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When I was a student at the Guild Teachers College, I created a comic strip based on some cats of my acquaintance, and used them to poke fun at some of the boring bits of our textbooks. Classroom management, reinforcement techniques, behaviour modification, the Oedipus Complex… all good fodder for a little satire.
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“Try something new for 30 days”, Matt Cutts
My NSW Department of Education and Communities colleagues on Maang have decided to embrace the advice of Matt Cutts in his TED talk, “Try something new for 30 days” (above).
First up is the Photo Challenge (click for the cumulative slideshow). For the next 30 days, we take a photo a day and post it under the dedicated thread for the day. Day threads will be numbered according to which day we are up to. Subject matter? “What’s happening in your life/work today?” (I’m already experienced in this type of challenge, have done the 365 Photos project in 2009-2010.
Here’s my pic:
DAY 1
These homemade stuffed cats date back to my teachers college days (1979), based on my cartoon characters, Fish’ook and Bluey, who featured in a comic strip in the college newspaper, “Dugil”. They turned up in a vacation cleanup this week; hadn’t seen them in years! (Ah, Hobbytex – remember those roll-on paint-in-a-tube things you bought on party plan like Tupperware?)
What a thrill to receive an email from writer/illustrator Emma Quay today, with a link to her just-off-the-hard-drive video book trailer for her new Early Childhood picture book, “Nudie rudie”! The book is due in November.
It’s wonderful, and I reckon it might have you thinking back to days of bath times past at your house?
Yesterday, the NSW Department of Education and Communities’ professional “microblogging service”/social-networking web facility, Yammer, gave way to Maang *. Maang is a work networking tool, similar to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. It allows DEC staff to engage in conversations in a closed professional network.
* Kamilaroi (also Gamilaraay, Gamilaroi) word for “message stick”.
Just in time for the last school day of Term 2, here are four more Guided Inquiry Endangered animals (Stage 3 science & technology).
by Max, Mikahla & Kaelin
by Naomi, Bernise & Quinn
by Monique, Courtney, Patrick & Milo
by Tristan & Luke
Compare the above slideshow with the students’ original storyboard.
Enjoy! Share! And please feel free to comment.
As mentioned previously, just a few points to consider with Photo Peach: Use it as judiciously as you would a series of Youtube clips. Don’t permit students to do open browsing; Photo Peach is a Web 2.0 facility that is open to anyone, and the slideshows are “unrated”. Also, if you notice that new comments have been added to a slideshow you’ve made, please preview the slideshow again before using it with students so you can monitor (and moderate/remove) unwanted comments. (Or close off comments altogether.) Consider a subscription to Photo Peach, which enables you to add your own or Creative Commons music, a wider range of transitions, and the capacity to download slideshows to your hard drive, web space or a CD.
