Showing posts with label activities scondary and higher education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label activities scondary and higher education. Show all posts

Monday, July 8, 2013

June roundown of the most-read posts




 Atlantic Ocean Porto (Portugal)
photo: unknown
www.google.com


July! After a chilly Spring, Summer came suddenly. And temperature hits 37-39º degrees in the city bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. 

The beach all around the city was the most interesting destiny. Sun and sea do miracles to work stress. Last week was almost impossible to do regular activities.

I' not on holiday. So, I went on the beach during weekend time to feel free and fresh.

Monday is time to  intellectual stimulation charges again. So here the rundown of the most-read post of June. And June rundown shows the diversity of subjects, some of my pedagogical values and summarize the most-read topics in a collection of five posts:

I believe and practice the differentiation as a value too by focusing on individual identity of my students. They are free to be creative by discovering 'by  themselves' with my guidance, just the sufficient to let them more comfortable in their learning. I wrote about it on the differentt posts of my blog.



Screenshot| Europeana app


Europeana: free app for Education is the most read post. Europeana is the European digital library, museum and archive. Europeana enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's galleries, museums, libraries, archives and audiovisual collection. It is always open to new interactive resources-tools.


In June, Europeana launched the first free iPad app, 'Europeana Open Culture'  introducing us to hand-picked and beautiful collections from some of Europe’s top institutions, and allows us to explore, share and comment on them.



Screenshot| Europeana app

http://a5.mzstatic.com/

Education:

Exploring Europe’s culture on our iPad! Or students' iPad!

Europeana enables students and teachers to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. 

But let's continue to present the ne app for iPad! This version allows students to search in selected image collections of Europeana, Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage portal. The images included are available for free re-use and cover five themes: Maps and Plans, Art, Photography, Treasures of the Past, and Treasures of Nature.

Curriculum: Almost all curricula, specially Arts, History, Literature, Languages, Civics, Open Culture.

Levels: All levels (some levels need teachers tutoring)




“Although individual decisions may seem small in the face of global threats and trends, when billions of people join forces in common purpose, we can make a tremendous difference.” 

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

World Environment Day is an annual event on 5 June that is aimed at being the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for positive environmental action. 



The theme for this year’s World Environment Day celebrations was Think.Eat.Save. Think.Eat.Save is an anti-food waste and food loss campaign that encourages you to reduce your foodprint. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted. 

Here I am writing about Civics and Environmental in school education. So important to help our your students became 'engaged' citizens.

Yes! Because World Environmental Day is not about a day! WED is about every day! Schools have an important role. Educators must teach environmental values in different moments of their lessons, providing some thoughts and digital educational resources, educating young people for a sustainable future and inspiring them being a good example. 

 Of course you can't forget to invite your students to use their devices (ipads, smartphones, tablets) for developing interactve actiivities.

Students will evolve in creative green projects that they will share with friends, families, and pen-pals. They will become good young environmentalists.


Le Bac? Çs va bien se passer Le 17 juin, les étudiants français passereraient le bac. 

Jamais les étudiants ont eu tellement d'outils techno adaptés à leur goût et expérience de vie: la télé, la tablette, le smarthone, ou le iPhone sont à leur disposition pour réviser leurs connaissances. 


Ils ne peuvent pas dire que réviser, c'est ennuyant! Les enseignants suivent leurs tendances et font tout pour les motiver. Le numérique est là pour les appuyer!

De quoi contenter tout le monde, non? Mais surtout de quoi rassurer les bachos sur tout ce qu'ils ont vu et retenu tout au long de l’année scolaire.

On a compris qu'un smartphone ou iPhone peuvent se transformer facilement en excellent outil de révision pour le baccalauréat. A condition d'avoir les applis qui conviennent. 


Bon! Des applis pour aider les étudiants à réviser leur bac, j'en ai présenté. À vous de relire Le Bac? Çs va bien se passer et de regarder à nouveau le témoin de Maxime,  l'un des 3 plus jeunes candidats au bac 2013.

