Do Lectures: Ideas + Energy = Change

What it is:  Summer is a great time to be inspired, laugh and gather ideas.  TED has been my go-to place for video inspiration, but recently I found a new source: Do Lectures.  Do Lectures are like TED Talk videos, they are inspiring talks from people who are changing the world.  The talks are broken down into talks about Big Ideas, Challenging talks, Funny talks, Informative talks, Inspiring talks, and Soulful talks.  You can also search by topic (business, creativity, environment, food, sport, technology, or well being) or by speaker.

Do Lectures started out of West Wales and is moving to the good old USA in 2012.  They call themselves a mash-up, a village of ideas.  They take great talks, yummy local food, great un-signed bands, workshops and bring them together in one place. They switch the Internet off so that people talk (in real life) because ideas need conversation.  The idea is to create an eco-system for ideas to be born, shared and acted on.  The next event is happening in California September 20-13.

How to integrate Do Lectures into the classroom: Do Lectures don’t focus on education specifically.  I kind of love that they don’t.  I find that my BEST ideas for the classroom and education come from outside of education.  Often, we become an echo chamber within education.  Hearing ideas from any field sparks ideas and creative approaches to teaching/learning for me.  Do Lectures are a great place to find inspiration and new ideas for your classroom.

Do Lectures can also be the perfect supplement or launching point for units of study in your classroom.  You may find a video that supports the learning happening in your classroom.

Tips:  Be sure to share those great videos you stumble on with the rest of us!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Do Lectures  in  your classroom!

Juxio: Online Visual Creation Tool

What it is: Juxio is a new visual way to create and communicate.  The web application lets students take their own images (or images from Flickr, FaceBook, or Picasa) and add them to an image stream or panel.  Text descriptions can be added to the stream to describe the images.  Streams are where text and images get placed.  Streams expand in width as elements are added.  A Jux (Juxio creation) can be expanded vertically by adding additional streams.  This is useful for organizing content into categories or for comparison.  Each stream can have its own header to add meaning or depth to a Jux creation.  Events are used to visually segment streams.  For example, students might have an animal stream of pictures that is segmented into the events “mammals” and “reptiles”.  After students create a Jux, they can save it as a PDF file, print it, or share it online via email, Facebook, Twitter, or url.

How to integrate Juxio into your curriculum: Juxio is a fantastic online tool to use for online visual creation.  Students can mash-up text and photos to create their own Jux that can be used to organize information or display understanding.  Use Juxio for animal classification, vocabulary, historical time lines, changes over time, to tell a linear story, or display any information in an organized fashion.  Take pictures of a science experiment for students to turn into a Jux, they can start at the beginning of the experiment adding captions to each picture.  Text boxes can be added for students to type in their hypothesis at the beginning of the experiment and to add a concluding statement at the end.  Take pictures of a school field trip and create a Juxio to tell the story of what happened on the field trip.  A Jux can be created individually by students in a computer lab setting, or by a whole class using an interactive whiteboard.  Class Juxio’s can be created to display new learning, each student contributing to one Jux.  The finished product can be printed and saved in the classroom with the URL sent home so students can access the learning from anywhere.  Use Juxio in place of a traditional Friday newsletter.  Take pictures of students throughout the week, add captions explaining what learning happened during the week and add a stream for upcoming events and reminders.  Anytime you add student pictures to a newsletter, the chance that a parent takes the time to read it goes way up!

Tips: Juxio requires an email address for sign up.  In addition, students must be 13 or older to obtain their own account.  If you teach younger students, create a class account where you are the owner.  Students can create a Jux using the class account and save it with their name in the title.

Juxio offers the option to purchase the finished Jux as a poster.  Prices are very reasonable and can be used for customized classroom decoration.  Cool!

If your school has access to an iPod Touch or iPad lab, Juxio can be downloaded directly to the device as an application.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Juxio in your classroom!