April 2022 Newsletter
It’s April, and flowers are kicking into gear in my part of California as I write. You’ll find plenty of beauty in the ideas, stories, and resources we’re sharing, as well, so please jump in!
Powerful Prompts
We post a new NVIV (Next Vista Inspirational Video) every week. These are short video stories from all over the web that can intrigue students to see the world in new ways.
This week, we have Weird Workouts, which is one that should prompt some laughs. It’s a seriously interesting video, and the funny scenes of Joseph’s machines to help him work out might prompt some excellent creativity from your students.
Click here or on the image below to see the video and prompts we provide, or click here to find the more than 30 posts like this you can use for quick and cool writing or discussion activities with your students. Always preview videos before showing them to your classes.
Launch Something
Your students’ ideas can launch community service projects around the world, and we’ve got a project to make it happen! How does it work? Get the details, some short video intros, and an example at our Improve the World page.
As with all our projects and contests, we can connect with you to help you adapt them for your class or school. No cost, for that, either – it’s part of the nonprofit’s mission. Feel free to reach out to learn more.
Staff Meetings
Those of you who have seen me present at conferences may have caught a session I do called Much Better Staff and Team Meetings. The idea is to guide campus and team leaders on how to avoid meetings that prompt people to look for something sharp to thrust into their skills. Know what I mean? I’m guessing you do.
Working with a Canadian company, I’ve created a mini-course on these ideas that may save you and your team from more misery in the meeting realm. As it’s a new offering from a new collaboration, I’d like to find some folks who are interested in spending 20-30 minutes going through the course (yep, it’s that short) to provide some feedback. If you’re interested and reply to this email or reach out via the Next Vista Contact page, I’ll help you get the course for free in return for your thoughts.
Questions and Coolness
Once or twice a month, Richard Byrne of Free Tech for Teachers and I do a half-hour webinar called Two EdTech Guys Take Questions (and Share Cool Stuff). The April offering is happening this Thursday at 1p Pacific, 4p Eastern, and 10p CET. It’s free to join, but make sure to register here.
Super Sips
We’d like to congratulate Dave Tchozewski in Michigan for his email address getting selected from those entered in March. We’re sending a $5 Starbucks card his way, and would be happy to send one your way, if your name and email is drawn in April!
How might this happen?
Take a look at this week’s NVIV, Weird Workouts, and let us know what you think. If you like it and want to be on the very short weekly email that announces the new posts, tell us that, too.
image credit: photo by James Owen from Unsplash (license)
First Finish
We’ve packed quite a bit into this newsletter, from addressing miserable meetings, to funky machines for getting you in shape, to wonderful webinars, and more. We hope something in all this gives you an idea that gets a student excited about her or his possibilities, and perhaps lands on a smile on your face, as well.
As we like to say every month: May you inspire, and be inspired, each and every day!
Rushton and the Next Vista team
Rushton Hurley (@rushtonh)
Next Vista for Learning (@nextvista)
Muchas Freebies
We love sharing cool free stuff, and invite you to help us out. You can find the best of what we’ve gathered over the years on the Next Vista Resources pages, but if there is something free and powerful you love that you don’t find there, let us know about it using our resources submission form.
Images in the freebies section are screenshots from videos or web pages unless otherwise noted.
Worth the Watch
* This film from the South China Morning Post is about a couple who make it possible for families to cook for their loved ones being treated for cancer. It’s a beautiful story, and you might want to have some tissues close by as you watch. (9:30)
* How easily does sign language poetry translate into the spoken word? According to Deaf poet Douglas Ridloff, the answer is close to “not very well.” This piece, Spoken Without Words: Poetry with ASL SLAM, from Great Big Story is especially well crafted to give those who don’t know ASL some sense of the beauty and poetic sophistication possible. (2:51)
* This video is a visual poem called Caterpillar. The poet, Ian Sanborn, has posted over a hundred videos about sign language, ASL poetry, and more. This is his most popular, perhaps because it’s also wonderfully edited as a video – layers of art to watch and learn from. (2:04)
* A TED talk about self-evolving robots made its way across my feed recently, and the idea that we are designing robots to replicate themselves by figuring out what adapts most successfully is both fascinating and, admittedly, a bit frightening. It makes sense, though; the robots might be sent to a place we cannot or would not go, and they could need to adjust in that environment. This will bring a new wrinkle to your lessons on evolution. (10:11)
* If you have any interest in history, and specifically the history of ocean exploration, you probably already know that Ernest Shackleton’s ship the Endurance was found near Antarctica recently. This video is footage from the discovery team, but without any narration nor news logos. (1:31)
* From the BBC, here’s a story about an underwater cemetery in Florida. The idea is that the place is as much about helping the environment as it is about being a memorial. (6:00)
* Another clip from the BBC, this one from the Earth series, is called Wild Hamster Has A Graveyard Feast. Sounds macabre, but is more about why hamsters like wax, and in this case, the possible trouble this interest can cause these fuzzy little guys. (2:54)
Worth the Read
* In an NAIS blog post, Jason Kim-Seda provides thoughts on retention of teachers of color at predominantly white schools. It’s a strong mix of his doctoral research and focused suggestions, summarized well for those of all backgrounds needing a frame of reference on thinking through professional issues of DEI.
* Michael Linsin’s post How To Make Your Students Smarter is about the importance of teachers’ expectations, and has a number of strong pieces of advice for helping students believe in themselves.
* Aubrey Patterson of Warm Demanders posts ideas for school leaders, and this one from March, Doing a Puzzle Without the Box, is a nice reflection on what allows leaders to be themselves authentically.
* I love cool science posts, and this one on a polystyrene substitute made from plastic-eating mealworms certainly qualifies as “cool” in my book. This is the kind of stuff you don’t normally find in school curricula, and exactly the kind of thing that could make a student jump into learning something for learning’s sake, rather than the grades we hold over their heads. Thanks to Future Crunch for posting about this one.
* Another nice share from Future Crunch is this article about a locked-in patient who gains the ability to communicate with his family via an implant. “Locked-in” (also known as “pseudocoma”) means that the person has no ability to register understanding or recognition, and this implant shows that people in this state may well retain the ability to think, and given this breakthrough research, perhaps communicate.
Worth the Try
* This site, while not new, was new to me. It’s called The First Men on The Moon, and includes an almost-twenty-minute section of the audio between NASA and the Apollo 11 team as they got set to land on the moon in 1969. I found it memorizing, and toss out a big thanks to my buddy Shags, who suggested it.
* An ISTE discussion on standards related to learning technology skills led me to the New York Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards, which cover “Impacts of Computing,” computational thinking, networks & system design, cybersecurity, and digital literacy. Great stuff.
* Also in the space of digital literacy, take a look at Wendy Cannon’s Be a Digital Citizenship Super Agent unit for K-2, which has extensive plans and resources for the #K2CanToo crowd. The resources tap Common Sense materials along the way, which I like, given the strength of offerings from Common Sense Media. The link prompts you to create a copy of a Slides file in Google Drive.
* The unfolding tragedy of violence coming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the San Francisco Public Library to curate a set of resources for teaching about Ukraine.
* Finally, enjoy this gallery of pictures from The Japan Times celebrating the cherry blossom season in Tokyo. They’re beautiful images, and a nice tool for getting students to look for extra detail.
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Last Bit
Having mentioned hanami, Japanese for flower viewing, but typically used for cherry blossom viewing, let’s celebrate April with this from Unsplash:
Night Walk by Harold Wainwright
from Unsplash (license)
See you next month!
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