My thoughts about Education Humanities, Technology and Digital Culture. Interested on social media tools in educational contexts and
gamification in education.
Spring is back! But after two or three days, Winter came back. Cold, wind, snow and rain. So I can't think to publish a poem about Spring. Perhaps a poem about Easter? Let's see if I can...
The cold earth slept below; Above the cold sky shone;
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Today April 19 is Saturday alleluia. Just a day to Easter Sunday. Easteris the most important Christian religious holiday and widely regarded as the second most popular holiday in general after Christmas season.
The students and teachers got some days as school break of Easter in the most countries in Europe and elsewhere.
In addition to the fun and candy, Easter is also a time of reflection for many, with traditions that commemorate the significance of the holiday for Christians around the world.
Easter 2025 is the coldest and stormy weather we've had in many years. Nothing comparable to previous years.It's so sad to kids and families! Impossible to do the traditional host of Easter egg hunts outdoor.
via Google Images Archive
But there are other activities inside. The studentswho stay in town with their parents, they have good choices to have fun and learn a bit as well.
I would like to share with you a message of hope. Planet Earth is complaining for all the bad things human kind are doing. I believe in the new generations, Let's continue our green education.
Life can toss us down and make us fall out of the blue, but the hope inside us will pick us up again and again!
We do not lose heart when we fail in life, a storm can't shoot us down, Must be positive.
We must be grateful! We have our home isn't it ? Stay positive ! Always !
Who knows tomorrow, Easter Sunday we will present us a sunny day ?!
An English translation by Ralph Manheimfirst published in 1983. The novel was later adapted into a sequel (three films).
Synopsis:
When Bastian happens upon an old book called The Neverending Story, he's swept into the magical world of Fantastica - so much that he finds he has actually become a character in the story! And when he realizes that this mysteriously enchanted world is in great danger, he also discovers that he is the one chosen to save it. Can Bastian overcome the barrier between reality and his imagination in order to save Fantastica?
Small and insignificant Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody's idea of a hero, least of all his own. Through the pages of an old book he discovers a mysterious world of enchantment - but a world that is falling into decay. The great task of making things well again falls on Bastian and so begins a dazzling, magical adventure.
Today, 1st September, fantasy children’s novel The Neverending Story by Michael Ende is being celebrated byGooglewith a lovely interactive Doodleon the 37thanniversary of its publication (1979).
The book-within-a-book topped the best-seller lists in author Michael Ende’s native Germany when it was released on 1 September 1979 and has gone on to sell tens of millions of copies world-wide.
"Every once in a blue moon a book captures the imagination, providing a portal into magical places unknown. So it was with The Neverending Story..."
Michael Ende
Google Doodle 37th anniversary The Never Ending Story
In the book, a character named Bastian gets slurped into a book containing a mystical realm called Fantastica, where he meets a dragon named Falkor, a hunter named Atreyu and a dying empress. Adventures and voyages of self-discovery ensue.
Google Doodle 37th anniversary The Never Ending Story Doodler: Sophie Diao
For the first time in a Doodle, the images slide by with a parallax effect that imparts some depth by separating foreground and background elements.
Illustrator Roswitha Quadflieg captured the story’s mythical feel by emblazoning each chapter with a decorative initial inspired by medieval scripts. And today’s Doodle adds a 3D dimension, with an artwork-packed slideshow that uses parallax scrolling - a Doodle first!
Google Doodle 37th anniversary The Never Ending Story
The enchanting story of the lonely boy Bastian Balthazar Bux who leaps into the pages of a book he finds in an antiques shop was lauded for its unique subversion of fairy tale norms and catapulted Ende into international renown.
The book, originally published in German, topped bestseller lists was was adapted into a movie by Wolfgang Petersen in 1984. The film was the first inThe NeverEnding Story film seriesand later followed by twosequels.
The film only adapts the first half of the book, and consequently does not convey the message of the title as it was portrayed in the novel.
