November 2023 Newsletter
Here’s to hoping the onrush of sugar at the end of October didn’t prove too disruptive for your classes on November 1st. As always, we’ve got goodies to share and stories to savor, so jump right in!
Featuring Favorites
We have more very short yet very cool videos with prompts you might use with your students for discussions or writing assignments.
This week’s post is about a young woman who turned an awful experience that left her partly paralyzed into an inspiring commitment to meeting a life goal anyway. That life goal? Running a marathon. Read the Inspired and Inspiring Running post, along with the embedded Great Big Story video about Hannah Gavios.
Over the three weeks before that one, we highlighted a Japanese roll-along suitcase that a blind person can use to “see” where they are going, wild research on robotic possibilities from Disney, and the intersection of art and taking your work to the next level.
Find all the Next Vista Inspiring Videos series of posts at this link, and enjoy the wealth of activities these posts give you!
Cool Contests
How about having students make short videos explaining something that you regularly have to explain repeatedly to students? That could both save you time, and also allow us to recognize the students for their creative ways to teach that topic.
As we do every year, we are running a video contest in which students are challenged to describe something one might encounter in school in 90 seconds or less. Over time, we’ve had some gems (here are all the student winners), and we hope you and your students will take an interest in this year’s contest, Creative Spark ’23!
The deadline is close, with all entries due by December 1st! As always, if you have any questions, let us know. We’re happy to help you make it a good experience for them and you!
Getting Good at Grants
It is rare for teachers to understand how many resources are available to them for the interesting things they want to do. This year, we welcome those who want to learn how to pitch grant possibilities by getting involved in a project that can highlight students’ talents and perhaps even save lives.
It’s called the Wildfire Science And Prevention Project, and it’s a great way to help students better understand issues facing everyone (yes, everyone), while also helping you better tell the stories of your students’ successes to those who will support your school.
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)
First Finish
You may notice that our Starbucks card giveaway disappeared. Send a thought on any of the items in the NVIV section at the top of the newsletter, and you’ll find that the drawing is alive and well! We’re just working to trim down the content a bit. And congratulations to Amy Baldwin, who won last month!
As always, we thank you for spending your time looking over what we collect. 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 if you were designing a robot to clean a beach? What would you need to think about? In this video from CNET’s What the Future series, you’ll learn about BEBOT, a product of Searial Cleaners, and what they’ve done to build something that deals with our rather unimpressive tendency to litter. (4:13)
* A company called Synchron has developed a “brain-computer interface” technology to allow one dealing with paralysis to control devices with their thoughts. Interestingly, this doesn’t require open brain surgery. The video includes some exploration of what could go wrong with such a tool, and may make for good discussion with your students. (5:29)
* ChopValue is a company that converts used chopsticks into good-looking wood products. This video is only half a minute long, but you can learn a lot about the company’s pitch from what you see. What do you notice as you watch? Would you want a desk like the one at the end of the video? Why might it be a good idea to have a video with no one speaking? (0:30)
* Sudha is a guy with a passion for designing cars. Unusual cars. Really unusual cars. How do you think his regular job might relate to his hobby of creating unusual cars? Do you know someone who combines a “normal” job with a hobby? What professional possibilities might arise from combining two different things? What would it require of the person who does it? (4:48)
* Over the course of this video about the company Terviva, you learn that they have found a way to remove the bitterness of the beans from the pongamia tree. If you think about products or processes that people typically don’t like, consider asking if the reason they don’t like it is something you can fix or change. Come up with an answer, and now you are training yourself to become someone who thinks in terms of possibilities, rather than barriers. (4:30)
* What advice might a 7-year-old and a 64-year-old have for each other? In this story, you’ll watch a boy and a man engage in that conversation, prompted by questions they were given. Could you do a project in which your students share these kinds of thoughts with senior citizens in your community? (4:35)
Worth the Read:
* In early October, EdSurge published a Jeff Young piece about technology-enhanced approaches to oral exams that show interesting promise for assessing learning efficiently in the age of AI.
* The about page of an advocacy movement may seem a strange item for the read section of this newsletter, but this explanation of Let Grow is one that could generate a number of strong conversations about how we think of the world our children are growing up in. Apologies for finishing that last sentence with a preposition, if that’s still something that anyone cares about. 8^)
* It’s been a long-agreed goal to get more educational options to more families with lower incomes in the United States, but partisan politics has largely prevented large-scale progress. Some smaller-scale, privately-funded programs have attracted mostly positive attention, such as the preschools funded by Jeff Bezos’ educational foundation. These schools are free to those making less than 400% of the federal poverty line, or about $92,000 for a family of three, but you’d have to live near one of them.
* Also in the space of educational equity is the recent release of data from a group of economists based at Harvard. There are considerable differences between the standardized test scores of the richest Americans as compared to those in lower income quintiles, which prompts an exploration of what wealth buys in terms of educational possibilities, as well as what the tests themselves measure. (This article in the New York Times may be behind a paywall for some readers.)
* Michael Linsin recommends a technique (and explains why) for calming and resetting a classroom. Not a bad thing to have up your sleeve for when the kiddos get a little too restless.
* We who teach act on the belief that within each child there are marvelous possibilities, but we also understand that circumstances can prove to be challenging barriers. In this CNN Heroes story, you’ll learn about Estefanía Rebellón, who saw in a set of kids at the border something that called her to dedicate herself to helping them. The article is good, but if you watch the almost-ten-minute news video, have some tissues close by.
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Last Bit
Given the BEBOT video, it seemed a cool idea to search Unsplash for some cool beach shots. This one from Zany Jadraque certainly qualifies:
photo by Zany Jadraque
from Unsplash
(license)
See you next month!
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