September 2022 Newsletter
It’s September, and if you need a little extra energy, feel free to check out this classic. Never a cloud day, yow.
Keep reading for great NVIV prompts, the new contest, and more!
Posts with Prompts
And the videos you’ll be glad you watched continue! We find stunningly cool stories from around the internet, add some writing/discussion prompts, and share them with no ads, tracking, or registration. How awesome are we?
Following the fill-your-heart story of Magic Wheelchair last week, this week we’ve got a piece about using language to cross borders and age gaps. It’s a story of culture and friendship, and if it doesn’t make you smile, you weren’t paying attention.
We’ll take a moment to give a shout-out to Ms Fletcher’s students in Idaho, who used the Magic Wheelchair prompt to imagine crazy cool costumes for wheelchairs and built them using Lego. So awesome!
You can find all the prompts in our NVIV series on this page.
Serving Up a Storm
The contest Creative Storm ’22, that is! This is this year’s version of what we do to help your students share their insights on how to learn anything one might encounter in school. In 90 seconds or less, creatively explain something, especially something that others might find challenging.
We would love to recognize students for how they share what they learn. You can find the information you need on the contest page, of course, but you are also welcome to contact us for tips on how to help students avoid common mistakes and how to help you make the project a memorable one for you and them.
Questions and Cool Stuff
Last week we launched the third season of Two EdTech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff, a live webinar I do with Richard Byrne of Free Tech for Teachers. You can watch what we recorded by clicking here or on the image below. That same page will allow you to register for free for the next recording (Tuesday, October 4th, at 8p Eastern/5p Pacific).
Learning Like Wildfire
Our little save-the-world nonprofit landed a grant this spring focused on wildfires and how both to learn more about and also to prevent them. We’re partnering with CAL FIRE, tapping their experts for webinars and connections to participating classes. If this sounds fascinating to you, then (a) you’re cool, and (b) contact us to find out how you and your students can be involved. We’d love to help you help your students help others in their community through a project like this.
image by Tengyart from Unsplash (license)
World-Changing Projects
We have worked with teachers all over the globe to help students explore their potential in cool and interesting ways. One way to make a difference can happen by looking at our design thinking offering, Improve the World.
The link will give you all sorts of details, including a video overview and another video helping students understand the difference between a nice thought and a great idea. What your students share could make a major difference in the lives of others near and far. Why not learn more? If you need individual help launching the project, reach out and let us know. It’s free!
Super Sips
The winner of the August drawing was Brandon O’Neill in Korea – congratulations, Brandon!
Would you like to win a card? If so, first take a look at our contest page for Creative Storm ’22, then send an impression, question, or idea for what you might create through our Contact Us page. We’d love to hear from you!
image by Nathan Dumlao from Unsplash (license)
First Finish
I hope your semester is off to a great start, and that you’re ahead of the game by thinking now how to inspire those students who seem to already be digging a hole for themselves. You’re welcome to reach out to us for help with that in a reply, as well. It’s one way the team and I work to make what we do valuable to teachers around the globe.
And before we get to all the freebies, I’ll give you our standard wish: may you inspire, and be inspired, 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 guy’s welcome to kindergarten video at the time I write this has many thousands of views on YouTube, and over 300,000 views on Twitter. Watch it and you’ll agree: Mr. Reed, you’re a hero. Use this video as you talk with your team about better ways to make kids comfortable with the start of school. (2:25)
* You know about movie trailers, but have you heard of mission trailers? Like many of you, I’ve enjoyed seeing the images that have come from the James Webb Space Telescope, and learned recently that late last year NASA posted a “mission trailer” for the effort. Cool stuff! (1:27)
* There’s a place in Medellín, Colombia, where they are growing millions of mosquitoes a day to release into the community. Why? Because the ones they release prevent the wild mosquito population from reproducing what results in deadly diseases such as dengue and zika. Cool effort of the World Mosquito Program, and cool video from Gates Notes! (3:12)
* Language lovers, your moment has arrived. Ever wondered about the “ye” in “Ye Olde Bakery” or on the side of a building somewhere? It turns out that it’s related to letters that were once, but are no longer, in the English Alphabet. This video by Rob Watts tells about nine of those letters, and also clues you into the “y” of “ye.” Thanks to my buddy Shags for sharing this one. (10:55)
* Combining geography and a film artist’s eye, this piece from Drone Experience is about what it means to see the world (or in this case, Switzerland) as one who can fly. Enjoy this short film called Running into the Air. (3:16)
* One more for those teaching about the cultural variety of humanity (or just wanting a two-minute travel experience) is this montage of scenes from Bangkok, Thailand, by Brian Pineda. (1:51)
* Americans of a certain age on the list, here’s the video you need to celebrate Constitution Day coming up on the 17th. (3:00)
* Finally, here’s a new take on careful timing. Called Water Droplets Create Amazing Human-Like Animations, it’s a Business Insider post about a technology created by Gatorade to generate a “How’d they do that?” ad. (2:10)
Worth the Read
* Would you prefer to teach four days a week instead of five? The post, “Teachers Love 4-Day School Weeks. Do They Work?” is an interesting examination of various aspects of the question, though be warned that as it is on the Tech & Learning site, you’ll be navigating a number of pop-ups and ads to get to this strong article.
* Michael Linsin, who writes extensively about classroom management, posted a strong piece in mid-August called How To Praise The First Week Of School. It’s a good reminder how our messages come across to students – messages both intended and unintended.
* Devin Vodicka is a celebrated superintendent who writes a blog called Learner-Centered Leadership. In this post, titled Everybody has the potential to be a servant leader, he explores the power of influence over directives. It won’t take very long into the piece to realize why Vodicka has won the awards he has.
* The final reading suggestion is rather different, admittedly sobering, and significantly longer than I usually recommend in this newsletter. It’s called The Grammar of Exile: Hard Lessons in the Language of Opportunity, and I found it a powerful reminder that the things that bother me are usually pretty far down the list of what’s important.
Worth the Try
* One of my favorite Chrome tools, Book Creator, has released a big update that includes a wealth of feedback/commenting tools. Check out the blog post telling about the new features.
* For creating simple animated GIFs, Brush Ninja is a favorite of the guru of free edtech, Richard Byrne. In this tutorial, he shows simple versions of the animation, emoji art, photo collage, and comic creation choices. Not only is this site free, but students don’t need to register, making it a great option for elementary.
* Eric Curts, one of my favorite people in the edtech realm, created an impressive set of slides with loads of tricks for using YouTube in ways you probably didn’t know you could. Here are the slides with the quick info, but you can also get to a more detailed document or a 45-minute video of him walking you through the tricks. His material is Creative Commons-licensed (CC by-nc 4.0).
* If you haven’t looked at the European Space Agency’s site to find stunning astronomy images, you might start with this one of the “phantom galaxy” M74. The image below from NASA was shared in a story on CNN.
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Last Bit
As a special hello to Leora Ferry and her colleagues at the Jacinto Zamora Elementary School outside of Manila, we’ll celebrate the Philippines with this energizing shot of a festival in Cebu. Let’s dance!
photo by Hitoshi Namura
from Unsplash (license)
See you next month!
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