November 2022 Newsletter
It’s November, the month for Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday. Those outside the U.S., don’t worry, I’ll enjoy the day for all of us. You’re welcome.
This month, we have gifts we hope you’ll be thankful for, and so you know, we’re mighty thankful you take the time to give what we gather a gander!
Video Contest Time
We would love, love, love to celebrate cool videos that you and/or your students make. What should the video be about? Anything one might encounter in school. Give the details on our contest pages a look and see what you think. The deadline is approaching, so please share the info soon! If recent history is a guide, there won’t be tons of competition; just sayin’.
You’re also welcome to give previous contest winners a look to see what inspiration they have for you, and if you’re inspired to pose a question, feel free to send it our way.
Learning Like Wildfire
How about having your students create videos that will help families better understand, prepare for, and prevent wildfires? We’re working with CAL FIRE, the California State Parks, and a bunch of other interesting folks to try and spread good info and save some lives, and we’d love for you to join in.
Start by giving the wildfire project pages a look (they’re a little rough – our web guy has been busy and Rushton’s been doing the work). Pay special attention to the prompts pages, as this is the key to the model: we provide a boring but content-strong set of short videos, and your students interpret them so they would be interesting to others their age. Cool, no? Let us know if you’re interested!
image by Tengyart from Unsplash (license)
Powerful Prompts
Our NVIV posts include plenty of stories that fall under the theme of gratitude this month. This week, the story is called Believing in Others, and is the story of someone you almost certainly know.
For all of you who value the story of a teacher helping a troubled student see a new path, you’ll enjoy the story, and hopefully the prompting questions, as well.
Questions, Cool Stuff
We did the most recent episode of Two EdTech Guys Take Questions (and Share Cool Stuff) last week, but if you’re curious what Richard Byrne (of Free Tech for Teachers) and Rushton might come up with to teach and entertain, click on the link above or image below to get to all the recordings:
Super Sips
If your thought about a caffeine card giveaway is, “Why shouldn’t I win?” then you have the right mindset for us! This month, you have two choices for how to enter (or do both for two entries – what!?!). First, take a look at the page of past winners of our video contests, choose one or two, and tell us why you like it/them. Or, take a look at the wildfire project prompts page and let us know what you think.
image by Nathan Dumlao from Unsplash (license)
Good Gigs
If you’ve started thinking about North American conference possibilities for the coming months, then know you’ve got great options!
The week after Thanksgiving (Nov 28-Dec 1), New Hampshire has its annual Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference. Even if you’re not within range of Manchester, they offer 26 online sessions, including one from yours truly!
In the new year (Jan 23-26), the Future of Education Technology Conference is doing its cool shindig in New Orleans, Louisiana. Gumbo and great ideas – hard to go wrong.
And then in early spring (Mar 16-18), Spring CUE takes place in Palm Springs. This is the biggest edtech gathering on the west coast, and always a good time!
Cool Quotes
A thanks to Aubrey, the lead at Warm Demanders, we’re happy to share this gem from George Bernard Shaw:
- The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
If you’re not sure what that means, perhaps that underscores the point.
First Finish
This may be Thanksgiving month, but we’re thankful that you take an interest in what we bring to you every month. As always, send us your suggestions and criticism; we welcome the chance to make what we do better.
As we say every month: may you inspire, and be inspired, each and every day.
