Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Schools : Let's enjoy Beatlemania on Voyager Google Earth







screenshot Beatlemania on Google Earth

“The Beatles weren’t the leaders of the generation, but the spokesmen.” 


Paul McCartney


And now, something new and very special on Google Earth Voyager. Very special for music, Beatlemania. Yah! 


It was 50 years ago (26 May 1967) The Beatles' classic and beloved album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in UK, 2 June 1967 in USA.



Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band



Some facts:

The album which caused a major shift in modern music did help define the 1967 Summer of Love, but the hard work began in the winter of ‘66. Including 13 songs, the tracks were recorded in over 400 hours during a 129-day period.

On a return flight to London in November 1966, Paul conceived the idea for the album. Unable to sleep, he toyed with the idea of creating a new identity for the band, to allow them to experiment, with each Beatle taking on an alter-ego in the ‘Lonely Hearts Club Band’. 

During the flight, a conversation about the ‘S’ and ‘P’ markings on the salt and pepper sachets occurred between Paul and Mal Evans, the Beatles’ road manager, and sparked the idea for the title ‘Sgt. Pepper’.



Follow the Fab Four around the globe, from their beginnings in Liverpool and Hamburg, to spiritual awakenings in India.

We can see what the places The Beatles once performed at look like now, check the Google Earth tour out.






screenshot Strawberry Fields
Tourist attraction in New York City

The Strawberry Fields monument in Central Park is a tribute to John Lennon and is close to Dakota Apartments, the home he shared with Yoko Ono.

Fifty years ago, The Beatles released the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and took millions of listeners into a fantastical world. 

From last 
May 26, the Google Earth storytelling platform Voyager is celebrating not only this influential album but the whole of the Fab Four's contributions to rock'n'roll.


Ask your students to 
take a virtual tour around the real world of iconic places that helped form the legacy of The Beatles. Let them express their impressions or feelings.






The Beatles, 1967
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Aims:
Using its new Google Earth storytelling tool, Voyager, they will transported across the globe to nine different locations that represent pivotal moments in the Fab Four’s illustrious career

Note: All locations have text on the side to explain the historical significance.




screenshot Ed Sullivan Show
Los Angeles, California

For some locations in the tour, students are automatically zoomed into a view of the street. Others, like New York City’s Ed Sullivan Theater, they will need to click on the Street View icon in the lower left-hand corner and then click on the location pin to zoom into the hallowed halls where 

The Beatles gave their first televised performance to 70 million viewers in 1964.


screenshot Cavern Club, Liverpool, UK
The Beatles got their start at Liverpool's Cavern Club. This reconstructed venue, just steps away from the original, is home to 1960s memorabilia and hosts live tribute acts.




screenshot Penny Lane St

Liverpool street that inspired the Beatles' song Penny Lane, released in 1967 on a double A-sided single with "Strawberry Fields Forever". 

Prepare the video music or if the school or teachers have access to Spotify invite students to hear it.




Them students have chance to move along the street in Liverpool, England, that inspired the song Penny Lane. 



Indra Club 64, disco club
Hamburg, Germany

Indra Club 64 the small club is where the Beatles performed over 48 nights in 1960 during their first visit to Hamburg.




screenshot Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Ashram

Ashram in Rishikesh, India
https://earth.google.com/web/

After some other important places students get India where the Beatles arrived in February 1968, and spent some time at this spiritual Himalayan retreat learning meditation and writing music.



screenshot Hollywood Bowl
Concert hall in Los Angeles, California
https://earth.google.com/web/

Students will be able to look around the stands at the Hollywood Bowl where the band performed twice  on August 1964 and the same month in the following year, 1965. 

The gigs were recorded, complete with the screams of the young, fan-filled audience.





Live at the Hollywood Bowl
The Beatles
Those performances were so good they were recorded and released as the 1977 Beatles live album The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.



Abbey Road Studios
Recording studio in London, England
On August 20, 1969, all four members of The Beatles came to Abbey Road Studios to record music together for the last time as a band.


Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
anniversary edition

"Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Anniversary Edition is Out Now. A Splendid Time Is Guaranteed For All.”

The Beatles, official website



Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
anniversary edition
All of the original songs have also been given new stereo mixes produced by Giles Martin, son of the late Beatles producer, Sir George Martin.
The deluxe editions are available and are a definite must-have for any Beatles fanatic. Who knows if you have a Beatle 'fanatic' among your students?

So let them
 click here and begin their tour of Beatles moments around the globe.




Education:

"Music should be a very solid part of the education of young children."

