Thursday, February 06, 2014

Catching up on TED Talks

My goal of a TED talk a week with illustrated notes got sideswiped. I decided to give an hour or so of my snow day yesterday to get caught up.

One thing I'm playing around with in my notes is what kind of pencils/pens I use. I love my Crayola Twistable colored pencils, but they slow me down. I can't press very hard with them.

So I took some notes with just pencil, but they weren't pretty and fun.

I switched over to Flair pens, but the only colors I have at home are pink, purple, fuschia and black. I think I'm going to have to spring for a complete set of Flair pens. The bold colors really brought my thinking to life.

It's all about the writing tool sometimes, isn't it?

My first few videos were from TED-Ed. I'm still waiting to hear if my application to start a TED-Ed club has been accepted.

I began with my brain:
What Percentage of Your Brain Do You Use?





We are studying the rotation and revolution of the earth, so I thought this one was fascinating...and a little bit mind-blowing: How Fast Are You Moving Right Now?




Our fifth graders are just finishing up writing persuasive essays. I need to show my class Want to be an Activist?




Mandy asked me in a tweet how I choose which TED talks to watch. I told her that I don't really choose them, they come to me. The TED-Ed videos above came in an email newsletter. Here are a few more I watched today and where they came from:

Doodlers, Unite came to me from Lisa at steps & staircases. I have a student who will be very happy that I will no longer nag her to stop doodling all over her papers!

Joe Smith: How to Use a Paper Towel came to me from Charla Rae at school. Sadly, we can't encourage children to shake their hands 12 times in order to only take one paper towel, but if all the adults in the world would do this, we could save 571,230,000 POUNDS of paper every year. What do you think...can you try to reduce your paper towel usage by even one per wash? Let's be part of the solution...starting with paper towels.

And then I came full circle back to the mind with Andy Puddicombe: All it Takes is 10 Mindful Moments, which came to me from Franki. Yes, Franki, it does go with my OLW: BREATHE. What I'm wondering is -- does it have to be 10 continuous minutes? Can I get the same effect if I spread my meditation out over the course of a day, spending one minute at a time BREATHING and truly focusing on the moment at hand without rushing on to the next thing or the next thought? I'm going to try it!


5 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:32 AM

    These talks sounds great, Mary Lee! Now if I can just figure out when I might have time to watch them! Thanks for sharing.

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  2. I may have to do this challenge over the summer when I have more time, but thanks for all the great suggestions, and so varied in content.

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  3. I have been trying to spend 10 to 15 minutes a day doing nothing. It's hard! I enjoyed the video and want to watch the others you posted here. Good luck. I'll be anxious to hear how it goes for you. :)

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  4. I love watching TED talks, too. I watch them on my ipad while I walk on the treadmill. I will say that I shared e paper towel one with my staff and our PE teacher did a presentation about how to use paper towels at our next All School Meeting to all of our students. He did teach them to just flick their fingers downwards rather than shake the water everywhere. The kids really bought into it.

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  5. Loved the Ted Talks you recommended, but am having a hard time visualizing the note taking you describe. I feel like I am so dominated by words that it is really hard for me to break my notes into anything other than words. I know you had one post where you showed an example of your notes. Any chance you could do this again? What do you think is the value in adding more visual features to your notes? Thanks!!

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