Infonews n°294 from 21/01/2007
Big Brother in the UK
Other links about 1984
Brave New World
2020
Meet the Presidents (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Friday, January 19th)
Presidents Day Resources (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Friday, January
19th)
Presidents' Day Wordsearch (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Friday, January
19th)
Potus : Presidents of the United States (from [LII New This Week] January 11)
Presidents webquests
Hedgehog day is on February 2nd
Science experiment in English
Rating films
To find a job
21st Century Work force
Watch Nasa TV
Professor Filippenko
Pancam ( from [LII New This Week] January 18)
Le blog de Florinda Fernandes
How do I get copies of those videos on YouTube and Google to save to my computer
so that I can use them at school?
OpenTalkLive 3.17 (from The Scout Report -- January 19)
JetAudio 6.2.8 Basic
Designing tasks, Asking questions
Page sur le Podcasting sur Educnet
Big Brother in the UK
On eTeachNet this week, our colleague Annie Gwynn gave the address of this
fascinating front page of The Independent. You find mention of all the different
fields where this tracking takes place, and the different means used. The detail
can't be read on the front page, but what you see is enough to start the students
talking, and invite them to emit hypothesis.
http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00240/p1-150107_240892a.jpg
Then the students can read the full article, or just look for answers to the
questions they raised while seeing the front page
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2154844.ece
and then you can take them onto this first chapter of Orwell's 1984 novel
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/1/
Because I found out that the concept of "Big Brother" as we understand
it, is not something the students are familiar with. Some of mine even suggested
that this "big brother" could be someone older who would help the
young, and since they read the name of Tony Blair on the front page, they asked
me if people liked him a lot in Britain, and if the article meant that they
considered him as their big brother!
Here is the page from wikipedia about Big Brother (1984)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(1984)
Other links about 1984
- the full text free online
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/NineteenEightyFour/index.html
- Teacher Cyberguide on 1984 (with activities for advanced students.)
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/1984/19 84tg.html
- e notes on 1984 (everything about the book, plus lesson plans)
http://www.enotes.com/1984/
- Georges Orwell 1984 : a page with lots of links, a description and analysis
of the characters and a very useful summary of the novel.
http://www.warroad.k12.mn.us/moredocs/st dnt_work/rhohener/1984.1.htm
La page semble n'être plus accessible, mais elle existe encore dans le cache
de google:
http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:Z1jaajJfOuUJ:www.warroad.k12.mn.us/moredocs/stdnt_work/rhohener/1984.1.htm+rhohener+1984+orwell&hl=fr&gl=fr&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a
- Mr. Geib's webpage for George Orwell's terrifying brilliant novel of dystopia, "1984." :
a very interesting site, very visual, with a link to a newspeak dictionary,
a guide on how to be a good dictator, and a link to big brother reality tv
shows, plus lots of references and food for thought.
http://www.foothilltech.org/rgeib/englis h/orwell/
- Was Orwell right? A page from a US teacher for his students, with links to
bring them to consider the issues in regard with the Patriot Act and the present
US government
http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cbeard/1984/1984.html
- lots of links to pages and sites about 1984
http://www.webenglishteacher.com/orwell.html
Brave New World
you can also want to include "Brave New World" in this teaching
unit. here are some links
- Teacher Cyber-guide on Brave New World : with interesting activities around
the techniques of brainwashing (hypnopedia) , advertising and of course cloning.
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/bnw/bnw tg.html
- Mr. Geib's webpage for Aldous Huxley's prophetic vision of the future, "Brave
New World."
http://www.foothilltech.org/rgeib/englis h/bnw/
with infos on background and context, a diagram, and an essay with two pictures
to start a discussion :
http://www.foothilltech.org/rgeib/englis h/bnw/essay/
2020
You may also invite your students to read articles from readers and experts
who contributed to the BBC "Book of the Future" published in 2002
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/onthefuture/
articles that made it
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/onthefuture/A1124786
History of the Day ( February 19th)
Wikipedia brings all the answers ( including the dates each year) and several
pages of useful links at the end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington's_Birthday
Meet the Presidents (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Friday, January 19th)
Pocantico Hills has done a great job with their Presidents project. Click
on any of the forty-three American Presidents to learn more about them. (EE-UE)
http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/presidents/presidents1.htm
Presidents Day Resources (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Friday, January 19th)
Offering a tour through the lives, homes and accomplishments of both President
George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln, this page can be your starting
point for student research exercises. (UE-MS)
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2888
Presidents' Day Wordsearch (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Friday, January 19th)
Here's a great last minute student worksheet to print out for a Presidents'
Day activity, covering both President George Washington and President Abraham
Lincoln. (EE-MS)
http://www.everydayteaching.com/Worksheets/pres.words.html
Potus : Presidents of the United States (from [LII New This Week] January 11)
This collection features "background information, election results,
cabinet members, notable events, and some points of interest on each of the
[U.S.] presidents. Links to biographies, historical documents, audio and video
files, and other presidential sites are also included."