Sir George Martin

Voyager allows Earth’s students to feed their wanderlust and pretend they are somewhere - anywhere - other than the classroom cubicle they are actually sitting in.

Say they've never know how The Beatles travelled from Liverpool to India? Voyager pairs the view provided by its maps with an image and a legend for the nine different locations.

Some thoughts:

I defend Music in school curriculum as a serious matter! I wrote about it in different occasions:

Sir George Martin was the first person to receive an honorary doctorate from Lund University's Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts and the Malmö Academy of Music (2010).







In this short interview, Sir George Martin talks about the importance of Music curriculum in public schools (elementary and secondary education).

He speaks about the minor role of Music teaching in public schools in UK. The picture is not different in public schools in other European countries.

Without any doubt, the importance of Music as social inclusion for kids  has a recognised value in  so many countries. There are wonderful experiments.

The holistic immersive approach of Music (rock, pop, classical) and the engagement of important and experencied musicians is central to achieving significant transformation, particularly to the lives of the most vulnerable children.

Curriculum: Cross-curricular

Levels: All levels

Target: Primary School to High Junior School; Music Vocational School.

"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."

Plato


G-Souto

30.05.2017
Copyright © 2017-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Creative Commons License
Schools : Let's enjoy Beatlemania on Voyager Google Earth bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Sources:
Beatlemania/ Voyager Google Earth
The Beatles
Blog Google

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Education : International Missing Children's Day : resources books & app !






International Centre For Missing & Exploited Children

"Remembering children who have gone missing, and those who have been found."


Every year, 25 May is commemorated as International Missing Children’s Day.  

In 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May 25th National Missing Children’s Day.


Etan Patz
credits: Mark Lennihan/AP
Time Magazine
https://time.com/
The proclamation followed the 1979 disappearance of a six-year-old boy, Etan Patz, on his way to school in New York City. Almost 40 years ago. 

The case generated widespread indignation, and concern for missing children rose across the nation. Since the United States began remembering missing children in this way, other countries around the world have adopted similar commemorations.
25 May is now widely known as Missing Children’s Day, with the forget-me-not flower as its emblem. 





Forget-me-not flower

The forget-me-not flower is the symbol of International Missing Children's Day.
In 2001, 25 May was first formally recognized as International Missing Children’s Day (IMCD), thanks to a joint effort on the part of ICMEC, Missing Children Europe and the European Commission.



http://missinmissingchildreneurope.eu/

250,000 children are reported missing every year in the EU, 1 child every 2 minutes.

Each year, well over 250 000 children slip through child protection systems in Europe. Runaways, parental abductions and children who go missing in the context of migration make up to 81.5% of missing children cases in the EU, but awareness and child protection responses for these children still require support.
A child is reported missing every 2 minutes in Europe. Our network of missing children hotlines is operated by local grassroots organisations in 32 countries in Europe

Children and families calling the 116 000 European hotline for missing children receive free and immediate emotional, psychological, social, legal and administrative support.


  • 116 000 hotline for missing children:




Missing Children Europe in 2016 focused on developing a project to monitor and improve the quality of services provided by 19 hotlines across Europe. 
"Achieving this quality criteria will ensure that children and families anywhere in Europe will have access to the same quality of support when faced with the unthinkable."
Children’s day commemorated on May 25 across the globe, Missing Children Europe has launched its new Figure and Trends on missing children report for 2016.

Howeve you can consult all the reports from 2017 until 2019 here



Annual Revue 2016/ Report

"Missing Children Europe's Annual Review describes the vision, efforts, our grassroots member organisations and the impact of the organisation for the past year. It provides a good summary of the work, successes and challenges from 2016."

The report features the evolution and trends on missing children cases in Europe handled by hotlines for missing children and the Cross-Border Family Mediators’ network. Hotlines for missing children are available through the same phone number - 116 000 - in 31 countries in Europe.  

Since 2015, this network of hotlines has helped an increasing number of children. In 2016, there was a 12% increase in children calling the hotlines compared to the previous year.

While 116 000 hotlines seem to have received fewer calls in 2016, these hotlines saw a doubling of contacts received through channels such as text message, email and chat.






In 2016, children running away or thrown out of home made up 57% of missing children cases reported to hotlines, consistently making the largest group of missing children. Parental abductions made up the second largest group at 23% of cases.

Consistent with reports that up to 50% of migrant children go missing from some reception centres in Europe within 48 hours, cases of missing migrant children saw an increase from 2% in 2015 to 7% in 2016. However, underreporting of these disappearances and a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities regarding the prevention and response to this very vulnerable group remains a worrying issue. Criminal abductions made up less than 1% of cases reported in 2016 while lost, injured or otherwise missing children cases made up 13% of cases.





