and Reality Check
. We also watched a couple of YouTube videos of Guy Kawasaki explaining his 10-20-30 rule for presenters.
Social Media is the current buzz phrase of business and the online world. TEDxNYED was organized around the idea of social media and new media's role in education. But, what does the term "social media" really mean? Say It Visually has an answer for you, check it out in the video below.
You Are Here is a virtual shopping mall created by the FTC. The purpose of You Are Here is to share information with middle school students about business practices, advertising, identity theft, and general consumer education. The You Are Here virtual mall is divided into four sections that students can walk through. Each section of the mall is addresses a different set of topics. The teachers' section of You Are Here offers four lesson plans for each of the four sections of the virtual mall.
Common Craft has released a new video titled Stock Markets in Plain English. As always, Common Craft has taken a potentially confusing topic and boiled it down into clear, easy-to-understand terms. Stock Markets in Plain English begins with a clear explanation of the differences between a private company and a public company. The video moves on to explain how people can make or lose money in the market. Stock Markets in Plain English concludes with an explanation of the Dow Jones and the S&P 500.
BizKids is a series of thirty-nine videos and lessons designed to teach kids about business and personal finances. Each episode tackles a different topic ranging from "what is money?" to "understanding income and expenses" to "the green economy." Every episode is accompanied by detailed lesson plans for teachers to use in junction with a classroom viewing of the video. All of the lesson plans are published as pdf files.
The New York Times has tons of great content everyday, but trying to sort through even a portion of it can be very time consuming. The New York Times now has a new way for readers to browse its content. The New York Times Article Skimmer is a grid of headlines and article stubs that enables you to quickly skim many articles from your choice of sixteen article categories.
Jeffery Hill who writes The English Blog shared a good resource that elementary and middle school teachers might find useful when introducing basic economic concepts. On the Scholastic website is a Kid's Economic Glossary that explains some basic banking and investing concepts in terms that upper elementary and middle school students can understand.
Piqqem is a new, free website that asks visitors to make predictions about individual stocks and indices. Predictions are made on a simple five point scale. There are wikis and timelines that provide users with some information the stocks and indices.
BizEd is a great resource for economics lessons and virtual field trips. I started using BizEd a few years ago and it has been a valuable resource to me ever since. BizEd is a UK based website so some of the lessons and activities have to be manipulated a little bit for use in US classrooms, but the overall value of activities is fantastic. Some of the highlights for teachers are frequently updated lesson plans, a comprehensive glossary of terms, slide shows available for download, and fantastic virtual field trips. BizEd even has an RSS feed that provides subscribers to updates in the lesson plans, activities, and reference section of BizEd.
One of the most memorable assignments I had in middle school was to invent a product and "sell" it to my peers at a "trade show" in the school cafeteria. The project incorporated learning about costs of production and learning about marketing and presentation methods. (It was also extremely nerve-wracking for a shy kid). The project was a group effort in which we each had different roles.
