Ross Boss Projects: Pinball Wizard #AdobeEduAwards

This might be one of the coolest teacher made Science sites I have ever seen. I am not a Science teacher, so it takes something special to really pull me in for Science content and this is simply amazing.

Ross Cooper submitted this website he created using Adobe products to the Adobe Education Exchange. By using Flash Professional, Illustrator, Photoshop; Ross was able to create an interactive site for a STEM unit in which fourth grade students learn about electricity & magnetism and force & motion. As the students learn, they build pinball machines! Did you read that? The kids will be creating these digital pinball machines and learning about important Science content. If I had a chance to do this in school I might be a Science teacher. Well, that or a Pinball Machine Repairman. :-)

I had a chance to play around on this awesome interactive site and I loved every second of it. I see that this would be super engaging for boys and girls in 4th grade as they cover these topics in their Science class. Ross has done an amazing job using these Adobe tools to create a one of kind interactive website for students to use in class or at home. I truly had no idea that this type of project was possible using Adobe tools. I really need to dive into CS5 and see what I can do.

Ross has a chance to win some great prizes because he decided to share is awesome lesson with teachers on the Adobe Education Exchange. He is currently in first place in the Cross Curricular Category and would love it if you would vote for him if you like what he has created. You could also be in the running for great prizes. Join the Adobe Education Exchange and submit a lesson. Pass it around to your friends so they can join up and vote for your lesson. Check out my last post for more details.

- @TheNerdyTeacher

Adobe is a sponsor of The Nerdy Teacher

I just finished my homework! #engchat

I just finished a blog for my American Lit class today. It took me some time, but I got it done. It was homework assigned by Mr. Provenzano about lies we tell to protect ourselves. I liked the topic and I hope I have comments from others on what I wrote.

No, this isn't a guest post by a student of mine, I actually finished my own homework assignment. I decided I was going to do my own homework this year. I promised my students if I assigned it, I would do it. I do not do busy work, so if I think it is important for them to do, I will do the same assignment.

It has not been super easy, but I like the motivation to do the work. If I can't finish by the due date, how can I expect the same from the kids.

You can follow my American Lit blog here. I told the students that I will not always complete the fulls assignment, but provide some tips and tricks to help them on their writing assignments. For certain opinion based assignments, I intend to model what I want from my students. That is what I did for my last assignment.

The feedback from the kids has been ok. I think they are waiting for me to give up and go back to assigning busy work like they have received from other teachers in the past. That is great motivation for me to keep working and get these assignments done.

This new adventure has really made me take a different look at how long I give students to complete work. If I'm going to need a few days to complete an assignment, the students are going to need the same amount of time. That has made my lesson planning much easier than in the past.

The more I work on this blog, I wonder how much homework teachers would give if they were expected to complete it. Goof food for thought.

Have a great day!

- @TheNerdyTeacher

Movie Poster Parody Project #AdobeEduAwards

This might come as a bit of surprise, but I love movies and I really love parodies. I love teaching satire and parody to my students in American Literature. It's always great to show kids that their is humor everywhere and what they think is funny is really a literary device. Here is an awesome project submitted to the Adobe Education Exchange that is a great tool to help teacher parody.

In a lesson submitted by Brett Keener and it uses Photoshop to have students create parodies of movies posters they find online. The most important part of this lesson is that students create an original poster that is based on an actual movie poster. Students are not supposed to just paste their picture over the face of an actor.

The lesson is designed for students with moderate Photoshop experience and is for students in high school.

I really like this lesson because it allows students to find movies that they like and have fun with it. The get to stretch their creative muscles and learn a little bit about parodies. There are some great parody posters out there that could be used as examples. Here is one of the examples that Brett shared on the Adobe Education Exchange site.

Ha! I love it. A fairly simple use of Photoshop that allowed the student have a bit of fun. As a teacher, I'm always looking for different ways to engage students in the content other than standing and lecturing. I think this lesson is a great example of how a teacher can utilize technology is a different way to teach a simple literary term.

Brett has a chance to win some great prizes because he decided to share is awesome lesson with teachers on the Adobe Education Exchange. You could also be in the running for great prizes. Join the Adobe Education Exchange and submit a lesson. Pass it around to your friends so they can join up and vote for your lesson. Check out my other post for more details. Good luck!

- @TheNerdyTeacher

Adobe is a sponsor of The Nerdy Teacher

#ProjectPLN - The Best Issue Ever

For our October Issue, we want to focus on the best parts of education. Now, that could be the best lesson you have ever taught or learned. It could be the best tool you used with your students. It could be the best book on education or website dedicated to education. We want to hear from our PLN about what is the best of everything out there. If you don't share, who will?

Please send all posts to projectpln10@gmail.com. We would appreciate it if each post had a bio and a picture so everyone can get to know the awesome person sharing the great resource.

The deadline for submissions is Sunday October 2 and the issue will go live on Tuesday October 4. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

@ProjectPLN
ProjectPLN10@gmail.com

We can't wait to hear from all of you.

Nick and Kelly
Project PLN Co-Editors