I never would have thought that youtube was a quick and easy way to assess a child’s learning, but this video proved otherwise! An 8th grader I tutor is studying the rock cycle, and this is one of the videos he found which shows the cycle in action. The video is very lo-tech and slow-paced. That is a good thing for deeper learning, as I discovered during our tutoring session. I liked that there is no audio; it invited the student to narrate what he thought was happening. It provided an authentic context for him to use his expressive language and the content area vocabulary. I could see his grasp of the subject matter was stronger in some areas (sedimentary rocks) than in others (metamorphic) based on our informal conversation. 

Earth science videos to use in future:

3d Rocks Video from Simple Science (true to its name, this is a good introduction to rocks.)

Quick mineral identification (the longest video on my list, but a good way for kids to prep for the standard mineral id lab at home.)

Every stone has a story (the rock cycle as told by a piece of quartzite with a personality, a New Jersey accent and a large family. Manages to get in a lot of content in a way that flows with the narrative.)

Rock cycle claymation (cute video shows Phil, a piece of sand, being turned into limestone and marble as he goes through the steps of the rock cycle. Very clear.)

I enjoyed this cool video that creates an image representing a word using the letters in the word itself. The constraint the artist gave himself was to use only the graphic elements of the letters without adding outside parts.

There is a lesson plan to go with this video on the film english blog. It is designed for language teachers and I could imagine remixing the lesson as part of a slamming poetry unit.

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Wonder Wheel: a concept map for happy googling!

Finding sources online is the hardest part of research for me. I can’t do my usual library move of scanning the nearby shelves, whose books often anticipate connections I will later make between topics. I love that old-fashioned technology—the Dewey Decimal system, which “suggests” ways to modify my search based on how it clusters books. For the online, my brother Mark suggested Wonder Wheel because it serves a similar function. Being able to see related search terms when I google has been an awesome improvement!

concept mapping for the New Age

Period piece. found this gem while looking up spatial relations at the library.

Radiant Thinking (from ‘to radiate,’ meaning ‘to spread or move in directions, or from a given centre’) refers to associative thought processes that proceed from or connect to a central point. The other meanings of ‘radiant’ are also relevant: ‘shining brightly,’ ‘the look of bright eyes beaming with joy and hope’ and ‘the focal point of a meteoric shower’ – similar to the ‘burst of thought.’

The Mind map book: How to use radiant thinking to maximize your brain’s untapped potential. (Buzan & Buzan, 1990, p. 57).

This is my third-to-last “great” idea, a game with a long narrative about dragons and floating parasol clouds drifting over the city.  I think I still had Japanese screens on the brain, side-effect from visiting the Asian Art museum in San Fran this weekend.  This one turned out not to work because I kept on over-elaborating the narrative in ways that invalidated the premise or all the rules I had already set up.  Kind of like being a little kid and playing pretend again, when you spend half the morning redrawing the parameters of who will be the daddy, and what exactly will happen once the baby gets lost.  It usually turns out the daydreaming is the best and flowiest part of the game.
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This is my third-to-last “great” idea, a game with a long narrative about dragons and floating parasol clouds drifting over the city.  I think I still had Japanese screens on the brain, side-effect from visiting the Asian Art museum in San Fran this weekend. 

This one turned out not to work because I kept on over-elaborating the narrative in ways that invalidated the premise or all the rules I had already set up.  Kind of like being a little kid and playing pretend again, when you spend half the morning redrawing the parameters of who will be the daddy, and what exactly will happen once the baby gets lost.  It usually turns out the daydreaming is the best and flowiest part of the game.