Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Halloween : Have a scary lesson, today !





Google Doodle Halloween 2013

Wow! Google creatives are awesome. It's Halloween which means Google has offered us an adorable interactive Doodlefeaturing a witch mixing potions.






Google Doodle Halloween 2013

Can you imagine how students will love to become a witch for some moments? We all know that students like Halloween! So every educator will prepare some activities to imclude into Halloween lesson.


It's already Halloween in some countries, in Australia for example, and now everywhere with a new doodle for the holiday, that can transform students in witches and create a witch's brew.

Education: Resources: 


  • History:





Halloween is also called All Hallows' Eve. As it falls on the eve of All Saints' Day, it has a religious significance for some Christians otherwise it is nowadays observed largely as a secular celebration.

Halloween is celebrated every year on October 31 in a number of countries around the world. And like last years, Google is celebrating the event with an interactive doodle





Google Doodle Halloween 2013


  • Doodle:

We all know that students like Halloween! So every educator has prepared one or two activities to include into Halloween lesson. And this Google Doodle is a superb digital resource! 

The Halloween Doodle features a witch flipping through the pages of a book which seems to include information about witchcraft.

As students press the play button, the witch appears and starts practicing witchery. 

In this Doodle, there are four different items, including an apple, bone, bottle and skull, available to the witch for performing witchery. 


The witch needs two items to do witchery and cast an evil spell. She lets you choose those items and produce spooky results. To add to the atmosphere there is also an eerie sound playing in the background.
Students can combine various ingredients to play mini games, from whack-a-mole with the undead, to a shell game where your goal is to find a mummy in a coffin. 

There are several others, which can be found with experimentation. Let students discover it. Young people are very intuitive about technology and games.
That's about all you can do with this one, so if you're looking for an ending, it's a bit of a cliff-hanger.







Education:

Of course, teachers must have other activities to propose to students: 
  • Music;
  • Video games;
  • Scary movies;
  • Books;
  • Printable Halloween masks;

Halloween is a cross-curricular subject and students can apply their creativity in different curriculum. At the same time, they will evolve curricular skills introduced by teachers.

  • Curricula: Languages and Literature; Sciences; History; Arts; Music; Civics.
  • Grade level: primary, elementary, high junior education.

Explore the thematic literature, some customs, history of Halloween, using books, games, music, films and other resources. 

Students love this autumn holiday – take advantage of it and include some of these Halloween resources into any of your lessons no matter the curriculum to enhance cross-curricular study for all grade levels.

Students will be encouraged to be creative using their own smartphones and tablets in the classroom. They are living in an increasingly digital world. 

And they love it, of course! They are active and work well on the activities that teachers propose for each lesson.








Students love this Autumn holiday. Take advantage of it and include these Halloween resources into any of your lessons to enhance cross-curricular study for all grade levels.

Happy Halloween !

G-Souto

31.10.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Licença Creative Commons
Halloween : Have a scary lesson, today ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Going Pink at School: Let's do it!





Let me introduce an important subject: Seeing pink? October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
It was with these words I started my post September round down of the most-read posts . Remember?

So here I am writing a little post about Going Pink in School Education.

Education helps students and teachers not only protect their families, but also their own lives.



An opportunity to draw attention to our girls students. Girls are growing up faster and need to be aware that it is out there and early detection is the best cure and hope of getting through this awful thing.


But let remind you the leading cause of death for children under the age of 15:

In developing countries, over 100,000 children die each year due to poor diagnoses and lack of access to basic treatment options. If given the generic drugs and simple medical procedures so desperately needed it is estimated that more than half of them could be saved. Instead, survival rates stand at 20 percent.

Unfortunally, as educators, we all have known some children and young people who have or had cancer or often coexist with cancer because they have brothers or sisters, sometimes mothers or grandmothers suffering with this disease.





October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But, in my opinion, October should be expanded to all-cancer awareness months.

Schools can holding special programmes to educate students and teachers about how survival rates increases through early detection.

I think it would be important to introduce cancer awareness in school curriculum, not only in sciences curriculum.

I know several schools that involve young students to raise awareness about this disease.

