Beyond

Upstanders, Not Bystanders – A call to digital writers

admin — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 04:30:06 +0000

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

In our workshops with teachers, we illustrate Einstein’s quote with the Bully Bystander PSA and Margaret Mead’s with the Price of Silence PSA. Both videos show that, despite the gnawing, gripping, disheartening feeling that any form of bullying is really not OK, it takes the tremendous courage of a single individual to be the first one to cross the line from bystander to upstander. These are the stories we need to celebrate and share!

Two Web Watchers invite you and your students to step up to a global microphone and share, via VoiceThread, what it means to be an upstander, not a bystander.

Looking for more options to showcase student voices on the topic of bystander vs. upstander? Check out the following:

Upstanders, Not Bystanders project – Sponsored by the California Writing Project and Common Sense Media, call to action via digital writing extends through May 31, culminating with the 2013 California Digital Citizenship Month (May) activities.
Upstanders Together – Challenge your students to take tell their stories of what it means to be an upstander via a Google slide. The challenge is to tell your story in 25 words or less.
Digital ID Project – This international collaborative project includes a Student-Created Content page, where student projects and voices (such as the above VoiceThread) on topics related to digital citizenship are showcased for a world wide audience.

Questions? Comments? Please jump in and add a comment.

PBL – Real World Projects for the Digital Age

admin — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 19:34:03 +0000

We are delighted over the number of recent requests to offer a workshop on Project-Based Learning (PBL). We welcome the opportunity to initiate shared conversations on how technology can support teachers in taking student learning to new levels.

So what is PBL all about and how does it connect to the Common Core State Standards? In a nutshell, the Common Core are “the what” and PBL is “the how,” with technology adding fuel to the scope and impact of authentic learning.

Image from Ginger Lewman, ESSDACK, 2012

Thanks to the outstanding PBL resources available online, teachers do not need to scramble to find material and ideas. Between Edutopia’s dynamic PBL resources, with Suzie Boss leading the way; the Buck Institute for Education’s PBL site; and Ginger Lewman’s PBL in the Primary Classroom LiveBinder and her Life Practice blog site – teachers have outstanding PBL resources at their fingertips.

Our slideshow presentation walks teachers through the definition and some sample best practices, gleaned mainly from Edutopia. Our goal for the remainder of the school year is to replace Edutopia best practices with PBL samples from EGUSD classrooms.

If you have PBL resources, samples, or activity ideas, we hope you will jump into the conversation and leave a comment.

Upstanders, Not Bystanders – Exciting digital writing opportunity for your students

admin — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 16:36:51 +0000

Thanks to a partnership between the California Writing Project and Common Sense Media, and in celebration of National Digital Learning Day, your students are invited “to write digital genres about historic, public, or personal upstanders.”

Through podcasts, videos, blog posts, videos, VoiceThreads, Glogs, and more, students are asked to describe how this person is an upstander and to explain why their upstander serves as a call to action.

This exciting projects runs through May 31. For more information, visit the California Writing Project’s Upstanders, Not Bystanders website.

If you would like more ideas on how to transform your students’ writing into showcase digital writing pieces, please join our one-hour Upstanders, Not Bystanders workshop (4:00-5:00) on February 21 at the Tech Services Annex. (Course #740401)

#UnfollowBullying Campaign Moves Beyond EGUSD

admin — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:46:43 +0000

Here’s a shout out to all the EGUSD students who have participated so far in the #UnfollowBullying campaign. It’s exciting to see students in other districts joining in your efforts to eliminate all forms of bullying and recognizing your efforts to bring about positive changes at your school sites! Students at La Paz Middle School in Salinas, California, attribute their anti-cyberbullying campaign to you:

By taking action, EGUSD students have inspired us to speak out, too. We especially love their excellent tweet advice (e.g. “Be sweet with your Tweets!” ”Don’t be bitter on Twitter”) included in their online student toolkit at #UnfollowBullying which helps students everywhere “stand up, speak out and be the change.”

