Scratch is an e-mazing program that teaches children easy to learn computer programming. I was up pretty late working on mine and things got a little weird. You can play with it here.
There's a lot that students can do on here. They can pick characters. Set music to a scene. Choose backgrounds. Add audio. The programming is easy. It's like fitting puzzle pieces together. What I liked about is that it lets you make mistakes and put puzzles in places that don't make sense BUT it just won't work. So the student isn't mindlessly letting the program tell them, this doesn't work here. They have to figure out what doesn't work on their own.
There are plenty of online tutorials to help you out.
The New York Times recently wrote an article on an initiative that reminds parents to read to their children (and other tasks for their education). They receive the text reminders at the times that it would be most likely for them to do the tasks.
1. YES! of course this makes sense. Our lives revolve around our phones. I have two sons.
My boys are my world and their development as thinkers, citizens, readers, spiritual beings and students are my number one priority. ALSO I am a moderate cell phone user. I don't consider it a lifeline and don't use it near as much as my friends.
BUT--There are times that the reminders of my phone will take precedence over what my boys ask for. "Yes I'll get you some juice as soon as I'm done texting." Our phones have become the tool with which we organize our lives. Through calenders, reminders, alarm clocks, a tool in which people can contact you if you are 5 minutes late for something. So why not use this reality for the betterment of children?
2. How much is student's life a teacher's responsibility or business. Is it a school's or a teacher's responsibility to remind parents to be parents. Is part of the reason some parents are inactive in their kid's education because schools have taken on roles that are not theirs. AND can schools keep up with where this is going? Is there any part of a child's life that isn't shared with the school once they enter school? I can't think of one. Is that good? Is it not so good? I'm not sure. When I am teaching I can't imagine myself not trying to do what I can for a student just because I think it's "not in my job description."
The studies done show this texting program is effective. So shouldn't we just use any useful technology?
The best teacher's I've ever known go beyond the classroom. They talk to student's in the hallway, ask them about their lives, go to their hockey games and their Battle of The Bands. Is the texting initiative too much though? You tell me.
1. Being a Mature student
2. If all guns made fart noises
3. Footrags (socks)
4. I dreamt I was an exorcist
5. My first wife was a real nag
6. Garbage can in a dumpster (what goes around comes around)
7. Scribbling something out with a highlighter
One part of the website would be dedicated to THOSE WITH IDEAS and THOSE IN NEED OF IDEAS.
There are many people who have ideas for businesses, books, Apps, educational technology but don't have the time or motivation to make those ideas a reality. There are also people that have the funds and determination to pull off an idea but might not have a good idea. The website would have multiple categories from hashtag trends to jokes for stand up comedians. People could leave or take ideas. It would be like a world-wide brainstorming session. It could be set up so multiple people can steal ideas or only one. It can be set up, so the person with the idea has to be contacted (though you couldn't enforce that) or not.
What would most likely end up happening is people starting with other people's ideas a a seed for their own creativity.
This website would ultimately be dedicated to the notion that nobody has an idea in a vacuum. The concept of copyrighting is becoming less and less of an issue in world of instant communication. If you go on YouTube for a half an hour you will see multiple copyright infringements that are allowed.
As a culture I can see us becoming less and less concerned about this. I think this is possibly because we are not only creating we are re-creating at an amazing rate. We recreate as a form of understanding and reinterpreting what has been created.
IDEA #2
The reason I came up with the www.stealmyidea.com (domain available) idea is because I came up with an idea for a digital tool for students and I have no technical skills nor do I have any access to anyone with technical skills.
The idea is a social media site for classrooms. Where whole classrooms can connect with other classrooms around the world. I found out last week that this concept already exists through the medium of Mystery Hangout For Schools.
My concept would be a little different. My idea was to have a whole-class messaging system where students are paired up to message chat with other students in the same grade in another school in the world. Whole classrooms could message other students in classrooms. This could be educationally beneficial in many ways.
1. CURRENT EVENTS: If there is a national event (Vancouver riot, tailings ponds in northern Alberta). Your students could talk to a class in those communities and get their take on what is happening or has happened.
2. COMPARE AND CONTRAST: For instnace, if you are teaching about the treaties in Saskatchwwan you could talk with students from New Zealand, Australia, Northern Finland or even British Columbia and talk about their history of Aboriginal people and the (lack of ) treaties.
I got up early the morning after Halloween, awake from my sugar coma (I left some of my kids' candy alone but Daddy Tax went up to 42% this year) and participated in the New Teachers to Twitter chat #NT2t .
It was really fun. There were 16 people participating. There was a lot of resource sharing.
This for example this is something one teacher attaches to his test:
I asked a couple teachers if I could borrow their images or ideas and it seemed that, not only were they open to this, they saw it as the purpose of Twitter Chat.
It wasn't just idea, poster and resource sharing. I also got the chance to talk to some teachers who have been in the game for a while. Some of the teachers on the chat have great blogs
and I followed everyone who participated on Twitter.
There are a lot of different types of teachers. I think I'm going to really enjoy engaging with the teachers that I meet through Twitter. There are a few qualities that they seem to share. I think a certain type of teacher is drawn to Twitter and blogging. These teachers I've talked to always seem to have the qualities that are summed up in a picture that @TeacherManHT and @dayankee shared this image this morning.
JERMAINEfowler
Jensen Kar
