netTrekker Blog

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.

Vancouver 2010, the Science of Sports, and Olympics Past

The Winter Olympics is almost here, and I couldn’t be more excited. A huge fan of the events since Calgary 1988, I prefer the Winter Olympics over the Summer for two reasons: the dangerous nature of a majority of the competitions (I am impressed by Winter athletes’ skills, no doubt, but it’s their fearlessness that hooks me); and the fact that athletes, while competing against each other, are also competing against the ice and snow and the unpredictable skiing, skating, sledding, and snowboarding surfaces.

So, with the Olympic Games starting next week, it’s a good time to get familiar with the athletes, events, and venues of Vancouver 2010.

The first stops on your Olympic Webquest are, first and foremost, the official site for this year’s Games, Vancouver2010.com, and NBC’s NBCOlympics.com. You can find these sites by searching for “Winter Olympics” or by drilling down topics provided below the site descriptions:

Vancouver 2010

The official site for the 2010 Winter Olympics, where you’ll find information about all of the events, contenders, medal counts, and behind-the-scenes commentary. Offers latest news, videos, photos, contest rules, spectator guide, games, and more.
(Health and Physical Education > Physical Education and Sport > Sports > Olympics > Modern Olympics > Winter Olympics > Winter Olympics 2010)

NBC Olympics: Video, Schedules, and Results
Powered by up-to-date news from NBC sports, this website not only tracks events, profiles athletes, and shares behind-the-scenes commentary during the Olympic Games, but also offers a look pre- and post-Games happenings: trials, training, athlete blogs and news items, and more. Although providing some information on the Olympic experience as viewed in other countries, NBC’s site is US-centric, offering a detailed look at Team USA, posting video coverage, detailed biographies, recaps of uplifting moments and headlines, and various slideshows.
(Health and Physical Education > Physical Education and Sport > Sports > Olympics > Modern Olympics)

These are excellent sites to help you keep current with all the Vancouver happenings. But what about the history of Vancouver’s Olympic bid? After all, there’s a lot of work that goes into deciding where the Games are held! The Virtual Museum of Canada has that covered and is a great resource for tying together the topics of history and sport.

Virtual Museum of Canada: The History of Olympic Bids
Whistler, British Columbia is a host site for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Several times in the past, Whistler has also vied for this honour. This virtual exhibit presents the history of these bids through photos and videos.
(Social Studies > Canadian Social Studies > Canadian Identity > Significant Canadian Events > Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games, 2010)

Speaking of linking sports with other topics, science plays a huge role in athletics, and nobody will deny the heavy presence of scientific concepts during the Winter Olympics’ events. Searching for “Science of Sports” in netTrekker will yield several results, but here are a few related specifically to the science of winter sports:

National Science Foundation: The Science of the Olympic Winter Games
A 16-part video series from the partnership of NBC and the National Science Foundation, on the “physics, biology, chemistry, and materials engineering behind the Olympic Winter Games.” Exciting and engaging videos give new meaning to common classroom curriculum.
(Health and Physical Education > Physical Education and Sport > Sports > Olympics > Modern Olympics > Winter Olympics > Winter Olympics 2010)

Montana State University: Winter Olympics: Sport & Science
An online course exploring the link between science and sports, by looking at the Winter Olympics and what science tells us about athletic training, sports nutrition, motion, cardiovascular and muscular performance, and more.
(Science > Physics > Newtonian > Science of Sport)

American Chemical Society: Winter Sports and Snow
Several lessons, demonstrations, essays, and activities that shed light on the science (specifically the chemistry) behind winter sports. You’ll learn about properties of ice and snow, and the roles they play in skiing, ice skating, and ice hockey, as well as steps and chemicals involved in making artificial ice and snow.
(Science > Physics > Newtonian > Science of Sport)

Last, but not least, for those of us who love to step back in time and remember Olympics past, here are two must-see resources: Google’s image search for Winter Olympics’ photos from LIFE Magazine and the CBC’s archived news site covering the Calgary Games, where you can remember the last time the Olympics were hosted in Canada –and the people and events that made it memorable: Brian Boitano, the Jamaican bobsled team, Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards, and more.

Google Image Search: LIFE Photo Archive: Winter Olympics
From the photo archive of LIFE magazine, Google has provided two hundred photo images of the Winter Olympic Games including events and stadiums.
(Health and Physical Education > Physical Education and Sport > Sports > Olympics > Modern Olympics > Winter Olympics)

The Winter of ‘88: Calgary’s Olympic Games
An archive of video and audio clips from the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary.
(Social Studies > Canadian Social Studies > Canadian History > Rocky Times (1960-1993) > Mulroney Years > Prime Minister Brian Mulroney > Canada Increased International Profile > 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary)

Festive February

Even with the extra day to celebrate Leap Year, February is still the shortest month, and it is jammed with many great celebrations. netTrekker is here to help you celebrate. Let’s share some possibilities:

February is National Black History Month, and is one holiday most schools probably all study and celebrate with a strong reverence. I remember our own “I have a dream” projects and biography studies. There are some fascinating leaders, artists, teachers, thinkers, inventors to study and one way to find a list to get started with is through the Famous Person Search. Just select American (African Descent) under the Ethnicity section and pull up a list. If you’re looking for a specific subject or era from which to draw your list from, use the check boxes to help with your refinement. Save that list to your portfolio for students to access. But get beyond the everyday report and turn it into either a PhotoStory of an event that helped define that person, a Blabberize where you use an image of your favorite person in Black History and have them share one important thing about themselves or an Inspiration Character Map.

Valentines, the holiday for chocolate and sweetheart cards. Why do we even celebrate this mushy holiday? It goes beyond a Hallmark moment and netTrekker is there to help you find resources on this topic. But what to do? How about having students creating a 21st Century Valentines Card with VoiceThread. Take a picture of each student in your class and have everyone leave a positive note. Check with VoiceThread on how you can download and distribute the movie to the students for years to come. It’ll become a virtual yearbook of sorts. Or if you’re not that mushy, have your students complete the heart transplant activity from Teacher’s Domain and share with you how to keep your heart healthy. Not quite Valentine’s Day Material, but at least you’re talking about hearts and not getting sappy right?

Leap Year is a great time to bring up how the calendar was created. Do we celebrate the Chinese calendar, the Roman Calendar, the lunar calendar or the Orthodox calendar? Okay, I made one of those up, but it’s a serious question. Where did our calendar come from, and why do we have an extra day we need to add to the calendar every four years? The answer is inside of netTrekker. I enjoyed the calendar movie from BrainPOP, but then Tim and Moby are always great at answering the questions we just have to have an answer to. Have your students create their own cartoon answering the “what is leap year” question to an alien with the cartoon tool Kerpoof.

President’s Day is not just another day off from school or a reason to visit the National Mall or Mt. Rushmore. Create a Glogster of your favorite President, including facts, a movie, a soundbyte, images and whatever other creative piece of media you to share your knowledge. You can use the refinement menu to find the multimedia and knowledge you need to create your Glogster. I would love to see some student samples.

What are your examples on how to celebrate what the month of February has to offer? Share your ideas here, and make sure to join us on February 23 to share ways to celebrate the lion’s roar of March! Details in Teacher Village.