Yesterday’s post to La Paz Middle School’s AVID Netbook Academy Web Portal even includes a nomination of #UnfollowBullying for the 2012 Edublogs Awards, as a candidate for the Best Twitter Hashtag category – along with a sampling of their #UnfollowBullying Tweets.

#UnfollowBullying Tweets from La Paz Middle School

Congratulations, EGUSD students, on the positive impact your campaign is having within – and beyond – the district!

Rob on the Road Meets an Award-Winning EGUSD Teacher!

admin — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:28:21 +0000

If you’ve been looking for a rationale and the inspiration for bringing filmmaking into the core curriculum, we recommend listening to KVIE’s Rob on the Road’s recent interview with Jim Bentley, 6th grade teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School. Jim was honored at last Spring’s SEVAs as the 2012 recipient of the Allen Hinderstein Award, in recognition of his dedication, passion, and vision for teaching.

Congratulations, Jim!

To learn more about the many ways Jim integrates media literacy and digital citizenship into the school day, you can follow him on Mr. Bentley’s Classroom Blog.

Congratulations To the Winners of the 2012 Lots2Give Video Contest!

admin — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:31:41 +0000

Congratulations to the talented video teams at John Ehrhardt and Robert J. Fite Elementary Schools! Both sites were awarded $2,000 grants from Big Lots based on their applications and accompanying videos:

Kudos to both filmmaking crews! It’s very exciting to students stepping up and taking action to benefit their school sites!

Digital ID PSA Challenge – We have winners!

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:30:49 +0000

We had the pleasure this last week of visiting three EGUSD school sites to present student awards for the 2012 Digital ID PSA Challenges. Students at Herman Leimbach, Foulkes Ranch, and Elk Grove High School stepped up to the challenge and created winning PSAs that addressed four specific topics (foci) of digital citizenship shown below:

Digital ID PSA Challenge

CONGRATULATIONS to our winners! Your work is deserving of a worldwide audience – and will benefit students and teachers across grade levels and school districts.

Elementary School Level
- The Art Thief? – Focus 3 (Respecting Boundaries) – By Shelby & team – Special recognition for teacher~student collaboration
- Wanted – Focus 1 (Stepping Up) – By Antone & team
- Cyberbullying – Focus 1 (Stepping Up) – By Alyson & team
- Caught - Focus 3 (Respecting Boundaries) – By Alexis & team
High School Level
- Never Alone – Focus 4 (Protecting Online Privacy) – By Jeremy Columbel & Jared Landerman
- Cyberbullying: Think Before You Type – Focus 1 (Stepping Up) – By Meg Hamrick & Tyler Church
- Cyberbullying: Unseen Consequences – Focus 1 (Stepping Up) – By Colin Medina and Kimberly Xiong
Bravo, EGUSD filmmakers! We applaud both your creativity and the important messages each of your videos conveys. We’re already looking forward to your 2013 entries!

Student-Created Content – What’s happening at your sites?

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:48:01 +0000

On Tuesday, we’ll be sharing the presentation below at CTAP3′s Ed Tech Leadership meeting. The topic is student-created content, something we’re rather passionate about showcasing in the Beyond blog.

We used Google’s slideshow program in order to make it easy for teachers across the district and region to add to the resources and showcase student projects. You are warmly invited to add to the presentation!

I’m American Too – A Time of Remembrance Documentary

admin — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:01:44 +0000

When the constitutional rights of one group of citizens are violated, all Americans are affected.” Marielle Tsukamoto

leaving for camp

This year marks the 70th anniversary of a historic event that overnight changed the history of Elk Grove and its surrounding communities: the signing of Executive Order 9066 . With the stroke of a pen, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the forced removal and unjust incarceration of over 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast during World War II.

Seventy years later, the “relocation” of persons of Japanese ancestry is still not widely understood or recognized by the American public as a one of the worst constitutional violations in this nation’s history. Elk Grove, as a district and as a community, has taken an active role in ensuring that this chapter in our nation’s history when justice failed an entire group of people is documented and preserved.

