I used to do quite a bit of blogging. I scoured the internet for all kinds of good stuff for administrators, teachers, media specialists, and students. I frequently and faithfully all manner of helpful resources. Then, one day, I decided to try something new. I got a new career. I began to design online classes. Suddenly, deadlines from my new job began to overshadow my blogging. The more I focused on learning new skills, the less I blogged. Despite repeated attempts to blog from time to time, my posting came to standstill.
Somewhere in the chaos, I got my second wind. It happened when I read a wonderful book called Drive by Daniel Pink. The book drove home a point I liked–people who succeed keep trying even and especially when everything seems crazy. I enjoy sharing what I learn. I take great pleasure in encouraging others to develop and flex their learning skills.
Though sad, this historical event presents an engrossing opportunity for students and teachers to collaborate and engage in interdisciplinary research. It’s a perfect storm of learning. Delving into what lead up to the tragedy allows pupils to explore elements of:
Diving into this and other historical events, using them as case-study investigations into why and how things happen, makes learning more rewarding and allows students to integrate technology resources in a more meaningful manner.
Related resources:
For a more informed reading the lyrics of of Gordon Lightfoot’s popular song, the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, take a look at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wx Wise data-rich page devoted to the freighter’s sinking.
It’s likely that students and educators will make comments or ask questions about the events of September 11, 2001, at some point in the day. On this day in 2001, life in the United States of America was forever altered when terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, a portion of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and resulted in the downing of a passenger airliner in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 were killed in the atrocity. Like the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy, this dreadful day in history left an indelible mark upon the memories of an entire generation. The events of 9-11 generated a number of political outcomes. Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, dominated headlines and political leaders frantically drafted new legislation (such as the Patriot Act) that soon raised concerns about privacy.
What happened on 9/11 is still painful to discuss. Like a scar on the psyche of our nation, this day is tinged with sadness and fear. Indeed, the troubling emotions associated with the day may never dissipate. Still, when we look beyond petty differences, come together, and learn from from our experiences, the sorrowfully rich soil of tragedy becomes fertile ground where hope takes root and blossoms.
Consider talking about how people everywhere can gather the tools needed to break the cycle of violence and fear. Humans have unlimited capacity for doing good. Educators, students, people everywhere on our fragile planet can acknowledge, address, and overcome forces that lead to violence and terrorism:
separatism
racism
economic disadvantage/poverty
dehumanization
fanaticism
Peace is possible. We just have to be champions for it. Peace doesn’t magically happen. It must be cultivated over time. We must be vigilant to nurture its growth and help it spread.
The good folks over at the Southern Poverty Law Center know what it means to fight for peace. They’ve been doing it since 1971. With close to three decades of experience, the SPLC has amassed very powerful tools for addressing the social inequalities that compromise peace. The SPLC shares its ideas for promoting peace at a project site called Tolerance.org. The site has a number of excellent suggestions as well as teaching kits that are designed to teach, promote, and foster peace.
Start now. Decide to to care. Join with others and help make the world a better place. Be a champion for peace.
My daughter, a collector of cryptids, maven of mythology, and avid aficionada of all manner of animals, recently shared a wonderful book with me. We were away from home at the time, visiting relatives in another city. Making the most of her journey, my little scholar paid a visit to the Washington Memorial Library, a branch of the Macon/Bibb County Public Library system. Having long ago traversed the mythology sections in libraries near our home and exhausting their tomes of mythological lore, she spent a happy Friday afternoon and Saturday morning searching Washington Memorial’s collection for books for new literature about fanciful animals. Her earnest bookshelf browsing uncovered an excellent find.
“Look at what I found,” she said, excitedly handing me a volume by writer and illustrator Keith DuQuette, “I really like this book!” After taking in the striking cover of a phantasmagorical cross between a cow and a rooster (a cooster) and reading the first few pages, I could see why she was so elated. Cock-a-Doodle-Mooo! is a treat to devour! Setting the tone for young readers, the author reminds his audience that the blending of beasts is a time-honored tradition. He also wisely adds that anyone can create a variety of varmints.
But that’s only the beginning. DuQuette launches into a most fanciful demonstration by introducing the world to a conglomeration of contemporary chimeras. In addition to the comical descriptions of his new bevvy of beasts in witty rhymes, the author also serves up a heaping helping of intriguing illustrations. It’s a pleasure to see the books as much as it is to read it aloud.
For example, readers will discover the meandering Mouscodile who, we are told, is…
Not your average timid mouse,
he’s moving freely through the house.
Sassy, bold and getting fat,
he skipped the cheese and ate the cat!