Sincerely,
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
* The BBC series Blue Planet explores the history of the world’s oceans, and this clip from that show includes many different deep-sea creatures. Some are so colorful, you wonder if it’s natural or edited into the video. (1:39)
* Those interested in innovative approaches to more sustainable fashion might be intrigued at the work of Huue, a company focused on indigo, an integral component of denim. Why indigo? It turns out processes for producing natural and synthetic indigo have a variety of problems, environmentally speaking. This company creates a substitute for indigo dye using microbes and sugars. Sweet! (4:16)
* Another cool science offering! This one is the Pique Action story of Newlight, which is developing environmentally-friendly plastic alternatives. This will intrigue both your science kiddos and your budding entrepreneurs. (3:58)
* Turning to Latin America (and the recent Day of the Dead celebration), this Great Big Story piece is about a kite festival in Sumpango, Guatemala. Enjoy the energy and community celebration that comes through in this story! (2:50)
* In 2017, SBS (Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service) posted this story, called The genius children living in India’s slums. It’s a powerful window on the lives of those living in poverty in India, and the Dhruv Scholarship, an opportunity to find the brightest of them and support their education. This story is longer than most we post, but the wealth of questions and discussions that come from it are well worth your consideration. (24:52)
* This BBC Earth Kids clip is about a raven that seems a lot sharper than most. Admittedly, I’ve assessed the intelligence of very few birds generally, so take that comment with some skepticism. That said, The Raven Who Solves Puzzles might generate some good questions about what one thinks intelligence is. (2:49)
* We’ll finish by bringing back a favorite we first shared two years ago. Let’s spend a little time flying around the Lake Country in western England. Literally. This jet suit is a tool developed for paramedic teams there, and if the simulation that starts the video doesn’t hook you, the scenery probably will. (5:57)
Worth the Read
* This blog post from Teacher Tom is a wonderful reflection on learning and civility. It’s called, “We Have to Make It Big Enough for All of Us!” The blog tagline is “teaching and learning from preschoolers.” Great stuff, and a thanks to Gus Hervey for sharing it in the Future Crunch newsletter.
* There is a correlation between myopia (short-sightedness) and education that raises all sorts of interesting questions about how we might adjust educational experiences for children. Follow the link for a strong article from the BBC looking at what is being researched and tried in Singapore, China, and the UK, among other places.
* I read an Edutopia piece called Teaching Debate Across the Curriculum, and as it started out with generalizations about the value of debating skills, I was worried it wouldn’t have any concrete suggestions. The latter part, though, had some good ideas, though it still leaves much to learn about running a proper debate in class. For that, take a look at this fine resource from the Saskatchewan Elocution And Debate Association.
* NBC News published a story in early October called How Hawaii brought its population of girls in prison to zero. The piece explores a variety of topics around mentorship, trauma-informed care, and the value of gender-specific therapeutic programs.
* A BBC post called Why ‘digital literacy’ is now a workplace non-negotiable may make you think differently about how you ask students to show what they know. In my Creative Solutions for the Global Good class, I’ve applied ideas like these for several years, and am happy to talk more to anyone who contacts me wanting to discuss the topic.
* My Santa Cruz COE buddy Steph Sumarna spotted this Twitter thread of five messages from Ted Dintersmith about the recent NAEP scores, and how they’ve been treated in the media. It’s a quick and powerful read.
Worth the Try
* The New Times newspaper of San Luis Obispo, California, publishes an annual set of winners for its “55 Fiction” contest – short stories of no more than fifty-five words. The content can be funny and very dark, but the highlights of the 2022 contest are all interesting. This isn’t literature for everyone; as always, consider carefully what might prove difficult material for your students.
* An infographic caught my eye called “What Types of People Appear Most on International Currencies?” The answers are an interesting prompt for discussion, as well as a launching pad for asking students who they admire, and among those people, who might be a good candidate for appearing on money.
* Staying on the visualization resource front, there’s this compilation of 200 objects in the known universe. Astronomy folks, you won’t be able to click quickly enough on this gem called, “The Celestial Zoo.”
* Finally, for you folks trying to figure out how to type an é or ß on a Chromebook, take a look at this nifty guide created by the good folks at CloudEDU. If you can’t be bothered to learn the code, just copy the character from the slide and shift-CTRL/CMD-V to your missive!
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Last Bit
In celebration of Japan dropping most of its restrictions for traveling into the country, I’ll share an image of my own. I took this (and edited it in Snapseed) in December of 2017 in my favorite city on the planet: Kyoto.
Yasaka Pagoda and Rickshaw (2017-12)
by Rushton Hurley
(CC by-sa 4.0)
See you next month!
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