Beginning in 2005, Technology Services and Curriculum and Professional Learning, in partnership with the Sacramento Educational Cable Commission (SECC), have teamed to make the first-hand accounts of racism, discrimination, and forced removal available to teachers and students 24/7. Our Time of Remembrance website continues to grow, with new interviews and teacher-created lessons being added each school year.

In commemoration of the profound impact of Executive Order 9066 on our community, our latest venture includes the making of a documentary: I’m American Too – Stories from Behind the Fences:

It is our hope that I’m American Too will not only shed light on a darker chapter in our history, but, more importantly, will serve as a call to action to ensure that prejudice and fear are not allowed to upset the delicate balance between the rights of citizens and the power of the state.

We hope the documentary will also ignite conversations in classrooms, neighborhoods, and communities on how events from the past connect to the present and on the need to understand and embrace both the rights and responsibilities that are the foundation of U.S. citizenship.

We also wish to acknowledge our heartfelt appreciation for the Time of Remembrance interviewees. Their first-hand accounts of relocation, resistance, and resilience stand as testimony to the power of the human spirit – and as a reminder of how quickly “the thin veneer of tolerance can be ripped off.”

Black History Month – Resources for “Red Tails”

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:35:25 +0000

Thanks to George Lucas’s release of Red Tails, the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, students and teachers have a wonderful new resource for celebrating Black History Month.

To help teachers provide the historical context for the Red Tails film, we’ve gathered a range of online resources, starting with Elk Grove’s own 2008 videoconference with Tuskegee Airman Alexander Jefferson. Jefferson was one of 32 Tuskegee Airman shot down over Germany – and the only one to have written about the African-American experience behind barbed wired in a German prison camp: Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free. From NPR’s 2006 interview, you can get an idea of his energy, his resiliency, and his commitment to fighting for social justice.

In May of 2008, students at Edward Harris Middle School and Monterey Trail High School connected live with Alexander Jefferson via videoconferencing for an hour-long, highly interactive discussion. SECC (Sacramento Educational Cable Commission) recorded and uploaded the session so that teachers across the region and nation could bring a “living voice” into their history lessons.

Building on Alexander Jefferson’s story, students in Martin Billings 11^th grade U.S. History class (Monterey Trail HS) have added to Elk Grove’s Tuskegee Airman oral histories collection with their 2009 interview with George Porter: A Tuskegee Airman Remembers. George Porter served as an aircraft mechanic for the Tuskegee division. Before, during, and after the war, Porter’s story is one of resiliency and a determination not to let anyone or anything stop him from doing his best. During the classroom visit, in addition to the Tuskegee experiences, he shares his first-hand encounters with racism, segregation, and living through decades of Jim Crow laws.

With the opening of “Red Tails,” we thought teachers might be searching for a range of primary sources to provide students with the history and complexities of the war years – and to ignite a passion for learning more about the Tuskegee Airmen and our nation’s pre-Civil Rights era. In addition to the above interviews, we recommend checking out the following resources:

Legends of Tuskegee - From our National Park Services, this site provides the historical context for the Tuskegee Airmen.
Tuskegee Airmen – Teaching activities for grades 4-8.
Celebrate Freedom – Tuskekee Airmen 60th Anniversary – Includes a daughter’s interview.
Black History WEB – A Teacher’s Guide to the Tuskegee Airmen Online – Provides links to a wide range of resources, including letters, quotes, video, and games.
Wings for This Man – A history teacher’s comprehensive blog post builds on the 1945 film narrated by Ronald Reagan.
Tuskegee Airmen – A Proud Heritage – A teacher’s guide from the Museum of Aviation.

Red Tails Trailer – According to YouTube descriptor, this is “the official” George Lucas trailer.

If you have resources to share or activities you’ll be doing to commemorate the challenges and accomplishments of the Tuskegee Airmen, please join the discussion by leaving a comment.