Other blended beasts like Squoodles and Firefligeons engender a welcome dose of humor and wonder. With charming and alarming creatures, students of all ages will want to grab Cock-a-Doodle-Mooo! and find a comfortable spot for reading. The delightful denizens of DuQuette’s imagination are great catalysts for creativity. Introduce the book to your pupils and ask, “What if?”
What if…
the beasts described in ancient myths and legends were real? How could proper science account for the description of a mythical beast’s anatomy, diet, and habits? (Note: this idea was explored in Discovery’s fantasy-made-real production, Dragons).
we wanted to combine the characteristics of two more living things into an organism? What ground rules might we need to establish? Could we justify a desire to do such a thing on legal, moral, or scientific grounds? Why or why not?
animals described in Cock-a-Doodle-Mooo! and other, similar works did come into existence? What kind of habitat would they need? How big would their population become? What would limit their success is proliferating? Are there any real organisms that seem impossible but manage to survive anyway?
Books like Cock-a-Doodle-Mooo! are a great springboard for creativity. They inspire new ideas and suffuse young minds with the power of possibility. When combined with a little technology, fanciful works of literature also tend to engage students. For example, after reading DuQuette’s book, learners will be thrilled to visit SwitchZoo. It’s a site where students have an entertaining opportunity to mix and match animals.
One of the best tools for generating hypothetical hybrids is Spore’s Creature Creator. This mesmerizing game allows players to establish all manner of bizarre critters and follow them as they create emerging civilizations.
For those who want to indulge in creepy creatures offline, consider reading Michael Berenstain’s absolutely captivating Creature Catalog. Though this book is out of print it is well worth tracking down and purchasing! The artwork and prose are sure to capture the attention of readers of all ages.
In his address, President Obama will speak directly to our nation’s pupils. He will urge students to roll up their sleeves and do the hard and necessary work of learning. His speech will call upon students to set educational goals, persevere (especially when the work is neither fun nor easy), and ultimately resolve to be responsible for their own learning. The U.S. Department of Education is understandably excited about the occasion. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has released a letter to school principals inviting students, teachers, and other administrators to participate in the event by watching the president deliver the address.
Sadly, though, as MediaMatters points out,some people are attempting to derail this promising educational message and steer it into a political divide. Opportunistic, venomous critics of the President are fanning the flames of fear and ignorance, encouraging parents, administrators, Boards of Education to not even entertain the idea of listening to President Obama’s appeal to students. A civilized society allows and requires its citizens to debate the merits of an idea. However, before one can debate the merits of an idea, one has to listen to the idea.
President Obama’s message to students is not a secret. Anyone–even those who oppose the president’s address–can read an advanced copy of the speech. The White House has made the Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama Back to School Event available online. Despite all the dire warnings that demagogues and other incendiary media schismatics are voicing, the President’s address is not a dastardly plot to subliminally deliver a partisan political agenda into vulnerable young minds.
What’s wrong with challenging students to dedicating themselves to working hard, working smart, staying in school and dramatically reducing dropout rates? Why wouldn’t our nation want its president to echo such a sentiment? ANY president of the United States, no matter what his or her political affiliation, should be able to inspire America’s students to be dedicated to serious lifelong learning. Of all the things people could worry about negatively influencing young minds, President Obama’s address to students isn’t one of them. A small minority of splenetic critics and opportunistic instigators are going about the detestable business of corrupting what should be a unifying message to students–education is so important that ALL of our parents, educators, business experts, and political leaders, regardless of other beliefs, agree that dedication to learning is vital for success and a wise nation.
Whether you are a parent, a superintendent, a principal, a media specialist, a teacher, or a student, you have the the right to make decisions. Do what wise people do: listen to another individual’s ideas–in this case, President Obama’s address to the nation’s pupils–and carefully analyze those ideas before you decide who or what to believe. The President’s message will be streamed live on WhiteHouse.gov/live at at 12pm ET, and broadcast live on C-Span. Thanks to technology, anyone with access to the internet can check facts and thoroughly inspect the merits of ideas.
Think for yourself...it’s what Americans do.
Related resources:
No ones likes to be tricked. Having someone pull the wool over our eyes is embarrassing and potentially harmful. Yet, how often do we arm our students (or ourselves, for that matter) with the cognitive tools to chip away at incorrect logic or obfuscations? My guess is (in the rush to prepare for standardized testing) that we probably don’t consistently explain to our pupils about how incorrect lines of reasoning sometimes appear plausible. Dangerous thinking can go unnoticed. We must be vigilant and prepare for a battle of wits. Thankfully, back in 1996, Stephen Downes created and graciously shared his wickedly wonderful Guide to the Logical Fallacies. The Guide is extremely enlightening and well worth visiting on a regular basis. Also check out the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s incredibly handy collection of common logical fallacies. Teach students to use all of these resources to analyze and clarify their thoughts as well as ideas propagated by ALL figures of authority–including pundits and political officials from BOTH sides of the aisle.
