PowerPoint Presentations... again

50 People, 1 Question: Secrets

Sometimes it's easier to talk about our inner feelings with strangers. This is a wonderful film, beautiful both visually and in meaning. It makes us realize how brave, fragile, sad, happy and interesting we all are.

PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God from Frank Warren on Vimeo.

Human rights

What happens in this world is the responsability of all of us. We should all feel guilty when human rights are violated and we let it happen, pretending that we have nothing to do with it.

Mind opener video

Seeing South Africa from a different perspective...

We still have a lot to learn and to evolve.

Typography, by Ronnie Bruce (poem by Taylor Mali)

Working with words: a great poem with a beautiful video.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

What teachers do? Taylor Mali

Being a teacher isn't easy. Sometimes the best way to deal with adversities is humour.

Jamie Oliver

Healthy eating should be one of our main concerns but most of us only want something pre-pared tasty and fast. We are raising obese unhealthy kids that don't have any idea of how to eat healthy food or how to cook healthy meals and we are putting their future at risk. Jamie Oliver's presentation may be the turning point. Listen to the chef!

English Mania

Size Matters - The Impossible Hamster

A what if...? video that makes you think about what we are doing to our planet.

English - the new disease?

This is a fantastic performance by Disrzaeli about the English language.

Killing Us Softly - Adverting and Gender

The way advertising represents women is not innocent. That's what Jean Kilbourne shows us in the documentary Killing Us Softly 3.

Advertisements portray women as passive, fragile and dehumanized, directly or indirectly considering them as inferior, objectifying and silencing silencing them and normalizing sexism and violence against women. You can find more information about the documentary here.

Open your eyes!

"The Internet Overdose Song", by Rhett and Link

We spend so much time using the Internet that this may be the result. This is a song by the wonder "internetainer" duo Rhett and Link. Enjoy! And think...

Merry Christmas!

"Don't Shoot Me Santa" is a song by the Killers. It was released in November 2007 . A portion of the proceeds from this song went to AIDS charities as part of the (RED) campaign, headed by Bono and Bobby Shriver. Unfortunately, it was impossible to embed the official video, but you can find it here.

Poetry in Action

Poetry is great! There is a lot of things we can do with it in class. It's great when we get into it and make it our poetry, too. I decided to take the poem "Train Passing", by Roger Stevens, and make it into a video. It's one of my first experiments in the area, so don't expect too much of it. But it was fun, making it and I managed to transmit my view of the poem. Here are some examples of poems that can also tickle your creative side.

Music Generations

This is a selection of representative songs from each decade, from the 1950s up to the 2000s. This was an idea that ocurred to me and my friend Luisa Oliveira, while planning a 10th grade class about different generations to motivate the students. We had two activities about the audio file: the first was for students to identify the decade when the song was released; the second was a matching activity and they had to identify the singer/band and the song title.

Here's the audio file:

And here you can find the worksheet and the playlist.

Spoken Word: Francesca Beard

"Fluffy Song", by Francesca Beard

Wacky Web Tales

This site is very interesting for younger students to develop their creativity and to make writing interesting and fun. Try it! It's addictive!

The Fun Theory: Creativity can really change the world!

Not another Powerpoint presentation...

Everybody is using them, but are they really serving our purposes?
This video gives students precious hints on how to make the most of this resource, by producing both motivating and effective presentations.

And, please,"stop putting us asleep"!

Games 'R' US

This page really makes learning vocabulary fun!