middle School.

These are all stored on EduSpaces where I keep my more philisophical blog, ‘Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts’.