More Mixed Media

Lessons Learned the Hard Way – this could be a lot of fun with literary and historical figures. Real Life Fodder for Copyright Conversations “But honestly Monica, the Web is considered ‘public domain’ and you should be happy we just didn’t ‘lift’ your whole article and put someone else’s name on it!… If you took […]

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Mediocrity 2011 – Car Names for Vocabulary

This is one of those easy options for vocabulary. I thought of it when I saw the 2011 Mediocrity commercial embedded below. Essentially, they pick one of the vocabulary words and use it as a car name. The students would draw up a one page ad1 (with relevant copy) for the car that plays off […]

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“Small People” Limited Time Offer

As an English or foreign language teacher I’d be all over the “small people” quote by BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg. It’s not going to be useful much longer so act now. Questions: Should this comment make people mad? What did he mean? What should he have said? It’s a beautiful entry to arguing about word […]

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Survival Guides

Survival guides have some interesting potential for a variety of historical and literary analysis needs. This idea was jump started by the Brighid Survival Manual which was found via Super Punch. Here’s a quick example for the Witch in The Wizard of Oz. I’ll see if time allows me to make one for a Jamestown […]

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Animoto: An Academic Use

I despise Animoto‘s use as evidence of learning in the classroom. It produces a veneer that implies intent but requires none. It allows people to put on the facade that their students are doing intelligent work. They seem to trick even themselves. That being said, I finally came up with a use that would require […]

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A few things . . .

Currency Redesign This would be a fun way to look at our government (and other countries for that matter). It’s simple but complex. How do you redesign our currency so that it reflects our history and current values? There’s a lot of interesting analysis potential there. Partnering with an art class would give you some […]

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Step Up Your Vocab: The Musical

cc licensed flickr photo shared by bionicteaching This is pretty simple and likely to be pretty fun. It probably fits best in an English classroom1 I’m not sure how I’d start this . . . I think I’d go this route. I’d show the kids a bunch of article headlines and quotes complaining about the […]

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