Thursday, February 25, 2010

Facebook in the classroom





I'm sure you all experienced having students using computers in class and many of them are sometimes off task and on Facebook. Last week I actually encouraged my students to go to Facebook. We have started a project to ban plastic bag around Thailand. At the moment we have over 7000 members on Facebook. That Saturday we were hosting our first event, V-Day, to ban plastic bags. Villa supermarket agreed to ban all plastic bags from Feb 20th onward. Students were helping me with this project from the beginning and in class they went to Facebook and invited all their friends to attend, changed their status to promote V-Day and also contributed to the Ban Plastic Bags wall. It actually helped because I noticed numbers went up a significant amount that night.

Our goal was to have at least 500 supporters show up and shop. In the end we had 1397 supporters, almost tripling our goal. This method of consumers helping business make change is from a new organization called Carrotmob. I recently started the 1st Carrotmob in Asia. We are the Bangkok Carrotmob. The event was a huge success. Villa has now banned the bags, the owner wants to expand the project, students were highly involved in the process and technology was used throughout in the form of social networking and blogs.


Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Phones in PE



You won't believe this but I actually started writing this blog during my PE class. Sounds like I am not doing my job, but I am. Kids all have cell phones here, and we constantly tell them not to bring it to PE. Well, today I told them to get their phones because we need the camera on the phone. We are doing photo orienteering. I just put the kids into teams of 3 with a map, phone/camera, photo cards and other needed orienteering materials. They are in a race to find different locations around the campus that are all outlined on their map. Once there they have to take a photo that matches the photo on their photo card.
As I speak groups are racing past me frantically looking for a mark in this area. This is a part of the Outdoor Ed course that we are developing for grade 7. There isn't a technology focus, but in this case it fits nicely.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

My Big Prez

Ok, so this is not the assignment I am supposed to do, but it certainly is integrating technology and making a difference in the world (even if it is within guarded walls at the moment).

This is a presentation I gave today in the Chevron theater to inform people about my cause of banning plastic bags in Thailand. Surprisingly the theater was full, so 500+ I think. The presentation explains in 5 chapters what we are trying to accomplish. I don't want to give anymore away, but I think it is certainly worth watching. Since this is a Tech class, those of you who like the presentation technology can find it at PREZI.