Year: 2010

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Looking for a Pay Phone and a Lecture

Pay Phone
Pay Phone screenshot

Their seems to be a new genre of “Did You Know” video designed to overwhelm us with upbeat music and a relentless bombardment of stats attesting to the whirlwind of technological changes going on in the world.  As if I need a YouTube video to remind me! The video below was produced by the New Brunswick Department of Education. I really enjoyed the opening question it poses – “When’s the last time that you – sent film out for processing, used a pay phone, etc…” It then asks a great contrasting question – “But what about education?”

I was disappointed at the 52 second mark when I watched the film go on to contrast those antiquated activities with the innovations going on in New Brunswick schools.  I was hoping for a different contrast – interviewing students about the obsolete communications landscape of the typical classroom – when’s the last time they were asked to listen to a teacher talk, write down what they heard and then give it back on a test. 

Not many pay phones around anymore, but walk in most schools and you’ll have little trouble finding a lecture.

Notes to my Canadian neighbors: I was impressed with the great things going on in New Brunswick schools. The lecture problem is global. And one more thing … can someone find another adjective to replace 21st century?

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Learning from Centuries of Play: Students Reenact Bruegel’s “Children’s Games”

Bruegel_games-detail I was perusing Edward Snow's "Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Childrens Games" and impressed with his de-construction of the painting. As a big fan of document based instruction, I got thinking about how much students could learn from a close reading of the work.  Link to painting.

After a search, I found that a group of Belgian students had researched and re-enacted Bruegel the Elder's "Children's Games" (1560) for a class project. I'm reposting it to inspire enterprising teachers and students to try their hand at a reenactment of this (or another work).

Johan Opsomer posted the reenactment in 2007 with the following description:

I developped a project with the children of our school. Each child had to choose a group and a figure. They had some tasks about their figure.  Fill in a 'friends-book' as the figure would do in the Middle ages. Discribe the game and making up the rules. Make a drawing book with the house, the family and the clothes of the figure. Telling the life-story, make a cookbook, a family-tree, etc etc, depending of the age of each of our students. It was a great project and we even were in national newspaper with the project and the picture.

Bruegel-by-Johan Opsomer  



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Seeing American History Through the Artist’s Eye: A Teaching and Learning Resource

Thomas Hart Benton - Boomtown The Education department at the University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery has just launched a new web feature which pairs works of art with teaching strategies.  

Their new teaching / learning site, Seeing America,  documents the Gallery’s outstanding collection of American Art through 82 works and their connections to American history, culture, literature and politics.

The accompanying Classroom Guide integrates background information on the art, the artist and America with visual literacy classroom activities. Lesson plans and resources are readable online and available as downloadable pdfs. 

Download a pdf sample Context and Classroom Activities for
 Thomas Hart Benton’s Boomtown. (above)

After you’ve had a chance to view the site leave a comment with your responses. I’ll pass them along to my friends at the Education department.  

*****

If your interested in world art, take a look at my blog post “Picturing the Story – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Culture, Environment, Language, and Learning.”  I served as an advisor to the Education department’s last teaching site – “Picturing the Story: Narrative Arts and the Stories They Tell.” It uses world art from the permanent collection of the Memorial Art Gallery dating from 1500 BCE to the 20th Century. Each work has a story to tell, either visually through imagery and symbol, or indirectly through custom and ritual. The stories reflect sacred beliefs, folk traditions, common human experiences, or unique cultural practices. 

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School Reform? Be Honest and Start from Where You Are (A Free Webinar)

Program-improvement-diagram This Friday, my friends over at TurningTechnologies are sponsoring a free one-hour webinar entitled Impact Every Student: Simple Strategies That Provide Big Improvement (April 30, 2010 | 2:00 pm Eastern)

I was impressed with the frankness of their description "With all the options available to promote school improvement, where should we begin? If we're smart, we'll start by being honest." I'm all for honesty – you can only truly start from where you are.

The webinar promises to focus on how to engage teacher teams in effective assessment, planning and action. It features Mike Schmoker (author and consultant) , Tina Rooks, (K-12 Ed Consultant at Turning Technologies) and from the field – Sharyn C. Gabriel (principal) and Janet Bergh (reading coach) from Ocoee Middle School. Ocoee, FL

It should be valuable for teachers, leaders and all those dedicated to school improvement! Here's the link to the webinar.

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Social Media Engagement for Schools

Educators who are already using Twitter (and other social media) know the power of interaction with your own personal learning network. It’s like a never ending seminar that you can freely visit to learn, share, and reflect. By far, the best professional development going! Likewise, more of our students are using social media to learn and to share their thinking / creativity with an authentic audience of peers.

While many teachers and students have embraced social media, most schools still lag behind, struggling with the question of whether they should formalize social media networks for their students, teachers, and community. 

First step – help school leadership better understand what social media is and how it can be effectively utilized. (Hint: it’s more than Twittering about what you had for lunch.)

My hats off to Hans Mundahl, Director of Experiental Learning and Technology Coordinator at the New Hampton School, who has provided a great video that introduces the potential for social media engagement for schools. He even simplifies it to this tidy equation …

(Engagement + trust) x targeted audience = impact

Which translates into…

(social media + shared authentic conversation) x personal learning network = quick useful resource

 

 

When your done with the video be sure to take a look at the great wiki page resource that his PLN created.