Includes indexes to names and subjects, and a brief bibliography.
From the Internet Public Library.
http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/
Presidents webquests
Here is the page of links I created for my students, and several webquests
and treasure hunts
http://lycees.ac-rouen.fr/pascal/infonews/themes/presidents.htm
Hedgehog day is on February 2nd
Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Monday, January 15th suggests this activity
for young children, since it will soon be Hedgehog Day in Europe, the same
festival celebrated in America but known as Groundhog Day to match the animal
found here. To help your preschoolers learn about this winter tradition try
this wonderful potato hedgehog craft, where preschoolers decorate a potato
with paint, toothpicks, and googly eyes. You can alternatively call it a porcupine
potato.
http://www.kinderart.com/littles/hedgehog.shtml
To learn more about groundhog day and hedgehog day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_Day
and about hedgehogs, see this blog with daily reports of the activities of
a hedgehog (and videos too!)
http://brh.numbera.com/hogblog/
and to find everything in the calendar about special days, weeks and month
celebrations in February
http://www.everythingpreschool.com/holidays/h2007/feb.htm
and for scavenger hunt about Groundhog Day, groundhogs and woodchucks, go to
this page I designed for my intermediate students
http://lycees.ac-rouen.fr/pascal/infonews/themes/groundhogday.htm
Science experiment in English
Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Monday, January 15th suggested this experiment
for a science fair in a US primary school, but we could also do this activity
in an ESL class to use English as a tool to learn about sciences, and also
discover this tradition of science fairs in US classes that the students often
see in children's series on TV. Here is what the Classroom Flyer says:
" Even preschoolers can host a science fair. They will love this Dancing
Raisins experiment, conducted with raisins, a glass, and club soda."
http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/dancingraisins.html
Rating films
The lesson plan from The New York Times Learning Network this week is about
the film rating scale and its accuracy.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20070119friday.html
The lesson is called : "The raid on raters : Exploring the Current Movie
Rating System", based on the article "Hollywood Rethinks Its Ratings
Process", By David M. Halbfinger, January 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20070119friday.html
I found the article too difficult, but the lesson plan is interesting and could
be used to teach upper intermediate or advanced students interested in films
and social sciences. The links suggested on this page can also be very useful
: links to sites about ratings, but also three sites to find jobs.]
To find a job
The above lesson plan suggest three interesting sites to find jobs or to
learn how to look for a job:
- one specialised in the US, but you can enter a key word regarding a job or
the name of a city:
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/
with tips to create a resume for students
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/resume
- one with links to Monster's job sites all over the world.
http://www.monster.com
for the uk, go to :
http://www.monster.co.uk/
- another one specialised in the US but difficult to use because you need to
enter a valid zip code,
http://www.snagajob.com/
which also contains interesting side features such as a page for seniors (looking
for a job at 50 and above, and how to avoid age segregation)
http://www.snagajob.com/jobresources/TargetedAdvice/50Plus/tabid/93/Default.aspx?cid=17203967&ref=null
a page for teenagers (with the details of the law in age issues, and tips for
a job interview)
http://www.snagajob.com/jobresources/TargetedAdvice/Teenagers/tabid/90/Default.aspx
an job descriptions (nothing in the industry, but lots in the tertiary sector)
http://www.snagajob.com/jobresources/JobBasics/JobDescriptions/tabid/89/Default.aspx
see also this site from Educational CyberPlayGround :
Best Online Resources For Science and Technology Jobs and Careers for Women
and Minorities
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/womenminoritiestech.html
21st Century Work force
Techlearning recommends the reading of this report released last October
and developed by The Conference Board, in collaboration with Corporate Voices
for Working Families, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and The Society
for Human Resource Management. This study includes a work force readiness report
card that summarizes the basic knowledge and applied skills that employers
want to find in new hires. The report is called
"<http://www.conference-board.org/publications/describe.cfm?id=1218>Are
They Really Ready to Work? Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and
Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century Workforce".
http://www.techlearning.com/edge/showArticle.php?articleID=196604119
Visit the site to obtain a complimentary copy and share the information
http://www.conference-board.org/pdf_free/BED-06-Workforce.pdf
Watch Nasa TV
You can watch Nasa TV online in a Real Player captioned version, which means
you have subtitles on the picture as the conference goes. For example I watched
this conference about Pluto : it is definitely only for those who are really
interested in astronomy, but you can also choose to edit it.
