Food fight

Although we eschew warfare as a means resolving differences, this video, which “is an abridged history of American-centric war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict”, provides a fascinating perspective on the world. It comes from the Food Fight website.

The key to the different food characters will probably be useful for those less familiar with American history. Watching it without the key might also be useful if you’re interested in discussing metaphors, which should become extremely obvious when you get to the World Trade Centers.

I’m really curious too see how the mini-demographic groups respond to this video. I can predict that some of the more video game (FPS) infatuated students will love this. But how will my more food oriented students react?

The future of SketchUp

World Builder from BranitVFX on Vimeo.

Google’s SketchUp software is a great way to work on, and test, higher level geometry skills. This video is a well made, poignant introduction to what software like SketchUp could one day become. It has excellent story development, and has produced a great response from my students.

Choose your own adventure on a Wiki

I was listening to an On The Media interview of Bob Stein on the future of books and started to think about how to use collaborative writing in my class. Since we use our wiki allot (for practically everything), it occurred to me that the wiki is the ideal platform for students to write a choose-your-own-adventure.pngchoose-your-own-adventure type story. A quick web search there is already a choose your own adventure website/wiki that is set up just for this.

The way I envision it working in my class is that each student would write a section/chapter and end with a set of choices which would be links to new chapters. To make it interesting and more collaborative, very time students had to add to the story they would have to start from another student’s decision.

I really can’t wait to try this. I think I’ll make a new section of the story a weekly writing assignment.