Crazy idea or crazy smart?

gum on the ground by the Alamo

I have been watching a billion crime shows on Netflix over the past year or so. Mostly because many of the shows have lots of episodes, right now it is Bones. What those shows have taught me was that everything leaves trace evidence behind.

I was strolling by the Alamo and took the image above. Gum. I have noticed there is a lot of gum on the sidewalks. I wonder how much gold and silver could be harvested from that gum. There has to be trace amounts of precious medals in the gum, how might we mine it?

This reminds me of a time during my student teaching. A student exclaimed that ice cream was made of dirt. No one laughed or said anything, the room was quiet for a bit. Slowly others started to figure it out. His connection was that the grass grows in the dirt, cows eat the grass, people take the milk and turn that into ice cream, thus ice cream is made out of dirt. This connection was brilliant and helped the other kids think differently and take intellectual risks.

What does all this mean? Sometimes I jump too quick to dismiss a good idea. Sometimes I don't remain quiet like those first graders did. Ice cream is made from dirt and maybe, just maybe, we could mine the gum for precious medals. Maybe we don't have the technology to extract the gold today but I'm sure that is just around the corner.

This summer has brought some hard lessons, but one of the benefits has been slowing down and taking life one day at a time.

Comments

Like your ELMO but with an iPad (elementary classroom teachers)

I used AirServer to create the infinity mirror effect. We were in a meeting today and Dominic told us about this fantastic idea. As we discussed all things technology he explained one method of using the iPad as a portable ELMO. It was too cool not to share. Step 1 Make sure you have AirServer running on your laptop. 1. Click the Windows key on your keyboard or click the icon in the lower left of your screen. 2. Just start typing AirServer. 3. Click AirServer. Don't see it? Contact technology or your building tech person. Step 2 Connect your teacher iPad to your laptop. 1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Start by swiping in the bezel, the black plastic part surrounding the screen. 2. Click AirPlay Mirroring. 3. Click your name. Step 3 Open the camera app and instant portable ELMO! Anything you see in the camera's len will be broadcast to the big screen. I just used this method to take a picture of my notebook as a demonstration of how co

Who is emailing me? The Blue Man Group??? (Add an image to your Google account.)

WHY It is always nice to put a face with a name. Sometimes we need a tiny little reminder of what someone looks like because we don't see them very often. Follow these steps to add/change the image associated with your Google account. HOW Open your email. Click your image. It might just be a blue circle if you have not added something already. Click Change . Find an image you like. Your amazing new image will appear. From now on everyone can put a name to a face!

Annotate PDF? How might I do that?

So I have a PDF and I need to edit it. Here is one method that works pretty well for me. Open Word. Click File . 1. Click Open . 2. Click Browse . 3. Find the PDF you want to annotate. 4. Click Open . Click OK when you see this box. Bam! Your PDF now opens in Word. Note: you maybe have to click Enable Editing at the top of the screen. Finished editing and want to turn it back into a PDF? Click File . 1. Click Save As . 2. Click This PC . 3. Pick a location. I usually save things to my desktop. 4. Click Save as type - and choose PDF. 5. Click Save .

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