Tag Archives: Inspiration

Caine’s Arcade

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The following video made the rounds this week. It’s the inspiring story of young Caine who builds his own arcade out of cardboard and other spare parts as a way to pass the time. A filmmaker discovers Caine’s arcade and decides to organize a flash mob, filming the whole thing as they go.

What’s interesting is the amount of ingenuity this boy demonstrates in building his arcade. Creativity, problem-solving, persistence, attention to detail, among other skills were developed as Caine realized his vision.

Caine didn’t learn how to build his own arcade in school. He used tools he already had within him to think outside the box, so to speak. We can only hope that his teachers also see the potential in Caine by encouraging and supporting his creativity.

Let this video be an inspiration as you try to find ways to support your own students’ creativity. Maybe they won’t create an arcade, but they may build a model of a city, write a song, or take on some other creative endeavor that allows them to realize their potential and opens the possibility for their dreams to come true.

What message do you pull from this video? How have you allowed your students’ creativity to shine through? When have you had to make due with the materials around you in order to make something great?

Zac Early is an instructional specialist and blogger for the eMINTS National Center.

Creativity Is the Future of Education

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(Via ISTE)

While this video is primarily for the Ghetto Film School in New York City, the point is still a valid one. Our greatest resource is our creativity. If we don’t develop students’ creativity, with what are we left?

Innovation and creativity are the areas in which we can turn around the US’s standing in the world. Building on these strengths, we can not only improve test scores and send more children to college (as evidenced in the video), but we can begin to solve many of the world’s social and economical problems.

How do you build creativity in your students? Where does film-making fit into your curriculum? How can your schools emulate the  efforts of a school like the Ghetto Film School?

Zac Early is an instructional specialist and blogger for the eMINTS National Center.

Friday 4ALL: Pay a Teacher Like a Babysitter

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We’ve all received some form of the “pay a teacher like a babysitter” piece in our email inboxes at some point. For those of you who have not read the short essay, it goes something like this:

Teachers Get Paid TOO Much!

Teachers get paid TOO much…I’m fed up with teachers and their hefty salary schedules. What we need here is a little perspective.

If I had my way, I’d pay these teachers myself-I’d pay them babysitting wages. That’s right-instead of paying these outragous taxes, I’d give them $3 an hour out of my own pocket. And I’m only going to pay them for five hours, not coffee breaks. That would be $15 a day. Each parent should pay
$15 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their child. Even if they have more than one child, it’s still a lot cheaper than private day care.

Now, how many children do they teach every day-maybe 20? That’s $15 x 20 = $300 a day. But remember, they only work 180 days a year! I am not going to pay them for all those vacations! $300 x 180 = $54,000. (Just a minute, I think my claculator needs new batteries.)

I know now you teachers will say-what about those who have 10 years experience and a mster’s degree? Well, maybe (to be fair) they could get the minimum wage, and instead of just baby-sitting, they could read the kids a story. We could round that off to aobut $5 an hour, times five hours, times 20 children. That’s $500 a day times 180 days. Thaht’s $90,000…HUH?!?

I am not sure where it originated from, but some sources suggest it was originally published in an NEA magazine. There are variations with adjustments for inflation or more realistic class sizes, but the math usually tells the same story: Teachers are actually underpaid.

This is not meant to be a political rant. It should just be pointed out that the work teachers do is more than babysitting. I think people of all political backgrounds can agree on that. Even if it was “just babysitting” (a valuable service in its own right – usually worth more than $3 an hour), teachers are relatively underpaid and under-appreciated.

Zac Early is an instructional specialist with the eMINTS National Center where he enjoys his work with teachers. He also taught for ten years in public schools and is the son of a teacher.

HD_Links: Five Websites to Inspire Your Students

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I’m sharing five of my favorite tools for the classroom to inspire kids to get creative. Check them out!

1. Aviary: This site can really do it all!  Photos can be edited instantly online and saved right back to your hard drive!  You can create music with it.  There is even a design option that allows you to draw!  I think this is one of those sites that could come in handy in almost any project.  Imagine if students are making a digital story and one member of the group is the “Musician” and gets to design the music?  Or, if they are working on a poster for an Earth Day project and they take their own photos outside of your school and edit them in the classroom.  I love Aviary most because it’s one of those sites that is ready to use.  There is not much to read or figure it… it’s just click and get creative! Perfect for the classroom. :)

2.  Wonderopolis This site gives kids LOTS to think about.  There is a brand new “Wonder” posted everyday.  You will learn things here you didn’t even realize you wanted to know.  It’s a great site for kids with writer’s block or kids who just love to learn…and really…what kid doesn’t love to learn?  I would bookmark this one on your classroom website and let kids visit whenever they’d like.  It can inspire them to learn about new things and think more creatively about everything they study!