FactCheck.org is an indispensable means of sorting through political spin and should be included one’s collection of tools for verifying claims.
Be a strong advocate of literacy. Citizens who can read have access to new ideas and perspectives, ingredients for a healthy, open mind. Today, September 8 is International Literacy Day. Even though there are approximately 4 billion literate people across our planet, that’s not nearly enough! Visit Literacy Online and get involved with worthwhile reading projects.
In a time of standardized tests and misguided attempts to cover lessons rather than help students understand and apply concepts in real life situations, we’re losing–if not outright outright ignoring–opportunities to inspire pupils to fall in love with science. Intersection’s sciencebloggers Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum both suggest that we desperately need to get busy finding nascent scientists. Their book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future is a sobering wake-up call.
We can do better. We must do better. We need new scientists and it’s up to us to find them.
How would you describe a potential scientist? Could you spot one in your classroom? Are you doing all you can to nurture these rare individuals? Why are they so rare to begin? Can anyone be a scientist? If educators are going attempt to answer these questions and help budding researchers bloom, they’d be wise to follow the work of Sloan-Kettering Institute Chairman Emeritus, Richard Rifkind.
Once a scientist, Rifkind is now a filmmaker who wants viewers to “stand in the shoes of a scientist at work in a lab, glimpse the world of research as it really is, and understand what it takes to fill an ample pipeline of future scientists.” He’s passionate about finding and cultivating a new generation of scientists. Toward that end, Rifkind has produced a moving documentary called Naturally Obsessed: The Making of a Scientist. In addtion to producing the film he has also sharing rich resources for exploring ideas presented in the film via the Naturally Obsessed Blog.
Are you curious enough to investigate?
Related resources:
Two out of three people often continue to hold an unscientific belief even after it is disproven. When conflicts between faith and science arise in your classroom, school, district and community, how are they resolved? Do your students feel safe in asking such questions? Do they have sufficient intellectual freedom to explore potentially unsettling ideas? Are some questions considered “off-limits” to further inquiry?
Drawing is a powerful tool for learning. Humans have harnessed the potential of graphic representations for millennia to communicate ideas. With the advent of interactive whiteboards and digital slates like those available from GTCO, Promethean, and SMARTBoard, teachers and pupils still have the option of creating illustrations as a means of presenting, exploring, and refining ideas. Effective 21st century educators consistently model and facilitate the use of digital illustration to
engage pupils,
make learning relevant,
increase the efficiency and effectiveness of instruction, and
build a foundation for lifelong learning.
Employing the built-in features of the software that powers interactive whiteboards and digital slates is worthwhile. After all, each package allows users to create geometric figures with both ease and accuracy. That said, don’t allow the features of the program to confine illustrations to one computer in one classroom. Learners should be able to share drawings with audiences outside a classroom, school, and district. Think beyond the classroom computer to a web-based tool for drawing.
Check out Odosketch. It’s a Flash-powered drawing resource that’s been around since 2006, thanks to Odopod, a digital agency that works with a number of major brands. This bare-bones artist tablet and colors doesn’t create accurate geometric shapes. However, users don’t need an account to use Odosketch (although, registering for one makes it possible for artists to save their work). Visitors who want to draw need only mouse over the toolbar at the bottom of the canvas. Colors, brush strokes, and other options will appear. It’s a simple means of sketching quick or detailed pictures.
By allowing pupils to use an interactive whiteboard or digital slate in conjunction with Odosketch, educators facilitate the kind of powerful communication skills explored in Dan Roam’s primer for creating problem-solving pictures, The Back of the Napkin.
Preclectic is honored to feature the following post. It’s the result of an exciting collaboration between Mashable’sSummer of Social Goodcharitable fundraiser and Max Gladwell’s “10 Ways” series. This motivating post (whose content was originally written by Mashable’s Josh Catone) is being simultaneously published across more than 100 blogs. Please take time to grab a fellow administrator, educator, student, or community member and share the powerful ideas being promoted today.
Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That’s one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.
Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you’d like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.
1. Write a Blog Post
Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days — whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you’re passionate about, you’re helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.
You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.
2. Share Stories with Friends
Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you’ve gathered a social network.
You’ll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.
3. Follow Charities on Social Networks
In addition to sharing links to articles about issues you come across, you should also follow charities you support on the social networks where they are active. By increasing the size of their social graph, you’re increasing the size of their reach. When your charities tweet or post information about a campaign or a cause, statistics or a link to a good article, consider retweeting that post on Twitter, liking it on Facebook, or blogging about it.