“Education helps students and teachers not only protect their families, but also their own lives,” 




Some Activities:
  • Walk Pink
Host a pink walkathon at the Park of your city from 8am to 10am or from 1pm to 15pm;
  • Wear Pink
To aid efforts, in Arts curriculum students can designed T-shirts for the cause, ribbons, badges;
  • Buy Pink ribbon
Students are asked to buy pink ribbon bows and wear them to show their solidarity in school, on the street, at home;
  • Sport for Pink
Create sport activities for boys and girls in gymnasium or playground with a score;
  • Protect your Mom
Students will be titled PYM brand ambassadors who will educate their mothers, grandmothers, and other family to take self exams;
  • Pink Bazaar
Set up a charity bazaar in the school for a week and ask for parents and grandparents help;
  • Collect scarves
Teachers and parents will be collecting scarves to be sent to patients who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy. 
The scarves will be sent to Breast Cancer organization of your own city or country that will forward it to girls and women patients.
  • Write Pink 
Ask students to write kind pink cards or letters and send them to older older Cancer patients;
  • Pink Facebook | Twitter
Create a school/classroom Facebook account or Twitter account to exchange messages with children and young people who are in hospitals but stay active interacting with social media;
  • Pink Contests
Host contests and ask students to send in their dance, song or other art forms that will help create awareness about Cancer to a school email until 15 November. There will be Prizes for the best "Bits of Positivity".

Please let me introduce the video below:



Credits: Children's Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock

I am so touched, tears fill my eyes for the courage of all the children and teens who made this video at Children's Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock

Doctors, parents, nurses, all the staff of the hospital gather for this inspiring cover of "Roar" by Katy Perry. 

I hesitated a lot in publishing, but these kids and teens deserve it. They made it to raise funds for their treatment.

On the other way, I can't understand that a school suspended 75 students who supported Breast Cancer Awareness by wearing pink shirts "for violating the school's uniform policy. Read here.




G-Souto

29.10.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Licença Creative Commons
Going Pink at School : Let's do it ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Friday, October 25, 2013

MOOCs, again!


It's not the first time I write about MOOCs. MOOCs (Massive open online courses) provide online access for all. 

On the first post MOOCs in a simple way I introduced the 'a-ha' in Higher Education and completed with a video published in The New York Times 

MOOCs are offered not only from universities using their own or a shared platform, but also from nonprofit organizations, trade associations or single businesses or even from an individual using free online course builder tools to create their own MOOC.

Here two infographics that show the impact of coursera in Europe and all around the world.

just to help you visualize this potential by compiling the existing European MOOCs and all around the world MOOCs at the moment:


European-MOOCs-Infographic
Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics


As a member of Open Education Europa, I read every day the last updates and I could find the source of European MOOCs Scoreboard Infographic. Please read the entire information.



via The Next Web

Impressive, isn't it? In just two years (this started in 2011) Coursera has grown "from a revolutionary idea to thriving community of more than 100 partners institutions, 5 million+ students from 190  countries, and 500+ courses across a diverse range of disciplines"?

So many countries, languages, and educational backgrounds represented! This is an important movement promoting lifelong education for everyone from every corner of the globe.

There are another two important links that you must read or follow:

The first one is the last post, a fantastic pithy contribution by Tony Bates : Is there a future for distance education?.

The second is the Conference: No way back? Exploring the impact, data and potential of MOOCS that will take part at University of Southampton, November 06, 2013, an one day conference.


G-Souto

25.10.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Licença Creative Commons

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Éducation et Nutrition: On en parle à nouveau?






credits: Nutri Ventures

Puisqu'on parle des média (jeux, vidéos, émissions de télévision) qu'on introduit en Éducation de plus en plus, revenons à Let's talk about Nutrition Education at school: App game

Bon, si vous n'avez pas lu, ce sera intéressant de le faire. Si vous l'avez vu et vous avez introduit cette appli dans vos cours, Bravo!




NVRunners est un jeu gratuit sur la bonne nutrition. Conçu pour iPad, iPhone et iPod, en Anglais, on peut aussi le jouer sur Internet (Espagnol, Anglais, Brésilien).

L'appli a été créée au Portugal - oh! Oui, on est bon en créativité et software - et a comme personnages, Teo, Lena, Ben et Nina, les héros de la série d'animation Nutiri Ventures.





Michelle Obama : Let's Move


Eh! Bien, il y a du nouveau. Tout le monde sait que Michelle Obama, la première dame des États Unis, met tout son enthousiasme depuis trois ans, à convaincre les jeunes à manger équilibré et à faire une activité physique. La campagne Let's Move en est la preuve.





Les fondateurs de Nutri Ventures ont reçu récemment une invitation de Michelle Obama, pour participer au meeting The White House Convening on Food Market to Children.

Le meeting avait comme objectif travailler la promotion d'actions pour combattre l'obésité des jeunes en travaillant en commun avec Michelle Obama.




Michelle Obama et Big Bird dans la Maison Blanche
Michelle Obama redouble d’imagination pour convaincre les enfants et les jeunes de mieux manger.

