Monday 18 March 2013

Easter Break

Hope you're about to have some days to take a rest and spend some quality time with your family! After dealing with a huge amount of assessments, evaluation documents and postponed tasks, we are going to do just the same... Meanwhile, if you're a social networker, check Teaching & Learning page on Facebook for some news and curiosities. We promise to be back soon. ;)

Have yourself a blessed Easter!

Friday 15 March 2013

Fun Facts for St. Patrick's Day

While many Americans consider St. Patrick's Day - March 17th -  a celebration of Irish culture, the holiday's original roots in Ireland actually began as a holy day. Today, typical ways to celebrate St. Patrick's Day include parades with green beer, shamrocks, and leprechauns. You can read more on Teaching & Learning about St. Patrick's History here and get some creative ELT suggestions here.

Thursday 14 March 2013

Celebrate π Day & Einstein's Birthday


image credits: Biography.com
Pi Day is the unofficial holiday that celebrates the mathematical constant pi (π) on March 14 in the month/day date format because the digits in this date correspond with the first three digits of π (3.14). It has become an international observance that is celebrated live and online and also celebrates Albert Einstein’s birthday.
Pi Approximation Day is held on July 22 in the day/month date format because it is the approximate value of π (22/7 = 3.14).

What is Pi (π)?
image credits: in2eastafrica
Pi (π) is the mathematical constant that has been known for almost 4000 years. Its value is the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space or the ratio of a circle’s area to the square of its radius. The value of pi is approximately equal to 3.14159265, but it is an irrational number and its decimal representation never ends or repeats.
The lower case Greek letter π is used because it is the first letter of the Greek work περίμετρος (perimeter), which probably refers to its use in the formula perimeter divided by diameter equals the constant for all circles. The concept of π has become the most common ground between mathematicians and non-mathematicians.

What do people do?
There are many activities that celebrate Pi Day such as games, creating some type of pi ambiance, eating “pi” foods, converting things into pi, making strange mathematical endeavors like having a contest to see who knows the most digits of pi. Many people celebrate Pi Day by eating pie and discussing the relevance of π. Many teachers will use this date to engage students in activities related to pi by singing songs and carols about pi and developing pi projects.
Mathematicians, teachers, museum directors, math students of all ages and other enthusiasts celebrate the number with pi recitations, pie-baking, pie-eating contests and math-related activities.

The First Pi Day

Pi Day celebrations was founded by Larry Shaw and it was first held at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988. The celebrations began with the public and museum staff marching around a circular space and then eating fruit pies. The museum has since then added pizza to its menu and has grown to include activities such as creating Pi puns, Pi-related antics, and many other activities that involve Pi.

Alternative Pi Days and Pi Approximation Days
Pi Day and/or Pi Approximation Day can be celebrated on other calendar dates such as:
July 22: When 22 is divided by 7, it equals 3.14.
March 4: When 14% of the 3rd month has elapsed.
April 5: When 3.14 months of the year have elapsed.
April 26: The Earth has traveled two radians of its orbit on this day (April 25 in leap years). This is celebrated exactly on the 41st second of the 23rd minute of the 4th hour on April 26 or the 116th day. (In leap years, it is celebrated exactly on the 3rd second of the 2nd minute of the 12th hour on April 25 or the 116th day.)
November 10: The 314th day of the year (November 9 in leap years).
December 21, 1:13 p.m.: The 355th day of the year (December 20 in leap years), celebrated at 1:13 for the Chinese approximation 355/113.

Source: timeanddate.com (sligtly abridged)

You can read more about Pi Day on Teaching & Learning @ Pi Day 2012.

If you are looking for teachers' resources, check TeachPi, where you'll find ideas for Pi Day activities, learning and entertainment!


