What is Memorial Day all about? Like many holidays we take a day off of work, school, and the normal happenings of our lives to observe the events of the past. We have time to spend with family and friends, attend parades, and most importantly reflect on the reason we are observing the holiday in the first place.
So what did your Memorial Day look like? Did you attend a local parade, go to your cabin, fire up the grill? Did you take advantage of the many Memorial Day sales? Hopefully you took some time to reflect on the real meaning of Memorial Day. I read the following article ( Why I Hate Happy Memorial Day) and thought it was worth sharing as we have opportunity to help our students understand the real meaning of Memorial Day. Q1 Please read Why I Hate Happy Memorial Day - What do you do to recognize those who gave their lives protecting our virtues. #sstlap Q2 Preserving History- as I watched Veterans march in the parade from as far back as WWII I thought about a few things. First the fact that there were very few people from WWII in the parade. This made me realize that I only have a short window to talk to my Grandfather who is 90 about his experiences. He has lived a life full of events that I really know little about and I want to capture those things for my kids and others. Second, there are many people who served our country who are not in these parades like my father. He served two tours in Vietnam and has never been a part of any of the Veterans Day or Memorial Day ceremonies. These are people who served their country but aren't being recognized. Q2- How can we enlist our students in the historical process that recognizes the service of those who paved the way for our present and future? #sstlap Q3 Beyond telling the story of our veterans and all those who served our nation, how can we preserve the stories of other historical figures before they are lost like Steven Spielberg and others are attempting to do with SHOAH? How can we bring students into this process? #sstlap Q4 Family History - Students learn about history from their families first. What projects will you create to have students hone their historian skills by tapping into your own family? #sstlap Q5 Storytelling- What are the stories of history that you love to tell? How do you create engaging experiences for your students around these events? #sstlap I could continue on the Memorial Day path, but there were a couple of things I experienced over the Memorial Day weekend that I wanted to include. Q6 First- my daughter's teacher created a project around Flat Stanley where she was asked to send a drawing of herself to a relative who would take the picture around where they live. My younger brother and his wife who live in Arizona did this for her. As it would happen, they were coming back to Wisconsin the week prior to Memorial Day and were able to return the picture with so many other cool items they brought with them. I worked with her to create a video that included the pictures they took of their travels. Needless to say, my daughter is excited about sharing her presentation. Q6 Flat Stanley connected family members in this case across states. They were able to share details about the local plant life and geography. How could you use this lesson idea to connect your students to family members or other locations to learn about geography, culture, government, etc. #sstlap Q7 Getting a little Political here- I am not trying to jump on the bandwagon of one political party or another. I just found the following article and it made me ponder something I have struggled with for years teaching political science/government. There is a difference between the theory of democracy and the reality of it in practice. This is true with all forms of government. I was taught our government was of the people, for the people, and by the people, that everyone had the opportunity to have a voice. The reality is not everyone can serve in political office. Not all voices are heard or have the same weight in our process. Q7- Examine the following video - Democracy- Real vs Ideal - how do you educate our youth about both the ideals of democracy while preparing them to be informed citizens? #sstlap
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I am coming to the end of my first year as a Technology Integrator and have enjoyed much of my time in this new position. However I have found at times that burning quest to engage kids, to connect with them to be growing stronger with diminishing opportunity to fulfill this desire. I don't have my own classroom or students, so I don't have to create awesome lessons everyday. I don't get to see the results of what students are doing when I leave their classroom after doing a technology instruction lesson. I miss this, and have found that excitement for creating great lessons has been fluttering. So I am starting on a new quest.
I want to create a collection of TICKET LESSONS. Now I don't have 180 days worth of ticket lessons. I don't have anywhere near that many. I don't even know if I could succinctly describe what makes a Ticket Lesson. I however, do know that I have a great PLN that has created some amazing Ticket Lessons. I am asking for your help in this endeavor. Please share your ticket lessons. We can create a collection of amazing lessons that engage students and help each of us improve as educators. We are better together. We are pirates and want every student to experience an incredibly engaging learning environment. SHARE YOUR TICKET LESSONS So how do you follow up an epic experience of bring the amazing people of #sstlap together for a GHO conversation on gamification? Well if you are me, you spend hours creating video questions for the chat you co-moderate on Tuesday the following week and completely fail to deliver on brining your A game for #sstlap. Yeah I am owning my failure. Here are the questions and corresponding videos from the other chat.
