Lesson that Inspires: SOAR

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/

Yesterday during my web surfing, I ran across this awesome award winning animated film by Alyce Tzue. If you are looking for an innovative lesson to inspire your students before or after spring break, you need to consider this. Mark Warner has given many ways to incorporate it cross curriculum. I love the suggestion for music teachers. It only has music and students can create the dialog or play-script for a ELA activity. Check out other ways to use this animation in English, History, Design technology, Science, and Art. The full video is found on Vimeo, but I viewed it on Teaching Ideas which is another great website. I love how they use a literature book as a spring board for teaching. It brings me back to my days teaching in first grade. Story time was always a favorite, especially when you knew you were going to use the story to create. If you are interested, you can find out more about the making of this award winning film by visiting SOAR.

Read More [...]

Posted in Alyce Tsue, art, design, english, film, history, idea, inspire, lesson, literature, Mark Warner, music, play script, science, SOAR, spring time, teaching, write

A Copyright Story (Lesson)

This is an older post from 2010, but I think it is relevant in the quest to teach teenagers about copyright, fair use, piracy, ethical behavior, etc. What I like about this perspective is that it gives you the artist's point of view while he is collaborating with Brenna/Eleanor who was a teenager at the time. She was sharing or trading his sheet music with others without paying for it legally. It is rather lengthy, but I can see how you could use this to bring out rich discussions and dialogue about the topic. See what you think about Jason Robert Brown's, "Fighting with Teenagers: A Copyright Story" for yourself. Wouldn't it be great to use this in a debate class to critique. Can you see where you would have relented much earlier than Eleanor, or maybe said something else to change readers' opinions? From the number of comments you can see how it was a hot topic. It even switched gears to another site from George Ou's own beliefs found here on the "Digital Society" with more debating endeavors.

Read More [...]

Posted in Blogging, communication, copyright, fair use, intellectual property, jason robert brown, music, piracy, teenagers

Cruisers' Sunflower Song

We have been enjoying this song in the classroom during breaks. We discovered it on YouTube after planting our sunflower seeds. Hope you enjoy it as much as we have.

Read More [...]

Posted in music, Sarah McLachlan, song, sunflower