GoGoNews.com is a free online news resource for children which features daily news for school children ages 7 to 13 years old. The site provides a resource for times when we’re caught in that difficult situation when children catch a glimpse of a graphic news story on TV or sees the front page of a national newspaper with a graphic, sometimes violent photo. The questions almost immediately start peppering conversation: What is that? Who is that? What happened?
The good news is that GoGoNews is a great resource to help navigate these unchartered waters. The site offers a place for kids to learn about current events, but it does so in a way that insulates their minds by filtering the content just enough to keep them safely informed.
Principal Jason Levy from CIS 339 brought to my attention New York Times Inaugural Words: 1789 – Present a great resource for innovative educators who want to review President Obama’s Inaugural address. Here students can select any president, review his speech, access the archived New York Times article about the speech and the site allows students to analyze a fantastic interactive word map that provides a look at the language of presidential inaugural addresses. The most-used words in each address appear in an interactive chart in a word cloud that is sized by number of uses. Words highlighted in yellow were used significantly more in this inaugural address than average. Students can hover over any word to determine how many times it was used and click on the word to see its use in context.
“After students have written their response to the Inaugural Address, have them discuss their reactions as a class. What themes did they notice that were reminiscent of historical Inaugural Addresses? Did Obama mention any historical figures or make allusions to earlier eras in American history? Why do you think he chose the ones he did? Did he use the words of any of his predecessors? If students notice familiar themes, which historical figures do they think influenced Obama the most when he was composing this address? Why? (Students might visit the Times interactive feature "Inaugural Words: 1789 to the Present" to examine what words were most used in each speech. It can be found at Inaugural Words: 1789 to the Present.)”
Just when I thought I was done posting ideas about the Inauguration I come across Obamicon.Me thanks to my wonderful Facebook network which continues to turn me onto great educational resources, ideas, and information.
From the website:
“The longest election season in memory is now over, and we wanted to help you unwind and express yourself as we head into the new era.
Make your own "Obamicon" — your image in a style inspired by Shepard Fairey's iconic poster. Regardless of your candidate of choice in the 2008 election, here's your chance to sound-off.
Take your picture with a webcam or upload a photo, choose your own message, and submit to the gallery.”
Innovative educators will need little help in coming up with ideas about how to use this site.
Here are a few of mine.
Have students make an Obamicon of themselves.
Have students make an Obamicon of their mentor.
Have students make an Obamicon of who they would like to see as president in the future.
Use the comment function to provide an explanation. Invite students to view, rate, and comment on one another’s Obamicons. Post these on classroom walls or school bulletin boards.
The Presidential Inauguration Committee has released lesson plans jointly produced by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) createdto give teachers lesson ideas to help their students understand the historic significance of this presidential inauguration.
The instructional activities are designed to be used to teach students in three areas:
LEARNING HISTORY
Discover the history of the inauguration and the connections between Obama and previous U.S. presidents.
MAKING HISTORY
Prepare students to witness the Obama inauguration
LIVING HISTORY
Follow the events during President Obama’s term
There is also a Reading List (click to download) which unfortunately and surprisingly provides no links to online materials that teachers could access for their students on demand.
I recommend reviewing these activities for use with your students. The Living History lessons provide good suggestions for activities students can do following the inauguration and includes ideas for technology-rich classrooms.
The InaugurationA TeqSmart file for use with SMART Notebook Interactive whiteboards are in use in many classroom. Tequipment who works with to place SMART Boards in classrooms has put together a great file for use in exploring the day's events. It is available free for download in the Educator Resource Center (you must register for the site - also free). It is in the DOWNLOADS section under Social Studies - Middle School or, if you are already a member, just click here to be taken directly to the file.
It’s only fitting that as students begin to watch the Inauguration of America’s most tech savvy president they are given the opportunity to engage in some technologically innovative lessons.Innovative educators eager to Pay Attention to their student’s desire for a relevant and engaging education, will like these ideas for Inauguration Day lessons and educational experiences.Below are some great sites and technologies with ideas of how to use them to enhance student learning around this important historical event.
Have your students make their own movies as if they were to give an address as the president of the United States using Xtranormal. Xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and they believe everyone can make movies. Their revolutionary approach to movie-making builds on an almost universally held skill—typing. If your students can type something, they can turn it into a movie.
See how students can explore past inauguration speeches and use what they learn to compose and produce their own inauguration speech which can be made into an Xtranormal movie at Inauguration Speech Lesson.
