Links You’ll Love – 4-27-12
Are we stifling creativity in the classroom? “The urge to create has never been stronger, and the ability to create is unprecedented, yet a new global study shows that most people feel they are not living up to their own creative potential,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe (the premier creative software manufacturer). You can download Adobe’s study here.
Got a Torah in your pocket? If you have an iPad, iPhone or Android device, that’s not as hard as it sounds. You can download the app or even better – if you want to access PocketTorah via the web, boot up Safari or Chrome (it doesn’t work in Firefox yet) and click here. Click on any parshah (they’re divided by aliyah) to hear the trope.
Who says money doesn’t buy happiness? Not Michael Norton. Check out his TED talk about money and how spending it on other people can make you happier:
Maybe you’ve heard about the concept of “flipping the classroom.” In a nutshell, flipping means having your students watch a lecture online in advance of class, and then use classroom time to work on something together. This was popularized by Salman Khan and Khan Academy. If you’re interested in flipping your classroom, TED and YouTube have a great tool for you. Visit TED-Ed, find a YouTube video that you’d like to use for your flipped classroom, and use the integrated tools to add a description, some related resources and discussion questions. Anyone wanna flip?
“Our ultimate goal as teachers is to create curious problem-solvers and critical thinkers.” Agree? There’s a great article at Creative Educator that addresses the question of, well, questions, and how asking great ones can inspire and motivate your students. Read the whole article here.
Links You’ll Love – 4-20-12
Check out Andrew Lustig’s YouTube video, My Child, The Holocaust Denier:
Very powerful!
50% of 11 year olds have their own cell phone. Seriously? One of my favorite resources, the Harvard Business Review, has a blog that continually amazes me. Check out the recent post on how mobile technologies are shaping a new generation.
Did you know that the Jewish Book Council has curated book lists including ones for YA books, Social Justice and Jewish Leadership (which, no surprise, is curated by Dr. Hal Lewis of Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies)? The lists can be accessed here (and let them know if you have any suggestions for others).
Ya gotta love an interview that features a quote like this: “Inquiry is really the secret to allowing ownership of the learning for kids in a K-12 setting or for adults in adult learning settings.” Oh yeah!! Digital Media and Learning has a scrumptious interview with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (who partnered with EdTech rock star Will Richardson to found the Powerful Learning Practice Network) here.
Links You’ll Love – 3-30-12
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality…” Are you singing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody yet? No? Well, you will after you watch Aish’s newest video, Passover Rhapsody:
Stop what you’re doing right now, and click here to watch the trailer for the upcoming film “Bullying.” Every time someone watches the trailer, Care.com will make a donation to anti-bullying initiatives through FacingHistory.org.
Cell phones in school? Here’s a thoughtful post on revisiting the cell phone ban.
“Bugs Bunny was my muse.” Billy Collins, two-term United States Poet Laureate, states this and more during his recent TED talk. In it, Collins presents animations that were created from some of his works. Distraction? Illumination? You can decide:
Got an iPad or iPhone? The Baltimore Jewish Times has a nice article on apps for Passover.
Links You’ll Love – 3/9/12
Who’s Kony and why is everyone talking about him? Leader of the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) in Uganda, Joseph Kony is known for terrorizing Ugandans, abducting children and turning women into prostitutes. He has been termed the “world’s worst war criminal.” What’s remarkable about Invisible Children, the movement to stop Kony, is its widespread use of social media to spread the word, primarily through the distribution of this video:
Here’s an interesting article about the viral video. Finally, NPR had a terrific interview recently with a Ugandan journalist which really points out how important – and hard – it is to really determine when stuff you hear, read and see on the Internet is true. NPR has a lot of links about Kony – this is a great one. Don’t underestimate the potential of the social web! And don’t assume everything you hear is completely factual!
Cheesy choice of music aside (really, ArtScroll? The theme from “2001, a Space Odyssey”?), the video showing the features of the soon-to-be-released ArtScroll Digital Schottenstein Talmud is quite amazing. Imagine carrying the Talmud in your pocket (or your iPad case), having instant access to features like classic layout and tappable text (tap the text and the commentary and translation instantly appear). What’s remarkable about this is that it’s really the first attempt in the Jewish community to digitize classic text and add new features to truly take advantage of tablet computing. It’s not out yet, and we don’t know how much it’ll cost, but it’s an exciting and interesting project. And certainly a step in the right direction.
How do students use technology? Mashable has a neat infographic about it here.
This week, when we played our digital scavenger hunt for Purim, we were pretty surprised at how many kids have iPods. Well, I guess we weren’t surprised…but it was interesting to see how many of our students are sporting personal music devices. Pop over here to read about how an elementary school principal utilized iPods and audiobooks to boost reading scores. With so many of our kids already plugged in, this might be worth thinking about!
Links You’ll Love
Mission US is an interactive adventure game designed to improve the understanding of American history by students in grades 5 through 8. This multimedia project includes student activities, an educator’s guide, and additional media sources.
Need copyright free images? Do your students need copyright free images? As educators, we really should encourage our students to use them – not every image found on the Internet is there for the using! Check out PhotoPin – it searches photos on Flickr with the Creative Commons designation (something the 8th graders know all about from searching for photos for their book trailers).
Links You’ll Love
Dr. Danah Boyd talks about her work studying teenagers and their online activity at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/fashion/danah-boyd-cracking-teenagers-online-codes.html. Dr. Boyd is a senior researcher at Microsoft, an assistant professor at New York University and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. It’s fascinating stuff.
I know you’ve spent hours thinking about these questions:
- How will the evolving nature of belonging, membership, and affiliation influence Jewish communities of the future?
- How will Jewish life and learning be impacted as we move into an increasingly networked world?
