Bill Nye Headlines 2011 Martin Institute Summer Conference

The Martin Institute for Teaching Excellence is excited to announce that Bill Nye will be the keynote speaker for the 2011 Summer Conference.

About Bill Nye
Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life. “My family is funny,” he says, “I mean funny in the sense that we make people laugh, not just funny looking.” Bill discovered that he had a talent for tutoring in high school, and while growing up in Washington, DC. He spent afternoons and summers de-mystifying math for his fellow students. When he wasn’t hitting the books, Bill was hitting the road on his bicycle. He spent hours taking it apart to “see how it worked.” <Read More>

Featured Speakers
Other featured speakers at the Summer Conference include Tom Barrett (a.k.a. @tombarrett), 21st century educator from Nottingham, England; Vaija Wagle, Harvard University Project Zero Group Leader; Carol Vukelich, distinguished educator in early literacy; and Tiffany Boyd, literacy coach and consultant with Heinemann Publishing.

Registration
Registration details for the Summer Conference are forthcoming. Sign-up to receive an email notification once registration begins. The 2011 Summer Conference will be held on Wednesday, June 15 and Thursday June 16, 2011, in Memphis, TN, USA.

Lego Star Wars Mini-Movie: An Exercise in Retelling

This fun video would be an engaging way to kick-off a challenge to students in which they demonstrate their understanding of a book, play, poem, etc. Rather than simply summarizing the major events from their reading, they could be given the opportunity to retell the story from an original point of view. The following is a humorous retelling of Star Wars from Gungan the janitor’s point of view.

Reply to Miguel Guhlin

THINKING OUT LOUD
Episode 006

Yesterday’s blog post by Miguel Guhlin (@mguhlin) caused me to think…and that caused me to want to share and think out loud…and now I’d really like to know how others respond…so…please read Miguel’s brief post about the Google Teacher Academy application process, then view my reply below and share your response.

I’d definitely appreciate it. 🙂

Please share your text/audio/video reply in the Comments section of this post or respond to the corresponding Seesmic conversation (Think video-based Twitter).