Let's try Arduino in High School!

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform that is fantastic to create interactive objects or environments. Arduino is cheap and very easy to use, so is a very powerful tool for artists, designers and hobbyists. And it is an amazing tool to teach electronics and programming. Let's try Arduino in High School!

Here you have "Arduino The Documentary":

Dancing "Cupid Shuffle"

Watching the tv series "Treme", I have discovered a song called "Cupid Shuffle".  It is a song with an easy choreography.  Do you know the song?  Is it famous in Spain?  Here you have a video with people dancing the song:



And another video about how to dance it:



I know it's very easy, but I like it!

Here Be Dragons

"Hic sunt dracones" was written in the Hunt-Lenox Globe in 1503.  It was a way of saying that we don't know an area of the map and it may be dangerous.  Brian Dunning made a video about critical thinking and called it "Here Be Dragons".  In ancient times there were legends about dragons and other creatures to explain the unknown.  Now we give new names to the supernatural: reiki, homeopathy, ghosts, conspiracy theories...

Here you have a press kit about this video: Press Kit

What do you think about this topic and the video?  Should we watch it in class?

Another article about this problem: Supersticiones, pseudociencias y placebos: ¿cómo saber qué es verdad y qué es mentira?

Coursera: free university courses, everywhere

Do you want to take a course from Stanford University for free? Do you prefer Princeton? You can! How it works? Watch short video lectures, take interactive quizzes, complete peer graded assessments, and interact live with your new classmates and teachers. These courses are called massive open online courses (MOOCs). Today there are 335 courses, about Mathematics, Arts, Humanities, Economics... Take a look!
https://www.coursera.org/

The Marshmallow Challenge

The "Marshmallow Challenge" is an easy, fun and interesting activity to study how we work in groups.  This exercise involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape, string and a marshmallow. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And why does a surprising group always beat the average?

The glass half-full

Crisis in Spain.  Maybe it's time to look on the bright side.  Interesting video about the good things of our country:

The importance of learning a second language

Hello again English Breakfast team! I know you are having your meetings twice a week in the usual place and that you have new member which make part of our "select group" of English learners.
I want to share an hillarious video that explain in a very convincing way, why it is important to learn, at least, a second language. I'm even thinking of using it in the future...
Kindest regards,
Ana

The puzzle of motivation

We need to motivate our students and we usually think that traditional rewards are the solution: extra points, punishments, prizes...  But social scientists have demonstrated that they aren't always as effective as we think.  In the following talk, Dan Pink explains why:


What do you think?  Do you need your students to be creative?  I recommend you this Spanish article, too:
La sorprendente verdad sobre lo que motiva a tus alumnos

Some Study That I Used to Know

I'm sure you know Gotye's popular song "Somebody That I Used to Know".  There are a lot of versions of this song.  My favourite is this one called "Some Study That I Used to Know":



The lyrics are here.

There is also a lesson about this video in TED-Ed: What Do You Remember from High School?  It is an interesting activity to think about the importance of what we teach.

What is the Higgs Boson?

Have you heard about the Higgs Boson or the "God particle"?  Do you know what it is?  Do you understand the importance of the experiments been made in the Large Hadron Collider ("LHC") at CERN in Geneva?  In Wired you have the article Higgs for Mere Mortals, where you can find videos to help you understand this crucial part of particle physics.  This is my favorite video:


The Higgs Boson Explained from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

engVid

English Video Lessons

Hey everybody. I'm posting hear an amazing website of english video lessons made by native teachers for free. Hope you enjoy them and could be useful now that summer is comming. Regards, Ana

Pronunciation of "can" and "can't"

Good video about how to pronounce "can" and "can't":

Egypt for my students

This is a video that Monica prepared for the bilingual students. It is just four minutes and the English level is high enough. Kids could not understand every sentence yesterday but they gained the main ideas. As a teacher this video is a good reference.
Thanks Monica!!!!

We are star-stuff

Hello, English Breakfast!

I have found in the blog Meridianos this beautiful video about the most astounding fact about the Universe:

Do you believe in Astrology?

Hello, English Breakfast!

I have been looking for information about Astrology and horoscopes:

• An interesting and complete article about how horoscopes work: How Horoscopes Work
• Some times it's hard to know how to respond politely to someone who takes this ancient superstition seriously.  Here you have an Astrology Defense Kit, including ten embarrasing questions and many studies that demonstrate that Astrology is just a nonsense: Astrology Defense Kit
• A lot of people still believe in Astrology: 25 percent of Americans Believe in Astrology

 Finally, here you can see the program about Astrology in Escépticos (Spanish):

TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing

A new initiative from TED: TED-Ed.  Their mission: create the best video lessons in the world.  Here you have the presentation and a lesson called "Just How Small is an Atom?":





You can suggest lesson ideas!

Kony 2012

Hi everyone! Have you heard about the Kony video? At the beginning of the year we talked about viral videos, with the example of the University of California Davis pepper spray incident. Last week, a video went viral even more quickly--in fact, "Kony 2012", below, has become the fastest-growing viral video in history. (This article, in the Guardian, explores the implications of this kind of "virality".) At the time of writing this post, it has more than 74 million views.

The video aims to* raise awareness about Kony, a Ugandan warlord whose rebel army is known for abducting children and turning them into sex slaves and child soldiers. I thought we could talk about it on Wednesday in English Breakfast. It is quite a bit longer than your average popular video, at almost a half hour, but if you watch the first ten minutes and last three or so, you get a general sense of it (it includes English subtitles). Alternatively, you could read this article in the LA Times which presents some of the criticisms of the awareness campaign (or this shorter one in simpler English).



Some questions to consider: What do you think about the use of this kind of social media and marketing to raise awareness about such serious issues? Do you have any problems with how the issue was presented? Do you think the campaign is/will be effective, or do you think that ultimately it could do more harm than good?

*tries to, intends to

Micro-lesson plan: Estimation

Hello, English Breakfast!

Here you have the micro-lesson I prepared for the English Seminar. It's about estimation, an approximate calculation.

Micro-lesson plan: Estimation

In this video some students show how you can use estimation when you go shopping:


Toy Store Estimation from Jonah Salsich on Vimeo.

Learning English through multimedia

Hello englishbreakfast team,

I recommend you this website to learn English through videos, featured games.
http://lingual.net/


Enjoy it!

Universal Human Rights Project

During the first term the bilingual section explored the topic of universal human rights. The United Nations established 30 human rights after Worl War II. In class we watched videos that explore each of the human rights. Human Right Number 1: We are all born free and equal. You can watch all 30 videos on: http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/