Why don’t you make a four-minute video with your thoughts and submit it to the Jewish Futures Competition? Check out http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e5h3m2v44611a3f1&llr=hvaohecab for more information.
Anybody using Twitter? No? Well, you need to get yourself over there and check out the cool stuff our math classes are tweeting! One group is tweeting as math concepts and the other as famous mathematicians. What a great project! Using the hashtag #sssmsmath, they’re posting such nuggets (all in 140 characters or less) as:
(Charles Babbage) “created a calculator without human error, what have you done?”
(Planes2D) “Someone told me my wardrobe was limited. Little do they know, everything of mine goes on forever.”
(RtTriangle1) “Someone just said I’m kind of square, but I am cool! Right?”
Want to check out the math tweets? Go to https://twitter.com/#!/search-home and put in #sssmsmath.
Links You’ll Love – January 20, 2012
Boxing in Berlin, young Leonard Bernstein and Hank Greenberg… The 2012 Sidney Taylor Book Awards have been announced – check them out here.
You all know what a Google doodle is, right? It’s when Google turns their logo into a graphic in commemoration of something. I know you know some kids who would love to have their doodle on Google! Here’s where they can find out how their idea could end up a Google Doodle. The theme is “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…” and the winner gets a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for their school.
You may have visited Wikipedia on Wednesday and, well, not been able to get any info. Or noticed that Google had those strange blackout boxes on it. This was all in protest of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. While those venerable sites are all for stopping online piracy, many Internet companies feel the act is too restrictive and would ultimately be an affront to our freedom. Here are several resources about the issue:
http://www.good.is/post/what-would-a-post-sopa-internet-look-like/
There has been for some time a cyber war between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian hacking groups, the latest of which occurred Wednesday as “Israeli hackers unveiled details of approximately 4,800 credit cards from various accounts held in Saudi Arabia.” Read the rest of the story here.
Like this:
Links You’ll Love – January 6, 2012
Here’s a lovely blog post on doing lunch duty. Much of it goes for any kind of non-classroom situation like recess duty or supervising students on field trips.
Do you or your students use EasyBib for bibliographies? Did you know they have apps for the iPhone and Android phones? Creating a citation couldn’t be easier: just scan the bar code and it creates a citation.
Admongo.gov is a website designed to teach kids about advertising. Students participate in activities geared to answer questions like: Who is responsible for the ad? What is the ad actually saying? What does the ad want me to do?
One of my favorite education authors is Will Richardson. He has a new thought piece on District Administrator: Are you an old school or a bold school? Worth a read.
Here’s another website designed for teachers who rely on YouTube videos and want to present them in a safe environment.
I know you’ve all had that secret desire to learn how to code (as in programming for computers). No? Maybe you have a student or two who would like to… Check out codeacademy to get an idea of how learning to code can be fun. Really!
Links You’ll Love for 12-16-11
Want to know what everyone wanted to know last year? Google Zeitgeist sorted billions of Google searches for the answer :
The technology of storytelling, a map of the brain and more. Here’s a terrific list of the 10 best TED talks to share with your students.
Writing and need positive reinforcement? Do your typing at Written? Kitten!, and every 100 words (or whatever quantity you determine) you’ll be treated to picture of a cute fuzzy kitten. Prefer negative reinforcement? Go to Write or Die. (Hey – I don’t create these, I just find ‘em!)
Links You’ll Love for December 10, 2011
Here’s another Chanukah (or is it Hanukkah, or Hanuko?) video for you. The Los Angeles Jewish Home has a video out that is both a Chanukah greeting and a request for financial support. Whatever it is, it’s really lovely.
Sir Ken Robinson, in his talk on passion, states “… finding purpose in our work is essential to knowing who we really are.” Give yourself a 50-minute present and watch his sermon for The School of Life:
Many of us have casually mentioned that we’re happy we don’t have to take the standardized tests given students. A school board member in Florida decided to do just that. The blog post about his experience can be found here.
More and more libraries are putting content online, and the National Library of Israel is no exception. Their website is easy to navigate and feature-rich. The English website can be accessed here, and the Hebrew site is here.
National Geographic is developing a really stunning education website. It’s still in beta, which means there can be some glitches here and there, but you should check it out. There’s a phenomenal multimedia map about the attack on Pearl Harbor (which, incidentally, was 70 years ago this week). It really is worth a visit. Even if you’re not a history buff, this is an impressive example of what can be done with multimedia resources.
And, finally…gum or no gum? There have been some, shall we say… spirited…. conversations about whether or not students should be allowed to chomp their way through school. Wired magazine posts an intriguing science article worth chewing on (sorry….). Hmmmmm…could the benefits be worth the hassle?
Like this:
About
Debbie Harris is the technology coordinator at the Sager Solomon Schechter Middle School in Northbrook, IL and teaches religious school at Lakeside Congregation for Reform Judaism. Involved in Jewish education for over thirty years, she received an education degree from Northwestern University with a concentration in instructional media. She is skilled in using and teaching desktop publishing, video editing, presentation and animation software; and consults and presents regularly on integrating technology into Judaic studies. Her students podcast, blog, edit video and create claymations. She co-chaired the technology track for CAJE 33 in Vermont, is a SMART Certified Trainer for SMART Notebook version 10 for both Macintosh and Windows, and a 2011 recipient of the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.
When not learning, teaching or writing about technology, Debbie likes to craft. While not particularly highly skilled at anything, she likes to knit, do calligraphy, sew, paint fabric and just generally play with fun toys like scrapbooking supplies, watercolors, and anything with texture. She is incredibly proud of her two daughters; Lori, who teaches English at a community college; and Allie, who is a student at Hebrew Union College in LA.
Look for her at:
Her educational technology wiki
Debbie Does Desktop
Flickr
Twitter
Diigo
YouTube
Ravelry
Email Debbie here