I apologize for not delivering a knock out performance, but hope that tonight will still deliver a great conversation. Questions are below. Q1 Jeopardy! We might like to be as smart as Ken Jennings, or the Human Google Brad Williams from Wisconsin! However we don’t all have the mental capacity to remember vast amounts of information, nor do our students. In lesson and assessment design, how do you balance information mastery (facts) with analysis and application of information? #sstlap Q2 Visual creation = learning! Looking at the following example, what content could you apply this too, and what would you do to create an experience like this for your students? Fetal Pig Journal #sstlap Q3 Make a difference in the global community! Students decide who is most deserving of lending real money to individuals trying to improve their lives. How can you provide opportunities for your students to make a difference in the world around them? #sstlap KIVA loan program Q4 Experts and guest speakers! Students love to connect to new people. What lesson ideas do you have for bringing in an expert, or guest speaker that would create a memorable experience for your students? #sstlap Q5 Gamification! Last week we did a GHO and discussed Gamification with Michael Matera. The concept is incorporating game elements into your classroom. These include competition, side quests or activities that provide greater opportunities for learning, XP or experience points and so much more. How can you incorporate some of these elements into your existing curriculum? What lessons might this be a great fit for? #sstlap Q6 Paul Revere! Everyone of us has experienced some amazing conversations and opportunities to learn. What can and WILL you do to bring the Educational Twitter conversations to your colleagues at school? How will this impact Students? #sstlap Q7 Telephone Game! Who have you shared the #tlap message with this year? How have you shared these ideas? How has this impacted the teacher and the students? #sstlap Let's make some history- or at least talk about some ways to make history an amazing subject for students to experience the awesomeness of the past.
The premise tonight is to connect with other amazing educators and talk about things that will help make you a better educator. We normally do this in #sstlap typing 140 characters at a time. Tonight we are going to try to do some of that face to face using Google Hangouts. I need some help to make this happen. I have been asking for people to suggest topics, and while we have some, I want to make sure we have everyone included and a final list. Second we need moderators for those sessions. So to help, please sign up and suggest the topics you want-- adjust your name if necessary. Sign up to moderate if you are willing to invite people into your conversation on Google Hangouts and keep the conversation going. If you are willing to moderate, we could connect at 8 and run through the set up and start inviting people by about 8:15. I so need your help to make this happen, so please sign up. Topics and Sign Up Moderators This week’s topic is kind of all over the board, but I hope connects to the overall purpose which is preparing for our first #edcampsstlap GHO extravaganza-- I am hoping that the early topics tonight set the stage for you to be excited for conversations that we can have next week for our online video conference #edcampsstlap. Yes if it isn't clear, from the feedback I have received, next week seemed to work for most people. I am planning on doing it at our normal time. You already have it on your calendar to connect for #sstlap, well now we just get to do it face to face. Well sort of, we will be doing this via Google Hangouts. I must admit I am not the most organized person, and I am sure there are lots of things that I should have considered or done to get ready for this that I am forgetting... but oh well we are going to take a risk, hope for the best and make an experience. That being said, tonight is about connecting and preparing for that conversation. We need to look at some topics that people want to connect on, who will moderate those conversations, and who plans on attending which topic of conversation. I am sharing with you the original document that I did a few weeks back where people could sign up for topics. PLEASE PLEASE ADD your name and ADDITIONAL TOPICS you want to talk about. SIGN UP I am also sharing a document for people who want to moderate- this just means you will invite people into the conversation and if the conversation stalls, you ask people questions or redirect. The same thing you do in your classroom every day. Don't be nervous YOU CAN DO IT! (Channeling my best Water Boy impression). MODERATORS So please look at the documents above and adjust any information on there- if you can't make it, or you want a different topic, or you would like to moderate, please sign up. I am excited about this opportunity to try something different. This may not be something that you find to be a positive experience, even if you don't walk away with a lot of content nuggets, I am envisioning the power of this experience to shape relationships and foster new connections. SCHEDULE- VOTE Please let me know any questions or concerns. @braz74 [email protected] VOXER BBRAZE274 |
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