Interactive whiteboards are gaining in popularity in schools. The SMARTBoards in the Classroom blog points us to thisInauguration Day .notebooklesson designed to help students develop an understanding of the US election process and explore the Presidential Inauguration. According to the blog, SMARTBoards are one of the most powerful tools teachers can have in their classrooms as it is a unique device that enables us to reach students who learn through multiple learning styles. It also allows teachers to reach the learner who just can't sit still. Additionally, it helps teachers reach the tactile learner who learns by touch. SMARTBoards thoroughly engage visual and auditory learners and accomplish the first rule of teaching - "First get their attention and then keep them engaged."
The lesson has the following learning objectives:
1) Differentiate Literacy and Social Studies instruction to reach multiple modalities of the diverse learner through the use of Interactive Whteboard Technology and Web 2.0 tools. 2) Discuss the purposes of Primary Day, Election Day and inauguration Day.Note similarities and differences. 3) Discuss the three major events on Inauguration Day. 4) Examine the Presidential and Vice Presidential Oaths of Office, learn new vocabulary and contrast and compare. 5) Research prior Presidential Inaugurations and compare traditions. 6) Share our understanding with our families.
Renzulli Learning has created an easy-to-use online assignment template with activities and resources for teachers to supplement classroom activities surrounding this January’s historic Presidential Inauguration! To view one (or more) activities included in the assignment template, simply click on the hyperlink of your choice:
To use the Renzulli Inauguration template (subscribing schools only):
1.Log into your Renzulli Teacher page.
2.Click the "Lesson Planning and Differentiation" tab.
3.Click the green "Your Assignments" button.
4.Click the orange "Create a New Assignment" button.
5.Click the green "Create a New Assignment from a Template" button.
6.From the drop down menu, click "Celebrate Inauguration Day"
7.Click "Use this Template" button.
The assignment template was designed to address a broad range of grade and ability levels. You may wish to modify the assignment template to meet the specific needs of your students – or group students for differentiated learning according to their Renzulli Learning Profiles!
Teacher Tip! Have studentsdo a basic search of the Renzulli Learning site for additional Presidential Inauguration resources. Use key words such as: Inauguration, Presidential Inauguration, Inaugural Addresses, etc.
Use VoiceThread to explore the meaning of this year’s presidential inauguration to all Americans, both as individuals, and as a group. VoiceThread's are simple online virtual spaces that provide acommenting environment and can be used as part of an Inauguration Voices Voicethreadproject.Interested teachers and their students can join the Inauguration Day Voices group which was created to try to capture the voices of individuals exploring and expressing their own perspectives on this historic event by responding to President Obama’s mantra, “Yes We Can…,” and calling on students to share their thoughts on what it is they think we can do.
To participate, visithttp://voicethread.com/group/inaugurationdayvoices.com and click “Join Now.” If you are a currently registered user, sign in, or register for an account. Once logged in you'll land on your 'MyVoice' Page and will see a number of VoiceThread tutorials in your default view. Click on the button that says'Showing All' and select Inauguration Day Voices from the drop down menu, you'll see all of the VoiceThreads being shared by participants.
To ensure your students are prepared for this historic, teachable moment, HotChalk is providing 25 FREE high-quality video clips on U.S. inaugural addresses from content partners PBS, The History Channel, NBC News and more. Check them out here.
Have an inaugural speech contest and select contest winners from your school to broadcast their own inaugural speeches live on UStream using a password protected channel accessed by those in your school community.Ustream.TV is the live interactive video broadcast platform that enables anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily broadcast to a global audience for free. In less than two minutes, anyone can become a broadcaster by creating their own channel on Ustream or by broadcasting through their own site, empowering them to engage with their audience. You can click on broadcast now to start a broadcast or learn more about broadcasting.
Depending on how a school would like to implement this idea, the broadcast can be viewed in classrooms with internet access and projector.Viewers can comment and chat on the broadcast with facilitation from their teacher.Parents and other community members can be invited to participate.
Students can write and deliver a part of the inaugural address or a response to the inaugural address using a personalized Voki.Voki enables students to express themselves on the web using a talking character. Students can customize their Voki to look like and/or take on the identity of lots of other types of human and nonhuman characters. Vokis can speak with the student’s own voice which is added via microphone, upload, or phone. Students can also choose to insert text and have the Voki use a variety of existing voices with more than a dozen different male and female accents to choose from.
Once the student Voki’s are created they can be inserted into a class blog, wiki, website, and more.From there the school community can comment on and discuss one another’s work and keep the conversation going.
Back in November I had my 7th and 8th grade students write an essay about Barack Obama's Election Night speech and the results were very good. The question could be used for his Inauguration speech as well. You can find a link to the assignment and the essays at "Yes We Can" Essay Assignment.
These are just some ideas to inspire innovative educators in their upcoming work with students during this historical Inauguration year.Please contribute feedback, other ideas, or share your experience implementing one of these ideas.
