Sliced Image and Steel Nut Sculptures by Park Chan-girl

 

Korean sculptor Park Chan-girl constructs metal sculptures from thin metal layers he calls “sliced images” that resemble three dimensional topography charts. He also meticulously welds thousands of small steel nuts into a delicately textured skin, moulding it into human and animal forms. He received his BFA in Sculpture from Chungnam National University and his MFA in Fine Arts from KyungHee University and has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Korea and China. (via mu-um)

Discovering the World's News in Pictures

One of my favorite features on the BBC New website is the Day in  the Day in Pictures. The Day in Pictures displays a small collection of photographs from around the world. The pictures capture a mix of  serious news stories and lighter cultural stories. The Day in Pictures collections are part of a much larger resource from the BBC simply called In Pictures. The In Pictures resource provides hundreds of images in a variety collections and slideshows about current events throughout the world. Some of the slide shows even include narration. All of the images include captions explaining what is happening in the picture and a little background knowledge about the event being photographed.

Applications for Education
the Day in Pictures pictures as conversation starters for current events discussions in my Global Studies classes. The collections are also great supplementary material for students to use in presentations about current events. For visual learners the images from the In Pictures collections are helpful for providing visual connections to and context for a story.

We The Jury - A Game About Being a Juror

iCivics has just released its seventeenth educational game for students. The new game is called We The Jury. We The Jury puts students in the role of a juror for two trials.

In We The Jury students choose to be one of six jurors at a trial. Students then hear the facts of the case, hear closing arguments from the plaintiff and the defendant, and then go off to deliberate in the jury room. Students can deliberate for up to five days before handing down the verdict. During deliberations students examine evidence, listen to the opinions of other jurors, and try to reach a unanimous decision.

Throughout the process students are reminded of the roles of jurors and to stick to only the evidence and arguments permitted by the judge.
Students who register for a free iCivics account can pause the game and come back to it at a later time. Click here for a list of all of the games offered by iCivics. 

Applications for Education
Playing We The Jury could be a great way for students to learn about what happens behind closed doors when a jury goes out to deliberate. All of the other iCivics games have curriculum units connected to them. We The Jury does not have a curriculum unit connected to it yet, but I bet that it will in the near future. 

Dan Webb_A Seattle sculptor cuts to the core of desire in spectacular wood carvings

http://www.seattlemag.com/gallery/dan-webbs-chiseled-features

A Digital Citizenship Guide from Edmodo and Common Sense Media

Edmodo and Common Sense Media have partnered to create a digital citizenship starter kit. This seven page PDF contains a three part lesson on digital citizenship. At the completion of the lesson you can have your students take and sign the digital citizenship. The pledge highlights some of the key parts of being a responsible digital citizen. You can see the pledge sheet below.

Common Curriculum Helps You Create Common Core Lesson Plans

Common Curriculum is a new online lesson planning resource that aims to help you align your lessons to Common Core standards. In Common Curriculum you can enter your courses and write your lesson plans. After you enter a lesson plan into your Common Curriculum planner you can click "search for standard" to have Common Curriculum search for Common Core standards that might match your lesson plan. The more text that you include in your lesson plan the more likely Common Curriculum is to find Common Core standards that match your lesson plans.

Beyond the standards search, Common Curriculum has a couple of helpful tools for you. If your lessons tend to follow a particular pattern you can create a lesson plan template that you reuse across your schedule. If you don't have a blog or aren't consistently using a blog to publish information about your courses, Common Curriculum has you covered. Each lesson plan that you write in Common Curriculum can be published to a blog with just one click.