Imaginez alors que Michelle Obama, le 13 février 2013, a même recruté Big Bird, l’oiseau jaune de la série Sesame street, héros depuis 40 ans du célèbre programme jeunesse, pour l'aider à passer le message de bonne alimentation aux ados nordaméricains. Et elle a aussi invité Big Bird à faire du sport.

Et elle les a affiché sur le page officielle de la Maison Blanche et sur la page Let's Move sur Facebook.



Super! Dans les clips publiés sur le site officiel de la Maison Blanche la première dame des États-Unis vante à ses côtés les vertus des fruits et légumes et de l’activité physique (plus bas). De quoi impressionner les plus petits et les moins petits.




Michelle Obama et des étudiants
Jardins Maison Blanche

Mais, Michelle Obama continue! Elle a ouvert pour la 5e année les jardins de la Maison Blanche aux établissments scolaires de tout le pays pour que les étudiants viennent culitiver à White House Kitchen Garden.

Insaisissable, au mois de septembre, Michelle Obama a commencé une autre campagne: 




Drink Water | Buvez de l'eau

“Since we started the Let’s Move! initiative, I’ve been looking for as many ways as possible to help families and kids lead healthier lives.  And I’ve come to realize that if we were going to take just one step to make ourselves and our families healthier, probably the single best thing we could do is to simply drink more water.  It’s as simple as that.  Drink more water,” 

First Lady Michelle Obama



Éducation:

L'obésité est un des pires problèmes que les nouvelles générations on à vaincre. 

L'obésité signifie que les enfants sont plus susceptibles de développer des problèmes graves de santé.

Les enfants et les ados deviennent plus obèses parce qu'ils mangent régulièrement trop de calories et ne font pas suffisamment d'activité physique. Le sport, la danse, la course, le vélo, la vie en plein air.

Je crois que tout ce qu'on pourra faire pour aider nos jeunes étudiants à prendre des habitudes "bonne santé" - alimentation, sport, danse, vie en plein air - ce ne sera pas trop. 

Et les écoles. collèges ou lycées ont un rôle très important dans l'éducation de bonnes habitudes. On doit compléter cette action pédagogique par des activités fun et régulières.

Je suis addict d'une éducation complète! Et ça passe aussi pour la santé et les bonnes habitudes.

En 2011, j'ai écrit  Fighting kids obesity... dancing! sur la campagne Move your body qui a parcouru les collèges et lycées nordaméricains sous le patronage de Beyonce. La campagne est toujours active.

À voir aussi: Time for Vitamin N; Environment Education and OutdoorMichael Jackson: a videogame to dance in school?Surf for all: a social inclusion projectInternational Dance Day at School; autres.




Michelle Obama - Let's Move
It’s National Exercise With Your Child Week!

Ça je peux vous dire! Les ados aiment bien voir leurs 'icon' entre eux pour des activités qu'ils pratiquent. Ils les voient comme de 'bons modèles à suivre'.

  • Niveau: Primaire; collège; lycée.
  • Disciplines: Toutes les disciplines.

Activités: à programer par tous les enseignants, selon les disciplines et le niveau d'apprentissage de leurs étudiants.

Réseaux-sociaux: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, autres.

Pensez à développer des projets multidisciplinaires. On pourra travailler des projets extraordinaires.

Mettez-y toute votre créativité et cellle de vos étudiants| Ils sont super en idées inovatrices!




Michelle Obama & Jimmy Fallon
Late Night


Et pour finir! La First lady ne manque pas d’humour, non plus. Invitée sur le plateau du talk show "Late night with Jimmy Fallon", le 23 février 2013, Michelle Obama s’est montrée super cool pour promouvoir sa campagne Let’s move contre l’obésité infantile et inciter les jeunes américains à pratiquer une activité physique. 

Bon! Michelle va même plus loin. Là voilà dans l'émission dansant aux côtés du présentateur, lui déguisé en femme, sur le thème "The evolution Mom dancing". 

Vêtue d’une tenue décontractée, pleine d’autodérision, elle a exécuté une chorégraphie comprenant des pas comme le jeu de mains du tube "Single Ladies" de Beyoncé ou encore la célèbre séquence musicale de "Pulp fiction".





Époustouflante! Une ressource pour convaincre les ados à pratiquer de l'exercice physique? La First Lady y est comme mère et leur montre que les 'mamans' peuvent aussi se présenter en bonne santé! 

G-Souto

22.10.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Licença Creative Commons
Education et Nutrition: On en parle à nouveau? by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.