Kony 2012: A lesson of justice

Back at the beginning of the semester, my English 9 students learned of the Invisible Children organization in a TED Talks video (another great resource for the classroom!) and of Joseph Kony. Last week a student sent me an email with this link and insisted I watch it. So I did. And then I showed it to my students....

If you listen to the news or have Facebook or Twitter, you've probably heard about Kony 2012. The video went viral shortly after it was posted on YouTube. It's extremely compelling and explains the movement in a way that a four year old can understand. My students watched it today and were engaged. We're studying social change and injustice/justice right now, so it fit in perfectly with our unit. But I also used it as a way to teach writing tips. The video is compelling for many reasons, but we talked today about how it's compelling because it's honest, it's current, and it includes what we call in room 116 'power lines.' These all happen to be marks of good writing, too!

I noticed today that the New York Times Learning Network also created a blog post about a few different ways to include this video in your lessons. It's probably not appropriate for elementary aged students (though....I don't see a problem with a parent showing this to his/her own elementary aged child), but it's definitely appropriate for upper middle school and high school students.

Check out the video and the NYTimes blog to inform yourself and your students!

Cool Tools for Schools

If you've ever tried in desperation to hammer a nail with a shoe or tighten a screw with a butter knife, you understand that the right tools can make all the difference.

Web 2.0 Cool Tools for School is perhaps the most comprehensive listing of technology tools I've seen, broken down into categories like "Music," "Writing,""Presentation," and 'Collaborative." The "Creativity" category, for example, is broken down into subcategories like Games, Simulators, Classroom Activities, Animations and even "Create-your-own-Activity."

If you've been trying to include more differentiated instruction into your classroom, these sites will prove invaluable. Your high-ability learner will find endless, challenging activities (Scratch computer programming, anyone?). Perhaps a resource student would like to see her work turned into a 3-D online book? There is also an excellent Teacher Resources page.

The only drawback is the sheer number of incredible tools available- I believe there are over 100 (!) Imaging Tools alone. The site provides an A-Z listing of the tools and links, but needs to allow a way to more easily search for what you need.

As it stands now, you'll want to allow yourself an hour (or ten?) to explore all the site has to offer. It will be time well spent.

Featured Blog: Film English

I stumbled across this blog tonight: Film English via Richard Byrne's blog. The Film English blog won a 2011 EduBlog award for Best Individual Blog, so I had to check it out. Let me tell you, it's incredible! The blog boasts a diverse amount of short films that all teach unique ideas: critical thinking, developing passions, creativity, social justice, human rights, writing, empathy, grammar, vocabulary, conservation, ecology...I could go on and on. Not only does each post contain multiple short video clips and images, each post contains step by step lesson plans for how to utilize this in the classroom. Posts are labeled by age appropriateness and difficulty. This teacher is committed to using film creatively to promote critical thinking and language acquisition. I can't wait to use a few of these in my own classes!

Educational Documentaries

Some of you might be interested in perusing this educational site I came across, Snag Learning. I was looking for some good, educational films or documentary snippets I could show my World Cultures class for Hispanic Heritage Month and stumbled on to this site.

You can search by subject, and I've added the links here to make it easier for you, (arts & music, foreign language, history, math & science, political science & civics, world culture & geography) or search by grade level, or by specific channel (your choices are PBS, National Geographic, Explore, and Sundance). The few I checked out were really good. There are some full-length films, as well as some shorter 10-15 minute films that you might be able to work into your lessons if you need an extra "boost" to show your students something and not just talk about it. Let me know what you think...

The Learning Network - New York Times

I have had good success with some of the lesson plans and ideas from the The Learning Network, a site dedicated to teachers and students which utilizes content from the New York Times. You can search for lesson plans by curriculum or topic. Or start simple and follow the Student Opinion pages (an online blog) and have your students comment/blog on the topic of the day if it seems like it might fit your class. Either way, it should get your students thinking and writing.

For an easy start... Here's a link to 150 questions you could try (surely there's one that might work for you).

Give it whirl if you like and see what you think! ~ :) Loree Cain

Tween/Teen Tribune

Tween/Teen Tribune is a fantastic news website specifically geared for junior high-high school students that presents high interest news stories arranged into categories so it's easy for students to find a story that interests them. Teachers and students can comment on stories, publish their own stories (and we all know that writing for an audience causes students to invest more!), and take quizzes over the news stories.

How it works: Teachers create classrooms and students add themselves to the classroom. Then when a student adds a comment to a story, the comment is sent to the teacher's approval queue for the teacher to approve or delete. It's a great way to immerse students in non-fiction at an accessible reading level.

I'd like to give a shout out to Pam Abbott from Progress Elementary who sent me an email regarding a sweet feature in Tween/Teen Tribune: parents can be added as readers to teachers' classrooms. They only have to be added once, and then they can read all comments posted by students in the class. What a great way for parents to stay informed and be a part of their child's education!

If you're interested, check out Tween Tribune--specifically, their Top 10 Lesson Plans page.