netTrekker Blog

March Madness Blowing Our Way

In like a lion, out like a lamb, the madness of March winds are almost upon us! Do you hear it’s not so distant roar?

I’m working on my presentation for tomorrow’s netTrekker Tip Tuesday webinar at 4 pM EST. We’re going to look at the different events in March, resources in netTrekker and ideas on how to integrate. As I began my journey of discovery, pulling out my old lesson plans, searching netTrekker for new ones, creating a calendar, well – I became overwhelmed! MARCH IS CRAMMED! It’s Women’s History Month, Craft Month, Peanut Butter month, American Red Cross Month, National Nutrition Month, and Music in Our Schools Month. Then there all sorts of great days like National Reading Day, Pi Day, Energy Education Day, World Meteorologist Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Johnny Appleseed Day. Oh, and if you like to eat we have Banana Cream Pie Day, Chocolate Cheesecake Day, Potato chips Day, Lobster Day, Clams on a half shell day…………….well you get the picture.

So now I’ve put away all those old books and I’m looking for 21st Century ideas and lesson plans in netTrekker. This is the fun part. I’ve checked in on netTrekker Village, Twitter and Facebook and have a few ideas. Can’t wait to share them tomorrow!

Butterfly Garden of Words

This weekend Amy Ellisor, our netTrekker 101 instructor, and I talked about a project some of her teachers were working on about etymology. There was a bit of frustration for some of her teachers because they couldn’t find all of the resources they wanted on the topic of etymology.  If that ever happens to you, and you have great resources to share, please consider suggesting those websites to netTrekker through our suggest a link form on netTrekker Village, or via twitter by using #netTrekker along with the URL of your suggested resource. The other thing that you can do is add a link in your My Portfolio Project. This link will not appear in netTrekker as a whole, but rather in just your folder and will only be available to the people you give the rights to see that folder.

The other tip I’ll share is to check out the reference section. In the high school reference section I found quite a few great resources under the English Language area about word origin and meaning. My favorite, that I had not clicked on before today, was the iTools! and I did find a few resources there that would be very beneficial to this group of students in nT101.  (I love it when I learn something new!)

But what in the world do you do with etymology? It’s interesting to discover the origin of words, but what do you do with that knowledge besides winning the next game show? I took the word butterfly and applied it to Glogster. It’s not a complete project, but definitely one that can be replicated. I added the definition, some other ways the word is being used, along with the origin of butterfly. I could definitely add some more information, but for a start, I’m feeling pretty good.

Tags: butterfly, etymology, links, My Portfolio, netTrekker 101, references

A Trek through Mardi Gras

Next week is the biggest party day in New Orleans, although I suspect that due to the major victory last night they are already celebrating in a huge way. Mardi Gras though is more than a tourist draw to New Orleans. I decided to go ahead and look at how this event can be used with netTrekker and the classroom.

First, it’s not just held in New Orleans. Okay, I might be the ONLY person who really wasn’t up to date with this celebration and always just paired the two together. I did find out though, thanks to some great websites in netTrekker, that I actually attended several “Mardi Gras” events in Germany as a youth. There it’s called Fasching. Mardi Gras has been around since the 1200’s, maybe even before, and is the last ditch effort for good Christians to live on the wild side before they have to give up something to make themselves a better person and to repent for their sins for Lent and Ash Wednesday.

Wait, let’s back up. Mardi Gras is actually the name of Fat Tuesday, which is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is 47 days before Easter. This year, Fat Tuesday lands on February 16th. The carnivals, which start on the twelth day of Christmas, January 6, are the festivities that lead up to Fat Tuesday. They include parades, lavish costumes, masks (to hide the identity of highly respected community members as they let loose their wild side), and balls that are complete with a coronation of a King and Queen.

The official colors of Mardi Gras? Purple for justice, green for faith and yellow for power. These colors and their meaning came from Rex, the King of the Carnival in 1882. Rex was one of the founders of the original Krewes (I hope I read that right), and the Krewes are private organizations that gather to plan the parades, balls, and other festivities. They plan the themes for the event and crown the Royalty.

How does this translate to school? First, DO NOT encourage the students to run wild and party. I’m sure you already know that though. If I was teaching cultural geography with my students, I would divide them into different “krewes” to study how Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is celebrated in the various countries. Each krewe would make a mini table top parade of at least 3 or 4 floats (to bring in the arts), a sample mask or costume, and maybe even a popular dish that is served during this time.

 Another possibility is to create a Museum Box. I am waiting for mine to be approved, so I can’t share my actual sample. For those of you not familiar with Museum Box, it’s an online tool to add all the pieces of study for a project. Your box can have one or more cubes and several layers. You add the information for your project to the cube walls. I found images to represent the country or geographical region, wrote a document, created a video in PhotoStory, and added a link to where you can get more information. You can also add audio files and files. It was actually pretty fun, and a great way to share the knowledge I learned in netTrekker about Mardi Gras.

Among the Hidden

On the recommendation of a friend, Chad Lehman, I selected Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix as the book to read this week for my entry in our month long blog series about books in honoring the National Book Month. I was totally engrossed in the book, that to be honest with you, I let my ice-cream melt! It’s that good!

I don’t want to give the book’s plot away, but it’s the first in the Shadow Children series, set in the future where we have things such as “Population Police” and the government is fiercely involved in the daily lives of people. Due to a drought and then a famine, a law has been enacted that only allows families to have no more than two children. A third child is to be aborted right away. However, many families have chosen to have the third child and hide them away, hence the name “Shadow Children”.

Many comparisons can be made to this book and to the one child per family law of China, using a graphic organizer. Another topic for discussion is how droughts can effect the food supply and demand, and even how a pet, cattle, or other things we take for granted help drive up costs and take food away from others. So many possibilities and ideas, making this a great novel for the classroom.

Either way, you will definitely find resources in netTrekker. I found an interesting article about a family in China who had twins after their first born and therefore their home was sealed up until they could pay the extraordinary fine for having more than one child. I found lesson plans based on this book, and information on the author.

I’d love to hear how you use this book in your classroom! Leave a comment below.

Monday, January 11th, 2010 Celebrate, Integration Ideas No Comments