3.  Cartoonster & Fluxtime:   Cartoonster has several tutorials that take kids step by step through the artistic process of creating a cartoon.  It will teach them about the simple act of making a flip book, adding perspective to drawings, and how to spruce up a cartoon.  Fluxtime is another site that they can use to draw and create their own animation!   Making an animation could be a wonderful way to summarize a book, demonstrate cause and effect, make a public service announcement for a cause that students have researched, or just to create a story!

4. Incredible Art Department: I spent just a few minutes at this site, and with a couple of clicks, there are tons of links to explore.  Beware of Google Ads cleverly placed around the pages, but the content here is wonderful.  I visited a site to make a Jackson Pollock of my own.  When the Pollock page loads, it’s white, click around to throw paint – okay, it’s EVEN fun for the teachers. :) .  I also discovered a Van Gogh project I think I know a few students would love.  There are lots of project ideas organized and I  found a list of tons of creative art sites for kids.

5. Glogster.edu: Glogster is a great tool for getting students in the creative mode. It has tons of fun, flashy moving graphics, colorful designs, and the ability to put music, video, and voice audio right onto your page.  You can create a digital poster that can be published for the world to see or kept private for your classroom only.  Text and links can also be added.  It would be a fun way to make a ‘book report’ or use as a place for gathering research for a collaborative project.

Hope one of these fits right into your classroom…. now I’m going to go finish my Jackson Pollock painting…   Afterall, it is summer.     If you have any favorite tools, please leave a comment, I’d love to hear about them! :)

Post by guest contributor Krissy Venosdale of TeachFactory.com. Veteran eMINTS teacher, gifted education teacher, Tweeter, photographer….. and that’s just her day job. Original post August 2, 2011 on TeachFactory.com.

Friday 4ALL: Speaking with Conviction

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This has been making the rounds, but it’s worth posting here. Poet Taylor Mali’s “Totally like whatever you know?” has been animated by Ronnie Bruce, a film student. The resulting video has been a hit throughout social media outlets over the last week+.

What follows is Mali’s lament over language that speaks with little to no authority through the use of discourse particles such as “y’know”, “whatever”, and “like.” Watch and listen…

Like, that was so powerful…just kidding.

Mali’s poem (brought to life through Bruce’s animation) declares the importance of speaking with authority and power. This is an important lesson for young writers and speakers to learn. A thesis or declaration in a speech is so much more meaningful without the discourse particles.

How might you use this video with your students? How might you students create a product with the same impactful imagery of our words driving the point home? What message do you take away from Mali’s poem?

Zac Early is like an instructional specialist or whatever with the eMINTS National Center, y’know?

We’re Preparing Students for What Year?

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I recently watched a video from the TEDxNYED that really hit home. A Challenge from Heidi Hayes Jacobs is a short (around 15 minutes) presentation not about educational reform, but educational “upgrades”.

Heidi Hayes Jacobs believes our educational system is not preparing kids for today but for years past. She believes we should be paying attention to things like global, digital, and media literacy (as well as others). She points out that we are using dated content, skills, and assessments that are not relevant to today’s learner.

She suggests that schools need to have students solving real life “stuff” and get evaluated on how well they accomplish that. She makes a case for students having a part in developing rubrics and determining what makes quality products such as digital portfolios and more. She has lots of ideas for projects that students could be invovled in. An example, “Every student should design an app and solve a real problem for people….” and then be evaluated on that real life task. She has endless ideas for how we might make school relevant and engaging to students today.

She doesn’t believe in school reform but new forms for schools where we look at making changes in how we schedule students lives and learning, how we group learners, where we meet, including the space around learners and she believes that it can start with each teacher making one change for the better.

To me, I hear a lot of what she is saying (and writing) and see some very strong connections to what we focus on in eMINTS. I am following her blog in the Curriculum 21 Ning now and am going to pay attention to what she is doing and pass that on. And I will continue to believe that I can make a change one day, one training session, one class visit, one lesson, one student, one teacher at a time.


Brooke Higgins is an instructional specialist with the eMINTS National Center. You can read more at her blog Higgins Helpful Hints Blog.