Ende is one of the most popular and famous German authors of the 20th century, mostly due to the enormous success of his children's fiction. He was not strictly a children's writer, however, as he wrote books for adults too. Ende's writing could be described as a surreal mixture of reality and fantasy.
He began writing by penning satirical sketches for cabarets and went on to write film and theatre reviews for Munich radio.
On 28 August Michael Ende died from stomach cancer in the Filderklinik, a hospital near Stuttgart. Ende used his writing to shine a light on cultural and spiritual problems in the world, drawing upon his experiences from the war years. All in all he received 41 awards for his artistic work.
Ende is best known for his epic fantasy The Neverending Story. Other famous works include Momo andJim Button and Luke the Engine Driver ( Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer).
Winner of the German Young Literature Prize in 1961, Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer became one of the most successful German children's books in the postwar era and has been translated into 33 languages, including into English as "Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver."
His works have been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 35 million copies, and adapted as motion pictures, stage plays, operas and audio books.
An artist friend of Ende later asked him to write the text for a children's book he was illustrating, the result of which was Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver - his first best seller.
He told later told People magazine: "I had no idea how to write a children's book".
Google Doodle 37th anniversary The Never Ending Story
At the heart of this book-within-a-book is Bastian Balthazar Bux, a lonely boy who steals a copy of The Neverending Story from an antiques store and leaps into its pages.
Bastian is tapped by a hunter named Atreyu to help save the enchanted but ill-omened world of Fantastica by doing something only a human can do: giving Fantastica’s ruler, the Childlike Empress, a new name.
Their companion, Falkor, a luckdragon, remains ever-optimistic that they’ll prevail over wicked creatures and destructive forces to reach the Childlike Empress’s Ivory Tower. In time, Bastian’s journey becomes one of self discovery, in which the words “Do what thou wilt!” inscribed on Atreyu’s talisman, take on personal meaning.
Illustrations by Roswitha Quadflieg The Never Ending Story
On its publication in 1979, "the book The Never Ending Story was praised for its alternative composition, which features two ongoing and differently coloured narratives and chapters that begin with a succeeding letter of the alphabet from A to Z."
Illustrator Roswitha Quadflieg realised the story's mythic feel by adorning each chapter with a decorative initial, which had their origins in medieval scripts.
Education: This Doodle is a wonderful artwork-packed slideshow that uses parallax scrolling in 3D and teachers should include it into school curriculum to enhance reading skills.
Illustrator Roswitha Quadflieg captured the story’s mythical feel by emblazoning each chapter with a decorative initial inspired by medieval scripts. And today’s Doodle adds a 3D dimension, with an artwork-packed slideshow that uses parallax scrolling.
Reading Pyramid
via time for learning
Reading:
Schools in the XXI century meet the needs of all kind of readers. Books, audio books, e-books, films, stage plays are awesome resources to enhance reading skills every day in the classroom as a fundamental element in school education at all levels.
Students will be better in mathematics or coding if they understand what they are reading to accomplish new skills on other school curricula.
Don't forget the students fromdisadvantaged social backgrounds or having special needs. They need you special attention.
*Note: As I wrote above, the movie only covered the novel's first half and drew a furious reaction from Ende, who called it "that revolting movie... a gigantic melodrama of kitsch, commerce, plush and plastic"
Students became creative, reading books, watching movies in the classroom or going to a theatre near your school. Those activities will enrich your lessons.
As I wrote above, the movie only covered the novel's first half and drew a furious reaction from Ende, who called it "that revolting movie... a gigantic melodrama of kitsch, commerce, plush and plastic"
The critical thing that is happening is students are living and breathing, within a much larger sphere of information and knowledge. That critical openness to knowledge, that is something we had better address, or we are ill-serving our students.
Seeing students using the information - literacy skills we have previously taught them - in a new context and independently without it being a mandate is probably one of the most joyful experiences for us as teachers.
