Winter Magic

It's beginning to look like winter here in the Northland. We had another dusting of snow on the sidewalk this morning, but I'm anxiously waiting for enough to build a snowman!

In honor of the season, I thought I would share my Winter Magic photo slide show from Slide.com. Slide makes it easy to create short digital 'stories' like this one, incorporating music, text, and images. Adult learners and their teachers can use tools like Slide to tell their own stories, using free images from Flickr Creative Commons like I have here. I'm going to be leading a workshop on free online digital storytelling tools on Monday, December 15th from 6:30-8:30 pm at the Minnesota Literacy Council in St. Paul. Come join me if you would like to try this out for yourself!

Thanksgiving Day Teaching Resources

Yep, the big turkey day approaches! If you will be sharing information about the holiday with your learners, you might enjoy browsing these resources for teachers and students.

Larry Ferlazzo has already put together a comprehensive list of ESL resources on his "Best Sites to Learn and Teach About Thanksgiving". Thanks to Larry, who always does a great job sifting the wheat from the chaff on the web, I have very little to add.

Although not particularly fancy, here is a straightforward Power Point slideshow telling the story of the first Thanksgiving that you might like (click the image of the Mayflower to load it).

Also, I don't remember seeing Plimoth Plantation's "You are the Historian" site listed on Larry's page, so I'll recommend that one as well, then wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving. See you in December!





Wild Turkeys by teddy llovet used under Creative Commons license.

Hey! Where can I get one of these?

Seriously, friends, I love Flickr Creative Commons! It's all about share and share alike, just like you learned in Kindergarden. Get out there, take pictures, and upload them to Flickr with a Creative Commons license. Together we can build the greatest collection of free-to-use photos in history.

Photo "Computer Geek Award" by Flickr user eecue.

Remembering Veteran's Day

On Veteran's Day, November 11th, the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I (then called "the Great War") I would like to take a moment to remember a couple of veterans in my life: my father, who served in Korea, and my cousin, who is now in Iraq and has already served two tours of duty in Afganistan. For them and for all who serve and have served this country, thank you.

And thank you to Flickr user Cliff1066 for this lovely photo of the Korean War Memorial in Washington D.C., which I somehow missed on my speed-walk tour of the capital last month. I'm sorry I accidentally bypassed the Memorial but I'm glad I can at least get a pedestrian's eye view through the magic of Web 2.0 and photo sharing.




For those of you who are new to Flickr and want to find great images to illustrate your work, sign up for a free account and then search the Flickr Creative Commons. For more about Creative Commons licenses, check out: http://creativecommons.org/.

Also, check out the History Channel's website on Veteran's Day. They've put together some resources that could be really useful for social studies and history teachers.