 Le sociologue Baptiste Coulmont, chercheur et auteur du livre Sociologie des prénoms a réalisé une étude sur les bacheliers 2013, compilant les prénoms des 338 000 candidats ayant obtenu 8/20 ou plus au bac général ou technologique.

 Une étude assez aintéressante qui prouve que les Diannes et Adèles ont fait mieux que les Sabrina au Bac 2013. Intéressante !


 Photo: "Supermoon" Chris Spindley 
Colwyn Bay, Wales, May 2012


June 22, the sky was set to be illuminated by what has appeared to be a much bigger and brighter Moon. Super Moon in sciences education, remember?

The so-called "supermoon" occurs when the Moon reaches its closest point to Earth, known as a perigee full moon.


Credits video: CBS News

Education:

For many, the moon appeared about as full in the June 22 evening sky as it did on the evening of June 23 for others. 
This full moon is not only the closest and largest full moon of the year. It also presents the moon's closest encounter with Earth for all of 2013.

So you have here some fantastic digital educational resources, the videos,  to share in Sciences curriculum lessons and explain to your students this awesome phenomen.

If you were lucky enough, you organized a skywatecher outdoor lesson with your students and they observed live this beautiful scientific phenomen.


Antoni Gaudi Google doodle


"Those who look for the laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator."

Antoni Gaudi

Google celebrated the 161th birthday of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi with a colorful, stylized Doodle, snippets of six of Gaudi’s iconic modernist buildings or mosaics spell out .

Education:
All my resident readers know how I defend Arts Education in school curricula. You know my thoughts about the importance of Arts in School Education, no matter the art fields: Music, Dance, Literature, Painting, Architecture, and other, all of them are essential to a complete and better education.


Love Google doodles! They can be introduced in any curriculum as I already wrote. And I write a lot about Google doodles, you can read on my blog. 

Doodles combine creativity, digital culture and motivation to fantastic school lessons. You must think about it.

Here, a good motivation to one or two lessons about Arts, Modernism, and Architecture. 

Of course, ICT and social media in the classroom are important tools to tackle the world's toughest problems creating bridges and establish a truly intercultural world, where diversity can be celebrated, a world where different cultures not only coexist but value each other for their contributions and potential.

“We need technology in every classroom and in every student and teacher’s hand, because it is the pen and paper of our time, and it is the lens through which we experience much of our world.” 

David Warlick


G-Souto

08.07.2013 
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Licença Creative Commons
June rundown:of the most-read posts by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


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Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Schools : Transit of Venus ! Prepare your students !






Credits: NASA

It's Coming! Today starts the last Transit of Venus in this century - next in 2117. Don't miss it!

 This transit only takes place on the very rare occasions when the Sun, Venus and Earth are almost exactly in line.

 In average, it only happens every 80 years. Before the last transit on June 8th 2004, no living person had seen a transit of Venus - the previous one was on December 6th, 1882.


Transit of Venus 2004

In astronomy, a 'transit' occurs when a smaller body passes in front of a larger one. A 'Transit of Venus' happens when Venus is seen in silhouette against the bright face of the Sun.






credits: AP Photo/Mark Baker, File
http://cdn.physorg.com/


Education:


1. Telling students:

Venus transits occur four times in approximately 243 years; more precisely, they appear in pairs of events separated by about eight years and these pairs are separated by about 105 or 121 years.

This has happened only seven times in the telescopic age: in 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and 2004.

The transit which occurs when Venus passes directly between the Earth and the Sun was last recorded in 2004. There won't be another one until the year 2117, with not many of us likely to be able to witness then.

And before it happens again, the Earth will change beyond recognition. It won't happen again until December 2117. 