Eagle Watching With the World

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The other night, I was reading through Facebook updates and ran across a link that two of my “friends” posted about the Bald Eagle UStream Cam in Iowa. Of course, I clicked on it and there was the 1 1/2 ton nest with an eagle roosting right in the middle of it.

Eagle Web CamAs I was telling my husband about how cool it was that I was, at that second, watching the female eagle re-adjust the 2 eaglets and 1 egg under her, he informed me that I was a bit behind; he had heard about it on public radio that morning. He told me that it was like the viral videos on YouTube but real time. I looked back down at the screen only to realize I was 1 in more than 177,000 people viewing the webcam at that moment and that the site has had more than 11 million views since beginning.

In a matter of minutes I learned that the pair of eagles have been together for almost 4 years in this area and have had hatched and fledged (got them to flight stage) 8 eaglets  total. This is their second nest in the area and was built in 2007; the first they built blew down in a storm. The nest is 5-6 feet across and deep and figured out that it weighs around 1 1/2 tons (3000 pounds). I took a couple of minutes and looked up details like how much a ton is, what you call a baby eagle, and what fledged means to answer some lingering questions I had…. Just think of where you could take this in your classroom.

The next morning, I opened my email to see a message from the people at The Futures Channel telling me about science videos and lessons they offer on their site for teachers to use to teach concepts such as Algebra and one of the links was to their Saving the Bald Eagle video. I started putting two and two together and figured what an opportunity for teachers to engage and excite their students with the wonders of science and math all through something that is happening right now.

The challenge now…how can you weave this cool, exciting, interesting, neat, real-time event in nature and resources into your day? How can you incorporate this topic and these tools into lessons that will help your students understand how science and math affects them every day for all their days to come but will also prepare them for the state assessment tests that are coming just around the corner? I know it’s hard to find the time with all the test prep booklets, worksheets, tests, ect. that you are given to use during this time but as eMINTS teachers I know you are always up for the challenge.


Brooke Higgins is an instructional specialist with the eMINTS National Center. You can read more at her blog Higgins Helpful Hints Blog.

4ALL: What inspires you?

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Flying Delta over the clouds and Memphis, Tennessee

Sometimes I REALLY miss being a classroom teacher….having “my kids” and creating lessons just for them that will wow them, engage them, inspire them, and encourage them to be life long learners….that’s what I miss. Sometimes all it takes to remind me is one little inspiration, one little spark, one little idea.

Today that inspiration came when I was reading Descending Into The Clouds At Sunset, a blog post by Wesley Fryer on his blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity. His post was quick; with an image and video clip taken outside the window of his plane as he was descending upon Memphis, TN. On its most basic level, his post reminded me that I can upload video to my Flickr account to share with the world (how do I keep forgetting that). A bit deeper, it made me think about a lesson I was coaching a teacher through the other day where she is teaching the kids about cloud formations and how meteorologists use what they know about clouds to predict weather. This might be another resource she could share with her students. But on it’s deepest level for me – this video reminded me that not many of my students had ever experienced being in a plane, being ABOVE the clouds, being outside of our classroom, or even outside of our town.

Giving students experiences that helped THEM to build their knowledge was what I lived for as a classroom teacher. It was what I longed for in every lesson I taught…and when it happened I could almost hear the lightbulbs turning on. That is what I miss most about being a classroom teacher.

Now I get to work with many teachers and do the next best thing….inspire them to create inspiring learning opportunities for their students. So today, I offer Wesley Fryer’s blog post and this…..What inspires your teaching?

Brooke Higgins is an instructional specialist with the eMINTS National Center.

eMINTS and Changing Educational Paradigms

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Sometimes I need some proof or theoretical support for what I do as an eMINTS Instructional Specialist. The following video fills this need…

RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms

Picture 3

Aside from your political leanings, Sir Ken Robinson has some excellent points.

Robinson points out that education is undergoing a massive reform effort. The reform is geared to prepare our students for the economy of the 21st century while maintaining cultural identities in a time of globalization. However, we’re using an approach to learning and instruction that originated in the 18th and 19th centuries. What we need is a system that encourages collaboration and creativity, not traditional academic abilities. This is Robinson’s contention and it matches what we are doing with the eMINTS Instructional model.

Robinson’s assertions support the information and training I am brining to my teachers. And how do we do this at eMINTS? We provide training and support in community-building, cooperative learning, critical thinking, creativity, inquiry, and collaboration all through the use of technology. You can’t get anymore 21st century than that.

Zac Early is an instructional specialist with the eMINTS National Center. He occasionally blogs at Suppl_eMINTS when not managing Networked Teaching & Learning.