Following charities on social media sites is a great way to keep in the loop and get updates, and it’s a great way to help the charity increase its reach by spreading information to your friends and followers.
You can follow the Summer of Social Good Charities:
Another way you can show your support for the charities you care about is to rally around them on awareness hubs like Change.org, Care2, or the Facebook Causes application. These are social networks or applications specifically built with non-profits in mind. They offer special tools and opportunities for charities to spread awareness of issues, take action, and raise money.
It’s important to follow and support organizations on these sites because they’re another point of access for you to gather information about a charity or cause, and because by supporting your charity you’ll be increasing their overall reach. The more people they have following them and receiving their updates, the greater the chance that information they put out will spread virally.
5. Find Volunteer Opportunities
Using social media online can help connect you with volunteer opportunities offline, and according to web analytics firm Compete, traffic to volunteering sites is actually up sharply in 2009. Two of the biggest sites for locating volunteer opportunities are VolunteerMatch, which has almost 60,000 opportunities listed, and Idealist.org, which also lists paying jobs in the non-profit sector, in addition to maintaining databases of both volunteer jobs and willing volunteers.
For those who are interested in helping out when volunteers are urgently needed in crisis situations, check out HelpInDisaster.org, a site which helps register and educate those who want to help during disasters so that local resources are not tied up directing the calls of eager volunteers. Teenagers, meanwhile, should check out DoSomething.org, a site targeted at young adults seeking volunteer opportunities in their communities.
6. Embed a Widget on Your Site
Many charities offer embeddable widgets or badges that you can use on your social networking profiles or blogs to show your support. These badges generally serve one of two purposes (or both). They raise awareness of an issue and offer up a link or links to additional information. And very often they are used to raise money.
Mashable’s Summer of Social Good campaign, for example, has a widget that does both. The embeddable widget, which was custom built using Sprout (the creators of ChipIn), can both collect funds and offer information about the four charities the campaign supports.
7. Organize a Tweetup
You can use online social media tools to organize offline events, which are a great way to gather together like-minded people to raise awareness, raise money, or just discuss an issue that’s important to you. Getting people together offline to learn about an important issue can really kick start the conversation and make supporting the cause seem more real.
As mentioned, blog posts are great, but a picture really says a thousand words. The web has become a lot more visual in recent years and there are now a large number of social tools to help you express yourself using video. When you record a video plea or call to action about your issue or charity, you can make your message sound more authentic and real. You can use sites like 12seconds.tv, Vimeo, and YouTube to easily record and spread your video message.
Last week, the Summer of Social Good campaign encouraged people to use video to show support for charity. The #12forGood campaign challenged people to submit a 12 second video of themselves doing something for the Summer of Social Good. That could be anything, from singing a song to reciting a poem to just dancing around like a maniac — the idea was to use the power of video to spread awareness about the campaign and the charities it supports.
If you’re more into watching videos than recording them, Givzy.com enables you to raise funds for charities like Unicef and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital by sharing viral videos by e-mail.
9. Sign or Start a Petition
There aren’t many more powerful ways to support a cause than to sign your name to a petition. Petitions spread awareness and, when successfully carried out, can demonstrate massive support for an issue. By making petitions viral, the social web has arguably made them even more powerful tools for social change. There are a large number of petition creation and hosting web sites out there. One of the biggest is The Petition Site, which is operated by the social awareness network Care2, or PetitionOnline.com, which has collected more than 79 million signatures over the years.
Petitions are extremely powerful, because they can strike a chord, spread virally, and serve as a visual demonstration of the support that an issue has gathered. Social media fans will want to check out a fairly new option for creating and spreading petitions: Twitition, an application that allows people to create, spread, and sign petitions via Twitter.
10. Organize an Online Event
Social media is a great way to organize offline, but you can also use online tools to organize effective online events. That can mean free form fund raising drives, like the Twitter-and-blog-powered campaign to raise money for a crisis center in Illinois last month that took in over $130,000 in just two weeks. Or it could mean an organized “tweet-a-thon” like the ones run by the 12for12k group, which aims to raise $12,000 each month for a different charity.
In March, 12for12k ran a 12-hour tweet-a-thon, in which any donation of at least $12 over a 12 hour period gained the person donating an entry into a drawing for prizes like an iPod Touch or a Nintendo Wii Fit. Last month, 12for12k took a different approach to an online event by holding a more ambitious 24-hour live video-a-thon, which included video interviews, music and sketch comedy performances, call-ins, and drawings for a large number of prizes given out to anyone who donated $12 or more.