This Tuesday/Wednesday, June 5/6th, 2012, Venus will transit the face of the Sun in an event of both historical and observational importance.
The 6 June transit will start at approximately 00:04 Central European Time (CET). It will then take about 20 minutes from the point when Venus first bears upon the disk of the Sun.
The first contact, until the planet is fully silhouetted, the second contact. The planet will then take a curved path across the northern part of the Sun, and the mid-point of the transit will occur at around 03:30 CET. 
Venus begins to leave the Sun, the third contact, at about 06:37 CET, and the transit will be over, the fourth contact, at 06:55 CET.




NASA | World Visibility
Of course you don't want to miss it all! Neither your students in Sciences curriculum or not! 

 2. Watching? Where:

 The best places of the world to watch predicted to last seven hours, are  Easrern Asia and Australia, the south Pacific and the north-western parts of North America.

 If you live there, you are privilegious people, you and your students! 

In Europe, we only be able to watch the later stages. But travel is not required.

NASA | 2012 Transit of Venus → http://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/

Check on map where will be visible → http://goo.gl/iSDsT

Venus Transit Test Data | NASA   → http://venustransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

Watch NASA video → http://goo.gl/ARlC1

See pictures on NASA Venus Transit Observing Challenge |Flickr → http://www.flickr.com/groups/venustransit/pool/
3. Observing: 

NEVER look directly at the Sun, with or without a telescope or pair of binoculars, without using a safe solar filter. To do is very dangerous and is likely to result in permanent blindness.





Young people watching the transit of Venus 
using approved solar filters
credits: Charles Barclay 2004
http://cdn.physorg.com/

For safe viewing of the transit,  experts from the Royal Astrnomical Society (RAS) advise the same rules apply as those for observing a partial or annular eclipse of the Sun. Eclipse viewing glasses can be used, as long as they are undamaged and observing is limited to a few minutes at a time. Note that they must NOT be used with binoculars or a telescope. For an enlarged view, an image of the Sun can be projected onto a screen by a small telescope. Pinhole projection, however, will not produce a sharp enough image to show Venus clearly.

To safely watch the transit, experts from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) advise using special eclipse-viewing glasses, so long as long as they are undamaged and observing is limited to a few minutes at a time. 

 Read more here

Apps:






New technologies, like the free Transit of Venus phone app, will allow individuals to send their observations of the 2012 transit of Venus to a global experiment to measure the size of the solar system. 

 Join this unique effort, spearheaded by the non-profit Astronomers Without Borders, as a supporter and a participant. 


 In the classroom:
Ipads ans smartphones on the desk! A wonderful animation can be watched on BBC Venus to put on Sun Spectacular

 Students were invited to watch live on their devices at home or joining sky watchers with family or friends.

 In classroom, they are invited to use their devices watching BBC animation or NASA videos for an open debate on the subject with colleagues and tutoring by educators.

 Curricula: Sciences; Languages; Arts (cross-curricular)

 Languages: It is very important to guide students writing a good school report for Sciences curricula.

 Activities:

 But as an educator, you know how students love science-fiction literature! You can not miss this opportunity!

 It would be nice to read some Jules Verne excerpts. For information and activities read here.

 Invite your students to write some sci-fic stories about this awesome event, individually or in small groups.

 Ask your colleague of Arts curriculum to invite students to draw some illustrations that can enrich the creative sci-fic stories.

 Blogs in Education: 

 My students were invited to write a post on their environmental blogs. Please read here and here

Outside school:

Students can join astronomers and sky watchers at national observatories of Astronomy, observing the transit of Venus and snap some photos to explore in the classroom.




credits: © NASA/SDO, HMI
via Space.com


 Dr Thomas Widemann of the Observatoire de Paris, one of the partner institutions, describes the transit of Venus as "a unique opportunity to closely observe an Earth-like planet passing in front of a Sun-like sta".
We are all so excited!
G-Souto

 04.06.2012
Copyright © 2012G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Licença Creative Commons
Schools : Transit of Venus! Prepare your students by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Credits: video 1 NASA


Some important links for educators:


Transits of Venus | Royal Astronomical Society (RAS)

CORDIS Europa.eu | Don't miss the transit of Venus

PHYS.ORG | The transit of Venus



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