Celebrating Agatha Christie's 120th Anniversary at school




Google doodle Agatha Christie

Did you had noticed already? Google are featuring a special Agatha Christie Google Doodle, the "Queen of Crime", on their home page to celebrate Agatha Christie's 120th anniversary

It is appearing on the Google homepage in all these countries: UK, Ireland, Slovenia, Romania, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Slovakia, Hungary, Israel, all Arabic speaking countries, Korea, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Spain, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, UAE, Uzbekistan, Finland, Suriname, Macedonia, Japan, & Lithuania.









 Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the best-selling author of all time.  She has sold over two billion books worldwide and has been translated into over 45 languages.  

In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, Agatha Christie wrote eighty novels and short story collections.  She also wrote over a dozen plays, including The Mousetrap, which is now the longest running play in theatrical history.



Education:

A. Are you a teacher at middle school? Why not motivate your students to participate at Christie Week 2010?



Agatha Christie tea


Students can organise an "Agatha Christie's Week" at your school, share with another students of the school or other schools in another city or country.
They can begin with a pedagogical research on the oficial site:

1. Stories and Detectives
2. The stories of Agatha Christie (using the filter to browse through her stories)
3. Christie's Detectives (M. Poirot, Miss Marple, others) 
4. Reading order (to a bibliography)
5. Sidekicks ( the role of the sidekick in crime fiction) 

But you have more! Let your students have funny moments by gaming learning!

1. Mystery figure game
2. Christie quizzes
3. Christie crosswords (vocabulary in English language)

B. And for the youngest, why not "Play 4.50 from Paddington" (free trial)?
All these activities are available here 

C. If you are a teacher in a High Junior School, don't miss the BBC archive! 



To mark the 120th Anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth, BBC Archive is realising a small collection of radio and television items in tribute to the world's most famous crime writer. We can hear from the lady herself!

What a fantastic tool to introduce crime fiction at English Literature curriculum?! Don't you agree?


For example, don't miss the audio The Misterious Dame Agatha (1st broadcast 1975) or Agatha Christie Interview (recorded 1955) where the writer talks about her lack of formal education and how boredom during childhood led her to write "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", wich was completed when she was still in her twenties...


Some Conclusions:

So as you see, even now we are talking about a formal learning as a non captivating method!

Well, there are a lot of funny and engaging activities about the "narrative text" that you can create and share with your students, on an informal learning in face-to-face teaching. 

Believe me! You will have a motivated classrooom that will learn literature, crime fiction, vocabulary, grammar... to you, "the attitude" of changing methods, and the creative mind to facilitate different learning activities at your young students!


"Colourless green ideas sleep furiously" 

Chomsky


G-Souto

15.09.2010
Copyright © 2010G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com® 


References:

Agatha Christie

BBC Archive Agatha Christie







Monkeys.

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.

And that, my friends, is how a company policy begins.

VideoJogos2010








Realiza-se em Lisboa, no Instituto Superior Técnico, dias 15-17 Setembro, o ciclo de Conferências de Ciências e Artes dos Videojogos.



Durante três dias, o campus do IST no TagusPark será palco de conferências, palestras e workshops dedicados às diversas áreas do conhecimento relacionadas com videojogos, juntando cerca de 100 especialistas académicos e empresariais.




Esta Conferência de Ciências e Artes dos Videojogos conta com a participação de investigadores e profissionais da área dos videojogos para divulgação de trabalhos e troca de experiências entre a comunidade académica e indústria de videojogos. Para além disso, destaca-se a promoção da articulação em espaço Lusófono.




Esta segunda "Conferência da Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências dos Videojogos" é um evento multidisciplinar, procura contribuições de diferentes áreas do conhecimento, desde a arte, desenho e narrativa de jogo, a aspectos da sua computação, bem como o estudo a teorização e a reflexão crítica sobre as práticas e aplicações no mercado e na indústria. A conferência procura submissões originais, de qualidade, encorajando a participação quer da indústria de videojogos, quer da comunidade académica.


Pelo que pude ler e pesquisar nos diversos menus, este evento promete ser muito enriquecedor e de grande partilha de conhecimento e de experiências.

Pela minha parte ser-me-á impossível participar, dado ter participado na semana anterior em outro ciclo de conferências e workshops "Innovation Forum 2010" que teve lugar em Oeiras. 
As deslocações alargadas não são assim tão fáceis, pelo menos no que me concerne.

Espero poder aceder a algumas conclusões. 

Seria interessante também se a organização tivesse agendado uma participação online ou  Live Stream (oficial conference streaming and interacting site).  

