Comments on: Help wanted: Active summer learning with technology?

By: Vincent Baxter

Vincent Baxter — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

Post a weekly digital storytelling of your life during summer break. Other school community members (kids, teachers, etc…) would all post to the same site to catch up w/ each other while on vacation.

By: Lesley Edwards

Lesley Edwards — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

This strikes me as a way to have students and parents learn together, bridging the technology information gap.
- Families could do a VoiceThread story about summer activites, a trip or summer project.
- They could plan a trip together, anything from a day’s outing in their hometown to a month in a foreign country, finding information on spots of interest, food/accommodation etc. acting as their own tourist agents.
- kids could teach their parents how to use social networking sites; how to setup a home page using iGoogle or Pageflakes.
- kids could track their summer reading on Shelfari or Library Thing

There are endless possibilities. At very least I will make sure to include some of them in the final newsletter that goes home to parents in June.

By: Diana

Diana — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

Online book clubs…

By: Mindelei

Mindelei — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

Another option that could be really interesting (depending upon how it is executed) would be to set involve the kids in Youth Twitter. http://www.youthtwitter.com/

You could have the kids collect data about specific things relating to kids all across the US and throughout the world. This would be a great way to expose kids to different people and ideas.

By: Emily Kornblut

Emily Kornblut — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

As a corollary to your suggestion of getting involved in projects on TakingITGlobal, we also have a new site that would also be a great addition to your list. Youth Media Exchange: http://www.ymex.org is a digital media sharing network for youth around the world and has guided learning activities as well as a mentoring system to help students build both their digital media skills and global knowledge.

By: Darren Draper

Darren Draper — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

In light of geocaching, I’ve found that if you add a service twist to the activity, you get more meaning out of it.

For example, instead of simply visiting different geocaches, how about if you turn the activity around and gather the coordinates to various landmarks in your neighborhood (of fire-hydrants, man-holes, or McGruff houses, for instance)? Coordinates can then be submitted to Google Earth or elsewhere for further distribution.

In my opinion, these activities with purpose are the most engaging.

By: Annelise Woitulewicz

Annelise Woitulewicz — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

Simple idea – Students could create and maintain a blog about the summer ventures to keep them writing on a regular basis.

By: meg ormiston

meg ormiston — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

How about using Google Sketchup to “recreate” the city of the past, build the town of today, or create a vision for the future. All in 3-D!
Young and old would love this challenge!

By: Laurie Fowler

Laurie Fowler — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

I would highly recommend using gcast to do a travelogue podcast from their cell phone to share their travels with their friends and family. Or for movie reviews or book reviews

I just started using it and it is wonderful!

By: Carolyn Foote

Carolyn Foote — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

Perhaps using a wiki or tumblr.com to track your summer reading and reviewing/rating the books?

Collect items from nature (for elementary) and then post photos of them on a tumblr site.

Find an epal in another country for the summer?

Learn a new language by listening to podcasts of daily phrases.

Learn new vocabulary words by listening to Princeton Reviews Word of the Day song podcasts.

Photograph the alphabet in the world around you and add to Flickr’s letter collection. Try to collect a photo of each letter of the alphabet.

Contribute reviews to Nancy Pearl’s Booklust website area for students.