Today, Monday, May 21, YouTube celebrates its 7th birthday. Can you believe that its been seven years since the first YouTube video was shared with the world? Does anyone remember what we did before we had online video?
To commemorate the occasion, YouTube has published a video with some of the crazy statistics and incredible things that have occurred during the company’s existence. Says the video summary accompanying the birthday video, “Thanks for the amazing things you watch, create, and share!” (Source)
How many of the classic clips included within the following video reflection do you recognize?
Educator and comedian Bill Cosby spoke to the class of 2012 at Temple University’s 125th commencement. Dr. Cosby spoke about the troubles facing young people entering today’s work force and challenges the graduates to “wake up and not dream through” the next stage of life.
“Mobile learning is seen by many as a disruptive technology. This is because it has been identified as a technology which holds great potential to transform the learning and teaching within a classroom. What follows is a mash-up presented at the NSWDEC 5th Biennial Equity Conference in 2011 which explains some of the issues.” (Source)
Here’s a quick activity that you can do in your classroom to explore the topic of sustainable energy. It comes to us from Google.
Introduction
Ever wondered what happens when you send an email? How does an email travel from your computer to your friend’s smartphone across the country or around the world?
Take a journey with Gmail and find out. In this short video you will follow an email on its journey to see what happens once you send a message. Along the way, you will learn about some of Google’s efforts to minimize its impact on the environment.
Exploration
Take a journey through Google’s data centers by following an email along its path. Along the way, explore Google’s data centers with videos, photos and more. It all begins when you click send. Click on the image below to begin the online module.
Google Green
Google claims it is creating a better web that’s better for the environment. Google states, “We’re greening our company by using resources efficiently and supporting renewable power. That means when you use Google products, you’re being better to the environment…At Google, we’ve worked hard to minimize the environmental impact of our services. In fact, to provide you with Google products for a month, our servers use less energy per user than leaving a light on for 3 hours. If you add in our renewable energy and offsets, our footprint is zero. And we continue to find new ways to reduce our impact even further.”
Storybirds are short, art-inspired stories you make to share, read, and print. It is a fun, collaborative, storytelling website that can be an effective resource for teaching parts of a story, the writing process, promoting creativity, and more. Storybird also seamlessly keeps a portfolio of each student’s writing development.
What is Pi Day?
I’m a math educator and I’ve celebrated Pi Day for many, many years. It isn’t the most widely celebrated holiday, so let me explain what it means. Today is March 13, which can also be noted as 3/14. The mathematical notation Pi is rounded to 3.14, so math classrooms around the world celebrate Pi Day today.
Do We Have It All Wrong? Vi Hart shared this video which challenges what we think we know and understand about Pi.
Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your everyday life using your computer, phone, tablet and the web. Evernote is a great tool for teachers and students to capture notes, save research, collaborate on projects, snap photos of whiteboards, record audio and more. Everything you add to your account is automatically synced and made available on all the computers, phones and tablets you use.
Learn more in this interview as Bill Stites, Director of Technology at the Montclair Kimberley Academy, describes the school’s Evernote deployment.
Evernote Premium For Schools offers all the features, services and benefits, bundled together for your school at a discounted rate. Perfect for groups of teachers, classrooms, whole schools or entire districts. Evernote Premium For Schools is available at a 50% discount off of individually purchased premium accounts.
The following quote from Seymour Papert about PBL especially stood out to me. This sort of flies in the face of what we are currently seeing in many of the test-focused schools.
“The first thing you have to do is give up the idea of curriculum. Curriculum meaning you have to learn this on a given day. Replace it by a system where you learn this where you need it. So, that means you are going to put kids in a position where they’re going to use the knowledge that they get.
Program Director, Rosalynn Wade, describes the innovative network of schools dedicated to nurturing creativity in every learner. I was able to visit with Rosalynn and others from Oklahoma A+ Schools during the World Creativity Forum in Oklahoma City. My thanks to Rosalynn for participating in this impromptu interview.
Today, Monday, May 21, YouTube celebrates its 7th birthday. Can you believe that its been seven years since the first YouTube video was shared with the world? Does anyone remember what we did before we had online video?