O programa geral está aqui disponível e o programa dos workshops aqui.




The event will start on September 15th until September 17th. There are conferences and workshops.

The conference takes place in the campus of IST Instituto Superior Técnico, situated in the TagusPark

Conference program here and workshops program here.



G-Souto
14.09.10
Copyright © 2010G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com® 


fontes:  
TekSapo

VideoJogos2010


We Can End Poverty 2015


With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, UN Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon has called on world leaders to attend a summit in New York on 20-22 September to accelerate progress towards the MDGs.





Our world possesses the knowledge and the resources to achieve the MDGs” the Secretary-General stated in his report in preparation for the September summit. “Our challenge today is to agree on an action agenda to achieve the MDGs.”


2010 is the "European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion"! 

As a teacher, you can envolve your students in several creative projects. Read more





Next post, I will write about some interesting projects to develop in your classroom.

For the moment, alert your students for Poverty in Europe and in your country, and motivate them to a cross-curricula project!

Raize the voice of your school!


G-Souto
13.09.2010
Copyright © 2010G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com® 

References:

Poverty Across Generations

UN Millenium Developing Goals

Sic Notícias online


New Timothy Zahn Novel Title changes again...

First we had a working title of "Choices", then we had a second working title of "The Hand of Judgment", now Sue Rostoni gives us a title update in the SW.com VIP thread...

Hi all,
I've been really busy this week -- Tim Zahn's manuscript came in and I have to finish it by the 17th -- which wouldn't be an issue if it was all I had to do! Fun, though.

Oh, and we changed the title again -- to Tim's first choice. It's now titled

STAR WARS: CHOICES OF ONE

Later,
Sue


Mandorla? Nomi Sunrider Novel News




We have a working title for the much anticipated Nomi Sunrider novel by Alex Irvine.

The Star Wars novel, tentatively titled Mandorla, is now scheduled for December 2011...and there's a lot more in the hopper, dates TBD


Alex Irvine's blog

What does "Mandorla" mean?

There seem to be two main definitions of it, 1) in religious art, almond-shaped aureole of light surrounding the entire figure of a holy person. 2) The other is two overlapping circles, where the section of the middle where both circles interact is to represent opposing forces and/or worlds interacting.

What does this mean for the novel, I have no idea. And why not just call it the "Adventures of Nomi Sunrider" Well that is a longer and more mysterious story......

Nomi Sunrider is a character created by Dark Horse comics for its Tales of the Jedi series, for those not aware.

The most interesting thing about this novel announcement is that apparently there are legal issues involving the name "Sunrider" which prevents Lucasfilm from using the name on the cover of a book.

At some point in time, legal issues began to arise over Lucasfilm Ltd.'s use of the name "Sunrider."[9][10] It remains unclear to the public who the offended party was, but many fans have speculated that a lawsuit was filed by the Jeep Corporation,[11][12][13] who manufacture a trademarked jeep soft top called "Sunrider."[14] Although this rumor has not been verified by any Lucasfilm employees, the existence of legal issues surrounding the use of the name has.[9][10] When the 2003 video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was in development, Vima Sunrider was slated to be one of its protagonists, but the legal issues prompted the development team to instead create a new character named Bastila Shan.[9][15] The game is set thirty years after the final story arc of Tales of the Jedi and references Nomi several times, but only once by her last name.[16] That instance was an oversight by the development team. They were also forbidden from using the name in the game's 2004 sequel, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.[9]
Presently, the legal issues continue to exist, but do not preclude the appearance of a Sunrider within Star Wars media, nor the use of the family name. The latter is permissible within the body of a text where it cannot be confused with any other trademarked product, but cannot be used in a book's title nor be attached to an action figure.[10] Nomi has been mentioned by her full name in several recent novels and sourcebooks,[17][18][19] and will star in a novel set to be released in 2011.[20]

Wookieepedia

Lisbon Innovation Forum 2010


The 4th EFQUEL Innovation Forum will take place in Lisbon, Portugal in collaboration with the Catholic University of Portugal (UCP) and the National Institute for Public Administration of Portugal (INA).

The Forum will start next week, on September 8th with a pre-conference day, followed by the main conference September 9-10, 2010.

The conference takes place in the Instituto Nacional de Administração (INA), situated in the gardens of the old Palace de Marqueses de Pombal in Oeiras, close to Lisbon, in Portugal. 


No dia 8 Setembro 2010 pode participar no Workshop 3Jogos Educativos e Recursos Educativos Digitais no Ensino: novos conceitos em contexto curricular para uma escola de sucesso…? “




G-Souto
04.09.2010
Copyright © 2010G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®