I spoke at the Mashable Connect Conference in Orlando, Florida, recently--you can check out my speech, and the accompanying article (which has already gotten hundreds of tweets, amazingly!) here: http://mashable.com/2012/05/10/millennials-social-media-adora-svitak/
Also while in Florida, I had the chance to meet Dave Finnigan, the legendary juggler (author of several books on the topic, and founder of a non-profit, "Juggling for Success," which teaches young people important life skills through juggling). He taught me how to juggle, a first for me, and we also discussed his new program, "Climate Change is Elementary"! It's an awesome non-profit which brings compelling, interactive education on the issue of climate change to elementary school students. One of my favorite things is that it really empowers students--to learn about something in an active way (the program doesn't use slides and a lecture, but rather interactive movement and modeling), and to become activists. I love this approach and encourage you all to check out the website: http://www.climatechangeiselementary.com/ and encourage your local schools to check it out! They're also hoping to partner soon with the Earth Island Institute, another great organization.
Furthermore, I finished my first AP tests this week--AP Art History (the hardest, and most epic one), AP English Literature and Composition (I thought it was going to be quite arduous when I started going through my massive stack of flashcards and saw words like "polysyndeton" and "epistrophe," but it was actually pretty manageable), and AP US History (my studying was a little last-minute, so I'm unsure, but I felt fairly good with most of the content). I feel like CollegeBoard makes way too much money off these exams--and is a little hyper active about test security--but I think it is cool that we high school students have an opportunity to get college credit, and do college-level work, in high school. Your thoughts on AP's and standardized testing?
Hope all you youth writers think of contributing to my writing blog, writewithadora.com, and the education reform discussion on The Student Union: facebook.com/groups/thestudentunion. See you all with some more posts in the summer! :) (or sooner)
Also while in Florida, I had the chance to meet Dave Finnigan, the legendary juggler (author of several books on the topic, and founder of a non-profit, "Juggling for Success," which teaches young people important life skills through juggling). He taught me how to juggle, a first for me, and we also discussed his new program, "Climate Change is Elementary"! It's an awesome non-profit which brings compelling, interactive education on the issue of climate change to elementary school students. One of my favorite things is that it really empowers students--to learn about something in an active way (the program doesn't use slides and a lecture, but rather interactive movement and modeling), and to become activists. I love this approach and encourage you all to check out the website: http://www.climatechangeiselementary.com/ and encourage your local schools to check it out! They're also hoping to partner soon with the Earth Island Institute, another great organization.
Furthermore, I finished my first AP tests this week--AP Art History (the hardest, and most epic one), AP English Literature and Composition (I thought it was going to be quite arduous when I started going through my massive stack of flashcards and saw words like "polysyndeton" and "epistrophe," but it was actually pretty manageable), and AP US History (my studying was a little last-minute, so I'm unsure, but I felt fairly good with most of the content). I feel like CollegeBoard makes way too much money off these exams--and is a little hyper active about test security--but I think it is cool that we high school students have an opportunity to get college credit, and do college-level work, in high school. Your thoughts on AP's and standardized testing?
Hope all you youth writers think of contributing to my writing blog, writewithadora.com, and the education reform discussion on The Student Union: facebook.com/groups/thestudentunion. See you all with some more posts in the summer! :) (or sooner)