February 2024 Newsletter
We love sending out the newsletter, and as this is the month that includes Valentine’s Day, consider it an extra bit of love shared with you (totally appropriately, of course). Read below for all sorts of lovely ideas, stories, and opportunities!
Stunning Video
What makes the video on the linked page stunning is not necessarily the videos, as much as their maker. Their maker is generative AI – a tool called Sora. That is, text prompts were used to have a bunch of algorithms create videos.
I found this so jaw-dropping that I felt the need to put it in this part of the newsletter. Make a point of reading the prompts on the page linked above, as well as their notes on where the weaknesses seem to be.
Sora is not yet released for all of us to use, but if you want to try a text-to-video generator yourself, Pika is an option.
Contest Finalists
Our Creative Spark ’23 finalists are chosen, and word has gone out to the schools, and we love having the chance to share them!
Using Base 10 Blocks to Solve for Subtraction
from Jackson Elementary
Texas, USA
Emergency Supply Kit
from Hillbrook School
California, USA
The 6 P’s
from Hillbrook School
California, USA
Plants Need Water, Sunlight, and Nutrients
from Lagunitas School
California, USA
Check in next month for the winners! And contact us if you’re interested in having students make videos that we feature in this newsletter.
Powerful Prompts
Each week during the school year, you’ll find a new Next Vista Inspirational Video (NVIV) post with prompts you can use for discussion or writing. You could also use these to kick off a team meeting; creative interpretation is a great way to get people brainstorming, and these videos are a resource for you.
The most recent four include a crazy-cool promo for the Paralympics (The Power of Yes), what looks like classical music but isn’t (Audience and Expectations), an island that isn’t always one (Sometimes an Island), and thoughts on street drumming (Drumming Up an Audience).
Wildfire and Grants
Interested in having students make videos related to wildfire? We’ve got the material ready for them; all they need to do is interpret it into the kind of videos they think others their age would enjoy.
It’s called the Wildfire Science And Prevention Project, and it’s a great way to help students better understand issues facing everyone, while also helping you better tell the stories of your students’ successes to the world.
To connect with us about having your students get involved (it’s free!), go to our Contact Us page and in the comments field mention the wildfire project.
image by Tengyart from Unsplash (license)
Super Sips
One of the fun pieces (we hope there are many) of this newsletter is the chance you have as a reader to win a cup of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or similar just by exploring some portion of the offerings!
In January, one of the truly long-time readers of the newsletter won the drawing. We send big congratulations to Konni in den Bosch – Konni, check your inbox for word from us!
If you figure that should be you when we next send out news of caffeine wins, you can enter by letting us know which of the NVIV videos described above you liked best, and why. That link takes us to our Contact Us page, which is a great way to connect with us to share ideas, and perhaps win a $6 Starbucks gift for having taken the time!
image by Clay Banks from Unsplash (license)
First Finish
As always, we hope you found some love in what we’ve collected and shared. May something in this newsletter inspire you to find what inspires your students. Or, as we say every month, may you inspire, and be inspired, every day!
In service,
Rushton and the Next Vista team
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
What is NASA doing in 2024? As it turns out, they’ve created a video to tell us, called Onward and Upward. One might have students watch this to talk about what in it they find fascinating, and what kind of science, activities, or mindsets these endeavors require. (2:33)
The description section on this YouTube video’s page starts with this: “Last year, we called upon architects and designers from across the globe to join us in reimagining the future of affordable housing. The world responded.” It’s a very short video, but contains plenty of visuals for rethinking housing possibilities. This was posted by Icon, one of the pioneers of 3D-printed buildings for social benefit. (0:32)
This TED-Ed talk is about flying rivers. These are the moisture patterns in places like Peru and other countries in the northern South America, and they have an important role in how rainforests survive and thrive. (5:37)
A guy named Ed People apparently traveled all over to ask people to show him their favorite dance moves. This is a compilation, and if it doesn’t make you want to try out a move, check that you still have a pulse. (6:08)
My good friend Steve and I used to play a game in college that started with one of us say, “If the universe is truly infinite…” and then we’d add something implausible that is a given, given infinity. And if the universe is truly infinite, then the highest form of art is to have an egg hovering above a pan, seemingly defying gravity. If you live in that universe, here’s your how-to video. (1:17)
Let’s say that you’re a company that has built a surgical robotic platform, so that, let’s say, a doctor on Earth could manipulate the platform to perform surgery on someone in a space station. This video might be the short story you share to promote the device. Big thanks to my friend Shags who suggested this video. (1:45)
If you’re a teacher who is trying to find a way to fight AI-generated essays being turned in as if they were students’ work, you could follow this teacher’s advice. I think the teacher would call it “the Trojan Horse method,” though I’ll admit to some skepticism that this is a sure-fire way to catch cheating. (about 0:45)
Worth the Read
* If you’ve given minimal attention to ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools, you probably know that some students are using them to generate writing and turning it in as their own work. The last video, above, addresses that in one way. However, if you think this means cheating is on the increase, you might find this interview with two Stanford researchers intriguing. A key element is this: “the data suggest, perhaps to the surprise of many people, that AI is not increasing the frequency of cheating.”
* That weather has become more extreme in recent years is likely obvious. What may not have been obvious is that this is causing those who design schools to think in new ways about how the buildings can be safe for those who work and learn in them. Take a look at this EdSurge article on redesigning school buildings for the details.
* Also in the keeping-you-safe department, here’s a January post from Michael Linsin called Why You Should Never Get Between Two Aggressive Students. Good thing to keep in mind, this.
* I love great photography, and when an article highlights a set of award-winning pictures, I’m likely to give it a look. In this case, we have a CNN article with five wonderful and celebrated entries to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. The napping polar bear, below, was one of the favorites.
* We phased out the Worth the Try section a while back, but as this is about creating an image with your chosen text, we’ll include it here. That start to the Simpsons with Bart writing sentences on a blackboard? The tool allows you to create an image with a sentence you provide. Probably an intellectual property foul, but still fun to play with.
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Last Bit
We’ll finish with a gem from Unsplash by Ekaterina Shakharova, who captured the scene with really beautiful light, and in a way that calls to mind the theme that opened the newsletter: love.
photo by Ekaterina Shakharova
from Unsplash
(license)
See you next month!
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