Bonus: Think Outside the Box
Social media provides almost limitless opportunity for being creative. You can think outside the box to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to raise money or awareness for a charity or cause. When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he created Blame Drew’s Cancer, a campaign that encourages people to blow off steam by blaming his cancer for bad things in their lives using the Twitter hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer. Over 16,000 things have been blamed on Drew’s cancer, and he intends to find sponsors to turn those tweets into donations to LIVESTRONG once he beats the disease.
Or check out Nathan Winters, who is biking across the United States and documenting the entire trip using social media tools, in order to raise money and awareness for The Nature Conservancy.
The number of innovative things you can do using social media to support a charity or spread information about an issue is nearly endless. Can you think of any others? Please share them in the comments.
Special thanks to VPS.net
A special thanks to VPS.net, who are donating $100 to the Summer of Social Good for every signup they receive this week.
Sign up at VPS.net and use the coupon code “SOSG”to receive 3 Months of FREE hosting on top of your purchased term. VPS.net honors a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee so there’s no risk.
About the “10 Ways” Series
The “10 Ways” Series was originated by Max Gladwell. This is the second simultaneous blog post in the series. The first ran on more than 80 blogs, including Mashable. Among other things, it is a social media experiment and the exploration of a new content distribution model. You can follow Max Gladwell on Twitter.
As all this Googlistic news rapidly made its way through PC World and other tech news outlets, I listened to Dr. Melinda Maddox of the Alabama State Department of Education address NATC conference attendees about the need to re-conceptualize how teachers can better meet the needs of today’s learners. Dr. Maddox discussed…
economic concerns and how they will undoubtedly drive the need to look for more low-cost/no-cost ways to deliver education in an innovative manner
current policies that unintentionally or intentionally create barriers to education
input/data from students, teachers, administrators, parents, and community members that acknowledge and document a need for re-thinking school as we know it
the realization that technology integration is more than just flashy web 2.0, hardware, and software
the What Works and Innovation Fund and how it will, according to the US Department of Education, “support competitive grants to LEAs and partnerships between non-profit organizations and LEAs that have made significant progress in improving student achievement or other areas to scale up their work and serve as models of best practices” (for example, discerning why and how to develop new assessments that really provide timely and useful feedback so as to augment learning) and
As I listened, I thought about the way Google’s plans could positively impact student achievement. For example, Google’s desire to provide Chrome OS for netbook users (i.e, teachers and students in many schools) means that districts might no longer have to pay Microsoft or Apple for an operating system. If schools no longer had to follow directives to spend money on textbooks, educators and pupils might come together via Google Docs to create their own dynamic, web-based, media-rich, replacements for textbooks that merges with Moodle or other free, resources and tools. New technologies such as Google Voice may even re-engineer the manner in which learners communicate with teachers and do it for FREE, leaving much more money available for other, much-needed projects (say, decreasing the digital divide).
I wonder if any forward-thinking superintendents or administrators are ready to give Google a try. What’s to lose if they do? They’ll have money. That’s right. If they try Google and decide to return to commercial resources, they’ll be able to do so.
Well, I’m back in Georgia now. I’m glad to be home as life here in the South (or, at least, the portion of it where I reside) is a little more relaxed, a little more peaceful than the hustle and bustle that suffuses our nation’s capitol. That said, I can’t help wondering what it’s like in Washington, DC today. I imagine it’s hot and crowded with lots of traffic. People are probably poring over all those wonderful monuments to liberty. After all, today is an important day there and everywhere else in this great land of ours.
July the 4th is one of many U.S. holidays that many Americans cherish and enjoy. However, it’s a day that holds a special place in the hearts of many of our citizens. It’s a day of barbecue, fireworks, and the nationwide celebration of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. July the 4th is also an excellent day for learning. Thanks to technology we can easily access, read, revisit, and reflect upon the revolutionary ideas expressed in theConstitution of the United States of America.
Informed citizens are the best citizens. Be the best citizen you can be. Get a refresher as to why the concept of checks and balances is still an important foundation upon which our liberty rests. A careful review of the importance of the separation of powers is a prudent means of correcting dangerous aspirations that ambitious office-holders may be contemplating. We place trust in those we vote into political office. We have the power–more importantly, the responsibility–to insure that our elected officials safeguard our liberties. Celebrate independence and freedom but, more importantly, preserve and practice these ideals.
Related links:
Why not explore vital events and themes in our nation’s history with We the People?
Social media provides almost limitless opportunity for being creative. You can think outside the box to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to raise money or awareness for a charity or cause. When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he created 
A special thanks to 
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