My thoughts about Education Humanities, Technology and Digital Culture. Interested on social media tools in educational contexts and
gamification in education.
Well! The countdown for Christmas has begun at NORAD last December 1, 2017. The tech tool to let children follow father Christmas as he makes his way around the globe.
Each year NORAD launches its interactive tool to help kids and adults follow Father Christmas around the world on December 24th.
This year is no different and the official NORAD Santa Tracker is now Live. It's even got a handy timer running in the bottom corner counting down the days until Christmas Eve. So, let your students if you are yet at school to follow Father Christmas every day.
And now, it's time to the review of the most popular posts of November:
Here are the most popular posts of the last month:
Hope you enjoyed my pedagocical proposals published in November. I know you loved because there is a wonderful number of readers. Not only in November. All along the years. How nice of you!
Thanks all the educators from around the world that kindly read my blog every day.
Have a nice time wherever you are! Here, Christmas Season! A sweet and colored season to everyone
As we end the trimester, moving through winter solstice toward the returning light, may the Holiday Spirit of the educational community help ease December’s chill but so bright! The sun continues to illuminate my days in my country.
Here some cute digital resources that will cheer kids around the world now that they are enjoying the holiday season.
Google has begun some time ago the countdown to Christmas with its popular festive Doodles. Today you will find the second one. Let's see the third on 24 December.
The festive ’Tis the season! Doodle, which gets a new incarnation each year, is the search giant’s way of celebrating the start of the Christmas holiday season for its users across the globe.
This year Google's Santa Tracker has an interesting feature about Christmas traditions around the world. The Christmas Traditions map features the traditions of seventeen locations spread across Europe, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Asia.
Click the placemark on the map to read a short summary of a tradition in each location.
Google, meanwhile, has built an interactive Santa Village, which also offers games, videos and a scrolling sled-ride.
Both sites feature a countdown to all-important Christmas Eve and features which will become unlocked nearer to the day.
There is so much fun! Both are so creative! However there is some learning too. Traditions, geography, local music, languages (it will depend of the language kids decide to interact). And coding. Google hopes to teach kids to code as part of a shortChristmasproject written in basic Javascript.
And now the last beautiful surprises. Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.When Charles Dickens passed away in 1870, a young girl in London asked a question that demonstrated just how strongly Dickens' writings were associated with the holiday season and modern Christmas traditions. She asked, "Mr. Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die, too?"
Indeed. After the arrival of the Christmas tree into the British parlour, Dickens, with A Christmas Carol, institutionalised what one could call the modern 'spirit of Christmas’.
Dickens subtitled his story ‘A Ghost Story for Christmas’. The ghosts are imported from folklore and legend, not the Christian gospels. The famous spirit of Christmas designed by the artist John Leech for the first edition of A Christmas Carol clearly draws on classic pagan iconography.
After Christmas festive pause, teachers must not underestimate this fantastic resource to be explored online with students. After, during, before reading the tale.
Animated films:
Sing an animated movie with the incredible voice of Matthew McConaughey.
"A koala named Buster Moon has one final chance to restore his theater to its former glory by producing the world's greatest singing competition." Kids love sing and dream about participating in singing contests. We see that all over the world with The Voice competition.
Fun & pedagogical videos:
By the way you have these fantastic videos of Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show starring Matthew McConaughey and Denzel Washington.
On the 1st video Jimmy and Matthew read texts written by kids around 10 years-old.
Kids theater can be a lovely resource to include into your curriculum. Because thy love it. Invite students to write some little theater texts - give them a title or theme - after students will read their texts in the classroom following the example.
Matthew McConaughey and Jimmy read scenes written by elementary school kids who were given the title 'Gold,' and they had to write the rest. The 2nd one, students can learn to make a little drama exercises listening Jimmy and Denzel.
Denzel Washington and Jimmy take turns giving extremely dramatic readings of standard greeting cards. Finally, a beloved video. A cappella rendition of "Wonderful Christmas time" with so much good singers and actors.
Jimmy and The Roots join Paul McCartney, Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Seth MacFarlane and Tori Kelly for an a cappella rendition of "Wonderful Christmastime."
