Student Doodle for Google Contest 2020

Each year, Google hosts a contest for K-12 students to create a "Doodle" for their homepage. As Google describes them, "Doodles are the fun, surprising, and sometimes spontaneous changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists, pioneers, and scientists."  Today's doodle, for example, "celebrates avant-garde Chilean poet and writer Vicente Huidobro on his 127th birthday."

One of the most famous Google Doodles was a fully functional PacMan game

The theme for this year's student contest is "I show kindness by..." Interested students can enter by March 13th. All the information is at https://doodles.google.com/d4g

Return of the NPR Student Podcast challenge

As they did last year, NPR is hosting a student podcast challenge.  I know a lot of students are doing podcasts already (but this contest doesn't assume any previous experience).  It's a great opportunity to get student voices heard!

There's even a nice curriculum guide for teachers, complete with lesson plans and a guide for students.

Doodle for Google contest

Ever wonder where Google gets their "Doodles" (the graphics that play on the Google logo) from?  Well, sometimes it's from students.  Once a year, Google holds a contest for students in grades K-12.  This year's theme is  "When I grow up, I hope..."

Why not share this with your students and give them a shot?  There are categories for grade levels 8-9 and 10-12.  Their are great prizes, including college scholarships and a visit to Google headquarters.

Here's the info.

And here's a video about last year's winners.

And here's one of the cleverest Doodles of all time-- a playable PacMan game.

NPR Podcasting Challenge

National Public Radio is sponsoring a student podcasting challenge.  The contest opens on January 1st and goes through March.  If you've been thinking about a means of communication for students other than the written word and video, an audio podcast could be just the thing.
What might students create?

• An end of unit summary of learning
• An interview with a senior citizen about local history
• An explanation of a scientific concept
• A story about something at CVU
• etc., etc.

One nice thing about doing audio podcasts is that they are not as involved as a typical video project.  The whole thing can be done on a Chromebook.  They also focus on sound-- voice, ambient sounds, music, etc., which allows students to be creative in a different way.

I would love to work with you and your students on this.  Who's interested?

3d History Project/Contest

Here's a great opportunity I just saw on Twitter from an organization called 3D Vermont.  I've seen what students in Hartford, VT did with this and it's really impressive (see the video below).

In their words:

INTRODUCING THE TOWN HISTORY IN 3D COMPETITION

Hidden within the small valleys of Vermont are historical treasures - beautiful buildings with a past as rich as their architecture. Using the 3D modeling software Sketchup and 3D printing technology, the Town History in 3D Competition will bring Vermont historical buildings and their amazing past to life.

High School and middle school students from around the state will be challenged to work in teams to research and recreate 3D models of historical buildings in their area. In the process they will uncover and document the history of buildings and create a multimedia presentation to accompany their printed 3D models.

All completed models and their accompanying multimedia presentations will be entered into a statewide spring invitational showcase where they will be judged for their technical mastery, architectural accuracy and historical research and presentation.
More info is at  http://3dvermont.org/

Here's what Hartford did: