The origins of words and phrases from the English Language gets a nice twist with Etymologic, a fun online quiz that can be difficult to master. The site consists of a series of questions with two to four possible answers, most of which seems plausible. You have to show an uncanny knowledge of English (or be incredibly lucky with your educated guesses) to get all the questions correct.
I’m no fiction writer, but if I had created characters as legendary as Long John Silver or Mr. Hyde, I’d be pretty satisfied with myself. Of course, I would also be Robert Louis Stevenson, the namesake of robert-louis-stevenson.org, who wrote Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as Kidnapped and A Child’s Garden of Verses, making me a prolific (and dead) Scotch poet, essayist, novelist, and composer of pieces for the flageolet. Now that you have learned what a flageolet is, consider yourself smarter than you were yesterday.
Just because the presidential election is two years away, that doesn’t mean you have to wait around to get your students interested in presidential politics is the web-based game, eLections. Free to play and requiring only an internet connection, eLections takes you step by step through the presidential election process, from declaring candidacy to getting your party’s nomination to landing the most difficult job there is.
No longer just a way for kids to waste hours on the couch during perfectly good daylight hours, video games have gained renown as a legitimate means of educating and informing people. Take Games for Change, where the idea is to use gaming to directly affect positive change in the world.
When you decide to make a web page, the first question (assuming you have already settled on the subject matter) is what is the site going to look like? I’m not talking about tweaking the CSS, but rather the overall big picture, the starting point where you paint with broad strokes. Often times you use a whiteboard, or a piece of paper, or a tablet if you’re on the high-tech end of things. But what if you have the drawing or artistic talents equal to a rock? How can you lay out your ideas in a manner that can be understood?
If the previous sentence describes you, then you should consider using Balsamiq’s mockup tools to lay things out visually before you get into the nuts and bolts of coding. (more…)
BY BILL FERRIS
A game called Karma Tycoon causes a little cognitive dissonance for me — accumulating good karma seems contrary to to the word tycoon, which I associate with greed. Nevertheless, there are worse qualities than having a competitive desire to make a difference in society.
I’ve never played games like Roller Coaster Tycoon, but I’ll assume Karma Tycoon is based on the same principles — you acquire good karma by building and maintaining homeless shelters, performing arts centers, and other facilities designed to make a positive impact in a community. You can apply for grants and loans to bankroll your philanthropy, and the more people you help, the better your karma score.
Let’s face it, unhealthy food options and a general lack of nutritional awareness have made childhood obesity a big issue in this country. In an effort to tackle the problem head-on, First Lady Michelle Obama has launched the aptly named Let’s Move. Part informational and part networking building, the site offers a wealth of nutrition and health information while trying to lay the foundation for a network of health-conscious citizens to work together to fight childhood obesity.
Like most children going through middle school and high school, I on occasion was shown one of those grainy black-and-white film on the day we had a sub. You know the ones, made during the good old days when the narrators talked in monotone, the music consisted of dramatic orchestra swells, and everyone wore suits or long dresses. Well, the good old days are back in full force with the government-funded FedFlix, an extensive archive of government-funded films made from back in the 1940s to the modern day.
We all know how important it is to get our students interested in what’s going on in the world around them. Some things that happen in the news are inherently interesting to students, but a lot of them are so outside a student’s scope of reality that engaging them can be difficult. And then, what if you as their teacher don’t really understand the intricacies of some of the current events? How are you supposed to get your students to care about what is happening when you can’t fully explain it? Well, with the World Savvy Monitor, you’ll get help with both of these issues.
BY BILL FERRIS
Cable news network Cable News Network (that’s CNN to you and me) has launched a new blog for breaking news, This Just In. This blog will post news updates just after they happen, as well as other items that are “interesting and worth sharing.”
This Just In is a handy resource for journalism and social studies classes. It’s also a good way to get students to keep track of current events.
Teaching students how our government works can be a dull subject — two houses, a president, a judicial branch, checks and balances, separation of church and state, we all had the same cookie-cutter run down. But how can we dig deeper than just the surface lessons about the folks we send to Washington D.C.? Well, the Library of Congress has created THOMAS, an online resource about the real goings-on of our government, named after out third president, which has an immense amount of information right down to the bills that were passed this week.
Evoke is a alternate reality gaming (ARG) activity designed to help young people learn about global issues and take part in social action projects. Sponsored by the World Bank Institute and developed primarily by Jane McGonigal (well known in the ARG world), this simulation game seeks to collectively engage participants aged 13 and older in learning about issues affecting the world, and then moving them into social action in their own communities.
Growing up during the tail end of the Cold War, I heard the phrase “Be happy you don’t live in the U.S.S.R because…” many times in relation to things I felt were unfair. As a child you don’t really have an appreciation for the ways legal systems and governments work outside of the United States. Until I got to middle school I didn’t know what a parliament was outside of a brand of cigarettes.
To get a better sense of how the rest of the world works, the website JuriGlobe is an excellent resource you can point students to or reference yourself when they ask those gotcha questions in class like “Is Turkmenistan’s legal system based on a Common Law or Civilist model?”
Let me just say it: I love PBS. From the documentaries, to the quality children’s programming, it’s one of my favorite channels to watch. But my love of Cookie Monster aside, did you know that PBS had developed a top-notch web resource for teachers? If the answer was no, then you owe it to yourself and your students to spend a planning period looking at the PBS Teachers website.
BY BILL FERRIS
Given the polarized public opinion on the direction of American government, a game named Argument Wars seems like the perfect classroom activity to learn about the judicial branch of government. In this classroom game from Our Courts, students will argue both sides in several famous Supreme Court cases. According to the Our Courts website:
“In Argument Wars, you debate historical Supreme Court cases by advancing arguments and backing them up with supports. Play New Jersey v. T.L.O., Brown v. Board of Education, or Gideon v. Wainwright today! Coming soon: Texas v. Johnson, Miranda v. Arizona and more!”
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