#LostinMigration

1 in 5 missing children cases were cross-border in nature showing the importance of cross-border cooperation between national governments, hotlines, law enforcement and other child protection authorities.



In 2016, 42% of missing children reported to the 116 000 hotline were found within the year, down from 46% in 2015. While more children have been found in the other four categories of missing children cases, there has been a significant drop in the number of runaways that were found (from 57% in 2015 to 46% in 2016). 







This unveils a vulnerable, often trivialised group of children whose problems at home or reasons for running away have persisted even after the first running away incident. Children running away repeatedly are forced to use increasingly risky strategies to survive, such as sleeping rough or begging and are exposed to huge risks of sexual exploitation.


Hotlines in several countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Spain) received no funding at all from national governments in 2016. In 2016, 15 hotlines received an action grant from the European Commission which started mid-2016 and will last up to 24 months.





The network of Cross-Border Family Mediators consists of 157 trained mediators from 37 countries, and is coordinated by Missing Children Europe. These trained mediators specialise in preventing and resolving family conflict including parental abductions. Compared to court proceedings, mediation is up to 60% cheaper and takes an average of 43 days to be resolved compared to 18 months when taken to court. However, too few cases seek mediation as a solution.




Remumber/ app
http://remumber.com/en

Resources for parents & educators


  • App Remumber
More and more kids have smartphones. So this generation doesn’t remember phone numbers by heart anymore. 
But what if they lose their phone, or their battery dies? What if there’s a situation where your kid needs to contact you but doesn’t know your phone number?


Remumber is an app aimed at young children with smartphones. It helps children remember the phone number of their parents by changing their device security codes to a phone number. That way each time your child unlocks his/her smartphone, they practice dialing your phone number. 

Remumber changes the unlocking code of a mobile or tablet device into a phone number.

So every time your child unlocks the device, he or she practises your phone number until they know it by heart. 




Remumber, app/ Missing Children Europe
Winner Epica Awards 2016

The app uses the phone number that your kids need to remember as a code to unlock the mobile phone or tablet, and they memorize the number gradually: the child must learn by heart the first 4 digits, and then if he/she is stuck and needs a hint for the next numbers, then the rest of the digits are illuminated.

When the child has memorized the entire code, his/her parents are informed via e-mail and can then enter a new number to remember, leave the initial number for further training or uninstall the application.






Download the app:

Missing Children Europe received great feedback from users and was proposed different free media opportunities to communicate about the campaign during summer. But most of all, with hundreds of downloads in the first week, we helped a lot of children to remember their parents’ phone numbers in a couple of days. 



The Beginner's Guide 
to Running Away
from Home
Jennifer Larue Huget
  • Books:
What kid hasn’t wanted to make their parents feel sorry for treating him badly?
And how better to accomplish this than to run away? 

Here’s a guide showing how, from what to pack (gum–then you won’t have to brush your teeth) to how to survive (don’t think about your cozy bed). 

Ultimately, though, readers will see that there really is no place like home. 





Alexander and the Terrible,
Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Judith Viorst
book/ ebook

Like Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day, here’s a spot-on portrait of a kid who’s had it. 

"He could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. He went to sleep with gum in his mouth and woke up with gum in his hair. When he got out of bed, he tripped over his skateboard and by mistake dropped his sweater in the sink while the water was running. He could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day." (...)

Available : book /ebook



Where the Wild Things Are
Maurice Sendak

And like Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, it’s also a journey inside a creative kid’s imagination: that special place where parents aren’t allowed without permission.

Film:




Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day
Miguel Arteta,2014

The film is based on the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst (book & ebook).

"Alexander's day begins with gum stuck in his hair, followed by more calamities. However, he finds little sympathy from his family and begins to wonder if bad things only happen to him, his mom, dad, brother and sister - who all find themselves living through their own terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."








Education :

Myosotis is commonly called "Forget-me-not". And we can not forget every missing child.

As an educator, I can't ! I talk about it with my students helping them to understand the danger they face every day. 

In the classroom, we discuss the theme around some exemples of missing children and young people. 

They understand the difficulties they can face on the street on their way to school, or to home. And on 
the bad use of the Internet or social networks.

I invite them to talk with their parents, grandparents or to help their younger brothers or sisters.

I can't forget missing children in Europe and all over the world. Children are our future and they believe in us and a better world.

G-Souto

25.05.2017

update: 25.05.2020
Copyright © 2017-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®


Creative Commons License
Education : International Missing Children's Day : resources  bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.