Wednesday 13 March 2013

Habemus Papam: Francis I

photo credits: CBS News

18h06: what an emotion to see white smoke coming out of the chimney on the Sistine Chapel! Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected as the first non-European pope in more than 1,200 years, a surprise choice that reflects the shift of the Roman Catholic faith. Bergoglio, 76 years old, chose the name of Pope Francis I and was greeted by thousands of people as he stepped out on a balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square to be presented to the world for the first time as pontiff. “You know that the duty of a conclave is to give a bishop to Rome, but it seems that my brother cardinals went to the end of the world to find one,” Bergoglio told a crowd estimated at more than 100,000. He’s the first Jesuit to be elected pope. In another move without precedent, Bergoglio adopted the name of Francis, one of the Church’s most revered saints who embraced poverty in 13th-century Italy. The name is widely seen as sign of humility. In his brief address, the new Pontiff asked the crowd in St. Peter’s Square to pray for him “before I offer a blessing to you.” God Bless You, Pope Francis I!

TeAch-nology



TeAchnology provides free and easy to use resources for teachers dedicated to improving the education of today's generation of students. It features 46,000+ lesson plans10,200 free printable worksheetsrubricsteaching tips,worksheet makersweb questsmath worksheets, and thousands of other great teacher resources. Let's us suggest, for example, the March Printable Worksheets, where you will find amazing resources for the coming Saint Patrick's Day! You can use most of the resources for free an join the teachers' forum to exchange ideas and experiences.

Tuesday 12 March 2013

SlideTalk

Publish your presentations as engaging talking videos! Share your powerpoint presentations, eLearning content, business presentations and tutorials as engaging talking videos, by using high-quality and multilingual text-to-speech technology, with no need for expensive and time-consuming voice recordings. 
Learn more about what SlideTalk can do for you in this slidetalk video:

   

Follow the three simple steps Show-Describe-Share described here below to turn your presentations into talking videos: 

1. Show: upload slides 
Upload and arrange your slides to build your story.

2. Describe: type texts 
Type a text for each slide to tell your story and describe the image. High quality text-to-speech, with 20+ languages and 70+ voices, will convert your text into voicever speech.

3. Share: share video 
The images and the audio are turned into a video automatically published on YouTube, ready to be shared with your audience, or available for download to let you choose how to share it. 

Click here to learn more about the SlideTalk service.

Monday 11 March 2013

Applying Bloom's Taxonomy in the Classroom


Assessing Critical Thinking in Middle and High Schools: Meeting the Common Core, by Rebecca Stobaugh is a practical, very effective resource for middle and high school teachers and curriculum leaders looking to develop the skills necessary to design instructional tasks and assessments that engage students in higher-level critical thinking, as recommended by the Common Core State Standards. This infographic outlines the six steps of Bloom's Taxonomy and provides examples of in-class instruction and assessment at each level.

infographic credits: Eye on Education
























Friday 8 March 2013

8th March - International Women's Day

“You may not control all the events that happen to you,
but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