It is the magical night of the year, but for children waiting for Santa, Christmas Evecan seems an endless day.
Wishing everyone a Bright Holiday Season! And a special hug to all the children in the world.
I'm off to continue celebrating Christmas at home with my family.
As we end the trimester, moving through winter solstice toward the
returning light, may the Holiday Spirit of the educational
community help ease December’s chill.
Here some cute digital
resources that will cheer kids around the world now that they are enjoying the
holiday season.
Google has begun the countdown to Christmas with the first in a series of
its popular festive Google Doodles. Today you will find a new one. Let's see
the third on 24 December.
The festive ’Tis the season!
doodle, which gets a new incarnation each year, is the search giant’s way of
celebrating the start of the Christmas holiday season for its users across the
globe.
Children and fan tech can explore some of thevery best holiday lightdisplays from around the world on +Google
Maps.
This year Google's Santa Tracker has an interesting feature
aboutChristmas traditionsaround the world. The
Christmas Traditions map features the traditions of seventeen locations spread
across Europe, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Africa
and Asia.
Click the placemark on the map to read a short summary of a tradition in
each location.
Google, meanwhile, has built
aninteractive Santa Village, which also offers games,
videos and a scrolling sled-ride.
Norad’s Santa website includes games, music and movies, and caters for eight different languages.
NORADstarts tracking Santa at 7am GMT on Christmas Eve, when he begins his journey around the world. He traditionally begins by delivering presents to the inhabitants of the Republic of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean.
Both sites feature a countdown to all-important Christmas Eve and features which will become unlocked nearer to the day.
Education:
There is so much fun! Both are so creative! However there is some learning too. Traditions, geography, languages (it will depend of the language kids decide to interact). And coding. Google hopes to teach kids to code as part of a shortChristmasproject written in basic Javascript.
And now the last beautiful surprise. Le Petit Prince, do you remember the lovely book by the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry? The new animated video by Mark Osborne.
Adapté pour la première fois en long métrage d’animation, le film sortira au cinéma le 7 octobre 2015, en France. Le Petit Prince a completé 70 ans en 2013. Et 2010 Google a célébré le 110e anniversaire de Antoine de Saint- Exupery avec un beau doodle.
Mark Osborne, le même réalisateur de Kung Fu Panda promet devenir un des plus beaux films 2015.
Il y aura les voix de Florence Foresti, Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel, Guillaume Gallienne et Vincent Lindon.
C’est l’histoire d’une petite fille, intrépide et curieuse, qui vit dans un monde d’adultes.
C’est l’histoire d’un aviateur, excentrique et facétieux, qui n’a jamais vraiment grandi.
C’est l’histoire du Petit Prince qui va les réunir dans une aventure extraordinaire.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince is one of the best-selling books of all time (about 140 million), which puts it somewhere between the first Harry Potternovel (107 million) and A Tale of Two Cities(200 million).
The book has been adapted numerous times- including an opera and a ballet - but next year's animated film might be the most beautiful interpretation, my opinion based on the new trailer.
"The trailer itself is a gorgeous blend of papercraft animation (for the story of the Little Prince himself) and Pixar-sequel CG (for the framed story around it)."
There's no English-language version of the trailer yet, but we're expecting one soon enough. The voice cast for this English version is fantastic (Rachel McAdams, James Franco, Jeff Bridges, Marion Cottillard, Ricky Gervais, and Benício del Toro, among others). Wow !
As my usual readers know I love animated movies ! They are so poetic, imaginative, the stories, the artistic design.
I love to introduce animated movies into school curriculum. I can already envision so many ways to use these movies to teach literacy, grammar, morals, music, civics, sciences, drawing, for reinforcing the skills, reading, writing, drawing, composing, for reinforcing or introducing the skill of inference.
It is the most magical night of the year, but for children waiting for their presents, Christmas Evecan seem interminable. Wishing everyone a Bright Holiday Season! And a special hug to all the children in the world. I'm off to continue celebrating Christmas at home with my family.