http://www.nasa.gov/ram/122212main_main_portal_cc.ram
Professor Filippenko
Discover his conferences, and all the latest notions in astronomy, through
very efficient videos. There are no subtitles, but there are diagrams and other
pictures which help understand the content. This site was recommended by a
physics teacher in my school...;)
http://video.google.fr/videosearch?q=Filippenko
These conferences are given by Professor Alexei Filippenko, a professor of
astronomy at Berkeley. Read these articles about him:
http://www.teach12.com/store/professor.asp?id=20&pc=SiteIndex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Filippenko
http://mmp.planetary.org/scien/filia/filia70.htm
Pancam ( from [LII New This Week] January 18)
Project website for the Pancam, "a high-resolution stereo camera that
takes color pictures of the surrounding Martian landscape from the Mars Exploration
Rovers." Features a large collection of images (including panoramas and
Mars surface features), Pancam technical details, project information, a list
of relevant publications, a data tracking database, and related material. From
the Cornell University Department of Astronomy.
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/index.html
Read also about the Mars Rover, with videos, photos, teaching material etc.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html
Le blog de Florinda Fernandes
Florinda signale sur les listes les nouveautés sur le blog:
un texte d'Oliver Twist: I want some more avec worksheet tirée du manuel Broadways
Term et sa correction:
http://englishingambier.over-blog.com/article-5305338.html
Un début de séquence sur les super héros inspirée de ce qu'ont fait Frédérique
Chotard et Anthony Paspa, et de pages du magazine Standpoints que m'a gentiment
scanné Brigitte Baudet, merci à eux:
http://englishingambier.over-blog.com/categorie-903447.html
Il y a également l'étude de Dear Mr President, avec une worksheet que j'ai
très légèrement adaptée de celle de Pascaline MULLER (merci beaucoup à elle
pour son partage également !):
http://englishingambier.over-blog.com/article-5309227.html
Il y a aussi le début de la séquence sur la "British Press":
http://englishingambier.over-blog.com/article-5318540.html
Et l'étude d'un cartoon sur le "Gun control":
http://englishingambier.over-blog.com/article-5318654.html
How do I get copies of those videos on YouTube and Google to save to my computer so that I can use them at school?
Read this article from Tech Learning and download the appropriate program
to save videos from You Tube and Google Video. When you read the article, you
discover that You Tube videos are blocked in schools in the US, just as it
is in many schools in France! The article also suggest programs to save videos
on your iPod.
http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604076
They seem to favour Keepvid. The advantage is that you don't have to download
a special program onto your computer, you just go to the site, enter the address
of the video you want to copy, and click on the download button! Magic, isn't
it?
http://keepvid.com/
But the result is in .flv, and the conversion into another format doesn't always
work so well, so, on e-teach, our colleague Yvan Baptiste recommends this program
that you have to download but which then copies your video and directly converts
it to an AVI format that you can easily read on any machine, like a DVD player.
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/VDownloader--alpha-Download-51327.html
OpenTalkLive 3.17 (from The Scout Report -- January 19)
Software that allows users to talk with other distant individuals is not
unusual these days, but some of these programs can be rather expensive. Fortunately,
OpenTalk Live is free, and allows users to talk with up to 100 people at a
time. While the program may seem to be suited for socializing, one can imagine
that could be used for effective videoconferencing in either the worlds of
businesses or higher education. This particular version is compatible with
computers running Windows 98 and newer. [KMG]
http://www.opentalklive.com/
[ this program could be a good alternative to Skype, which is often not allowed
in school. I haven't tried any of those programs, so I can't tell you more.
http://www.skype.com/download/ ]
JetAudio 6.2.8 Basic
Contained within a streamlined silver package is jetAudio 6.2.8 Basic. It
presents a welcome alternative to other multimedia players, and it allows users
to utilize a number of equalizers, speed controls, and of course, the cross-fade
option. Additionally, for the truly brave, the application also includes a
synchronized lyrics display for karaoke. This version is
compatible with computers running Windows 98, Me, 2000, and XP. [KMG]
http://www.cowonamerica.com/download/
[ the karaoke feature can be useful for us. I haven't tried it yet.]
Designing tasks, Asking questions
In France at the moment, teachers are wondering about the new oral exam for
our final exam (bac). On eTeachNet, our colleague Annie Gwynn recommends this
documents designed by the British Council in Hungary to provide examining teachers
with useful guideline. Read it through, the tips are really useful!
http://www.examsreform.hu/Media/TaskDesign.pdf
Page sur le Podcasting sur Educnet
Yvan Baptiste signale sur e-teach un dossier d'Educnet sur "Contenus
de cours en diffusion pour baladeur, baladodiffusion, podcasting...".
http://www.educnet.education.fr/dossier/baladodiffusion/default.htm