image credits: Miss Taty Bliss

Thursday 7 March 2013

Do you salad or sandwich? The verbing of English


photo credits: Oxford University Press
In this article, Jon Hird, author of the brand new Oxford Learner’s Pocket Verbs and Tenses, takes a look at the verbing of English and shares with us some interesting examples he has recently come across.
A recent OUP ELT blog about the language legacy of the Olympics (which we'll look at tomorrow) included some examples of nouns being used as verbs. Competitors no longer stood on the podium and won a medal, but podiumed and medalled. Athletes also finalled (reached a final) and PB-ed (achieved a PB, or Personal Best). Even Lord Coe, Chairman of the Organising Committee, got in on the act when, prior to the games, he told the nation that ‘The London Olympics need[ed] to legacy’.
This conversion of nouns to verbs is known as ‘verbing’ and it has been around for as long as the English language itself. Ancient verbs such as rain and thunder and more recent conversions such as access, chair, debut, highlight and impact were all originally used only as nouns before they became verbs. In his book, The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker tells us that ‘Easy conversion of nouns to verbs has been part of English grammar for centuries; it is one of the processes that makes English English.’
Verbing exists essentially to make what we say shorter and snappier. It can also give a more dynamic sense to ideas. Conversion is easy and therefore common in English because, unlike in many other languages, the base form of the verb does not take a separate ending. Verbs converted from nouns are all regular and the past forms have an -ed ending.
Today, noun to verb conversion is particularly common in the field of technology, especially when it comes to the internet and digital communication. Many words which were originally nouns have very quickly become established as verbs. We bookmark websites. We email, text, message and DM (Direct Message) people. We friend and unfriend (or defriend) people on Facebook. We tweet about topics that are trending. We blog. And now, at least according to one mobile phone provider, we also hub.
Proper nouns are also used as verbs. If we don’t know something, we google it. We skype to keep in touch. We youtube to watch video clips. And we facebook and whatsapp people about what’s going on. A Turkish colleague of mine recently found himself saying that he’d ebayed something and was wondering if it’s OK to say that.
Outside the world of technology, it seems that nouns are being verbed wherever you turn. At the airport on a recent work trip, we were informed that ‘Passengers who are transiting need to follow the transit signs.’ After my return to the UK, a colleague emailed ‘I hope you had a great time conferencing around Italy.’ Around the same time a friend facebooked ‘let’s coffee soon!’ I’ve since discovered that ‘Let’s Coffee’ is the name of numerous coffee shops around the world. There’s also ‘Let’s Burger’, ‘Let’s Seafood’ and no doubt many more.
Food and drink, in fact, seems to be ripe when it comes to verbing the noun. Ted, a character in the TV show ‘How I Met Your Mother’, when offering to buy someone a drink, asks ‘Can I beer you?’ After a talk I recently gave, one of the participants facebooked me this photo he had taken of a London café window (see below). Whether he saladed or sandwiched that day, I’m not sure. And while a considerable number of English words connected with food come from French, I was surprised to come across the concept of fooding in, of all places, Montmartre in Paris.
So, the choice is yours – do you noun or do you verb? Keep your eyes and ears open and see how many examples of verbing you come across. A lot, I suspect. 

Tuesday 5 March 2013

Types of Imagination

image credits: Cindy Hayen
Imagination is critical to innovation and learning – but what exactly is it?
Prof. Dr. Murray Hunter of the University of Malaysia Perlis discusses the 8 types of imagination we use on a daily basis, with explanations for each.
Dr. Hunter defines imagination as “the ability to form mental images, phonological passages, analogies, or narratives of something that is not perceived through our senses. Imagination is a manifestation of our memory and enables us to scrutinize our past and construct hypothetical future scenarios that do not yet, but could exist. Imagination also gives us the ability to see things from other points of view and empathize with others.”

8 Types of Imagination

1. “Effectuative Imagination combines information together to synergize new concepts and ideas.”

2. “Intellectual (or Constructive) Imagination is utilized when considering and developing hypotheses from different pieces of information or pondering over various issues of meaning say in the areas of philosophy, management, or politics, etc.”

3. “Imaginative Fantasy Imagination creates and develops stories, pictures, poems, stage-plays, and the building of the esoteric, etc.”

4. “Empathy Imagination helps a person know emotionally what others are experiencing from their frame and reference.”

5. “Strategic Imagination is concerned about vision of ‘what could be’, the ability to recognize and evaluate opportunities by turning them into mental scenarios…”

6. “Emotional Imagination is concerned with manifesting emotional dispositions and extending them into emotional scenarios.”

7. “Dreams are an unconscious form of imagination made up of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur during certain stages of sleep.”

8. “Memory Reconstruction is the process of retrieving our memory of people, objects, and events.”

Monday 4 March 2013

Portugal this weekend!

photo credits: Porto FB page
If you want to read more about what is taking the Portuguese people to the streets, fighting for their right of dignity and respect, againt the never ending austerity, in more than 40 different cities, you can read here in Portuguese (via Jornal Público) and here in English (via Reuters).