During these trying times of needing to stay six feet from others and social distancing, and staying home so as to not get the COVID-19 and possibly die, here are a few educational alternatives to turn to for the younger and older students among us. Let us use prudence and not congregate with and around others in place of going to work or school. Here are a few alternatives:
Another idea is to get The Virtue of Virtues in either soft cover $10.00 or eBook $3.99 and teach the seven lessons to your grade five to eight students the life-saving benefits of practicing the virtues. If this sounds like a good idea, here is the link:
https://www.iuniverse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/809142-the-virtue-of-virtues
Or this might be the perfect time for a read-a-loud book, MYSTERY OF THE STURBRIDGE KEYS, a fun way to learn history. Brie, a thirteen-year-old female is the protagonist of this book. She and her family: Grammy Rose, her mother, Sarah; aunt Cher, her eight-year-old brother Greg, and her cousins, Abby who is Brie’s age and her best friend, and Abe, her twin brother; visit Old Sturbridge Village. Half of them go around to all the buildings on the night of the Christmas By Candlelight celebration. Half of them stay in real time learning history from the people giving the talks, while the other half of the family with Brie, Abby, Grammy Rose and Cher go back into our real history, ancient history and pre-history to learn history first-hand. Brie even babysits Jesus up until the time he is two-years-old. Exciting adventures await inside this book!
MYSTERY OF THE STURBRIDGE KEYS IS AVAILABLE AT:
https://www.iuniverse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/747239-Mystery-of-the-Sturbridge-Keys
You can also check out this ADOBE Creative Cloud, an educational learning cloud:
In response to requests from educators, Adobe has announced that it will be providing free at-home access to Creative Cloud apps to those students who usually only have access on-campus. It’s one way the software maker is trying to empower students to keep learning amid campus closures caused by the novel coronavirus.
“With many schools facing physical campus closures and moving to online learning due to COVID-19, we’re announcing that we’re giving greater access to Adobe Creative Cloud desktop apps to facilitate distance learning,” reads the announcement. “We believe that doing so will make it possible to keep coursework, teamwork, and student progress on track through at-home access to Creative Cloud for students and educators.”
Higher education and K-12 institutions that pay for on-campus access for their students simply need to request “temporary ‘at-home’ access” through this link. Once verified, access will be granted, free of charge, through May 31st, 2020.
“As our education customers work to ensure both safety and learning continuity in their communities, it is our goal to help them with the tools they need to move through these uncertain times,” continues the post. “Our commitment to do so in a seamless way continues to be unwavering.”
The story of how this update came to be is almost as good as the news itself. RC Concepcion, a Professor at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, can be credited with helping to catalyze this change by simply… asking Adobe for help.
“We have been running around—as every other university—quickly coming up w an action plan to keep serving our students through COVID-19,” Concepcion tells PetaPixel. “Teaching communications, we rely a huge amount on Adobe Sofware—reporters, cinematographers , photographers, designers. It dawned on me that a lot of student access was here at school and that with any students at universities, there would be many that couldn’t afford using the software.”
So he got on Twitter and just asked. 5 minutes later, he received a response from Adobe VP of Creative Cloud Mala Sharma thanking him for connecting; 48 hours later, Adobe officially announced free at-home access for students.
“Adobe is a big company, but in my experiences with them they’ve always shown support in areas of community good. From helping out senior citizens on projects I’ve come up with, to supporting initiatives in teaching young students in Laos Southeast Asia – there’s never been a time where their response hasn’t been one of wanting to help,” says Concepcion.
“I’m proud that, in this effort, they shown that they can move quickly and do their part to help bring some normalcy and creativity to a special group of people in our community. Students.”
To learn more about this program and some of the other ways Adobe is trying to minimize the creative disruption caused by the virus, head over to the Adobe Blog or the Adobe Support site.
God Bless