Del.icio.us links added
We are finding more possibilities than we can feature with a certain measure of reflection, so you will find a new “Recent Del.icio.us Links” section on our sidebar. We’ll include a line or two regarding where our thoughts were going when we encountered the link. The rest is up to you. As always, we hope this helps.
Related posts
Vocabulary- Lost in Translation
What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between 5 different languages? Lost in Translation is a fun little web page that does all that translation for you using Babelfish. Why in the world would you want to do this? Well, it’s funny and while it can become nonsense very easily, with a little effort this is a fun and interesting way to get students looking at vocabulary and language. It’s fun and easy so why not give it a shot. I type in “I love the ocean” and get- Translated to French: J’aime l’océan Translated back to English: I like the ocean – now we’ve got a synonym! Is it close enough to keep the meaning? Translated to German: Ich mag den Ozean Translated back to English: I like the ocean – ditto above Translated to Italian: Gradisco l’oceano Translated back to English: I appreciate the ocean – another synonym! I know you’re excited. Translated to Portuguese: Eu aprecio o oceano Translated back to English: I appreciate the ocean – Sadly, this worked pretty well. Translated to Spanish: Aprecio el océano Translated back to English: Esteem the ocean – Now this is a very different phrase than we started out with. Does esteem mean the same thing as love? Is “esteem the ocean” a […]
A Future Intro
I made this so we could talk to our staff about the TIP Chart (our technology integration progress rubric- which is pretty good). It’d work well for parents as well. It’s pretty interactive and fun in the beginning with a number of pretty funny questions mocking our ability to predict the future. The intro slide sets the tone. I basically say “Where is my jet pack?” Then I try to get people talking about what they expected to have in the “future” that hasn’t materialized. I then pose this question and then invite guesses from the audience as to why this eminent scientist believed high speed train travel would be impossible. After a while I show them the answer. The key is that it gets people engaged at the beginning and it’s pretty funny- yet it is amazing how quickly things change. The presentation then segues into what’s going on now. Since we can’t predict the future very well, we might as well show the “futuristic” things going on now. I showed brief selections from a few TED videos that I thought were cool and relevant to the topic. We hit parts of – Do schools kill creativity? Hans Rosling on poverty – both to touch on globalization and to show how the data is presented Will Wright’s Spore It’d […]
Photoblogs: Inexhaustible Sources of Inspiration
Many of us have a core set of blogs we check everyday for insight and inspiration. Most of those blogs are text-base, yet there is a subcategory of blogs that focus on images. Photoblogs are blogs that feature pictures either found or taken. The layout and interface of a photoblog differs from the traditional blog. Typical photoblogs feature one picture at at time with a couple toggle buttons to move from one photo to the next. Some bloggers narrate their pictures and others let the photos speak for themselves. I have to remind myself on a weekly basis that my students speak in a language of images–a language that sounds like broken English when I try to speak it. My mumbled and fumbled attempts are not in vain. My students understand that I am trying to show a level of respect for the world they are creating. I encourage you to consider this as you review your lessons and think about tweaking them for next year. If images are becoming the glue that holds our text-based lessons together, then imagine the power of telling a story or teaching a concept with images that are stitched together with words. Photoblogs, Flickr, and other image-sharing sites are an untapped resources for transforming (or maybe even translating) our lessons for our students. Photoblog […]
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