Hello. Welcome. Below are some Web links and a few ideas for activities. Click on the ones that interest you. Chat with a friend about what you see and think.
1. Blue Poles is the most famous painting at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Look at a picture of it. Then go to Jackson Pollock.org and try clicking around. Discuss one of these questions: “How come my creation is disposable and Pollock’s are worth tens of millions?” or “What is the point of ‘action painting’?”
2. Pick a topic you’re interested in (really!) and then see what each of the three online encyclopedia have to say about it: Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia, and the Simple English Wikipedia. Could you contribute new information in the last one? Write out your contribution in the Task below.
3. What does it mean by “The World is Flat” (see the BBC article), then see about the Miniature Earth. What does either of these sites make you think about your place in the world?
4. Take this online quiz about the Internet and see how many right answers you get.
5. Write a message in SMS speak or translate this famous document:
dad@hvn,
urspshl.
we want wot u want
&urth2b like hvn
giv us food Give us food
&4giv r sins
lyk we 4giv uvaz.
don’t test us!
save us!
bcos we kno ur boss
ur tuf
&ur cool 4 eva!
ok?
Task – Thanks for trying out these links and questions. Please write me a two page letter about things you saw or thought about from this activity. Include your ideas or feelings from the presentation and the response from one of the questions above. Only write the letter in binary code if you send it digitally! Optional extra – in your lesson book, draw a cool picture that shows you in ten years time with all the gadgets pointed to with arrows and explained (see an example).
Hey Tom
I follow your blog with interest and have been meaning to leave a comment for a while. I even have a draft blog on my blog about your blog that I just haven’t gotten around to posting yet. Perhaps this will be the impetus to do it. But really I just wanted to say that I’m keen to try your Year 5 Intro to the web with my Year 7 students next term. Have you tried it with the kids yet? How did you approach it? What sort of discussion did you have before and after?
I’m thinking I might try it with them straight after the Vict holidays which finish in a week or so.
hope all is well
Anne
Hi Anne,
Nice to hear from you. The kids really liked the Jackson Pollock site and doing the future version of themselves. This followed on from a mini “keynote” I presented that you would probably be familiar with that focused on “The New WWW – Whatever, Whenever, Wherever.”
All the best and enjoy the hols,
Tom —
Hi there, the large painting you are linking to is not “Blue Poles”. I’ve been trying to find the name of it, but my search has yielded nothing. Could you help me out? Thanks.