My Hero Project

This is such a worthwhile project that I just had to share it. The My Hero project has been around for a number of years, and aims to "use media and technology to celebrate the best of humanity and to empower people of all ages to realize their own potential to effect positive change in the world."

The project is a great way to expose your learners to a range of inspirational people (and animals!) and the site is packed full of lesson plans and resources to get you started. If you are looking for a project that really makes a difference, this could be your answer regardless of your subject area or target age-group.

Learners can contribute short films, artwork or essays on the heroes of their choice so it lends itself to cross-curricular approaches and bonus...it's open to absolutely everyone from nursery to university and beyond. Teachers may well feel inspired to contribute themselves and that's all good. Below is one of the short films produced for the project to give you an idea of the moving stories involved.

247 Tales: Monthly Creative Writing Competitions

247Tales.com is a site that has a monthly writing competition with significant cash prizes. What makes this different is that the stories have to be 247 words or less, meaning the writing is not too onerous. With the topic undefined, your students will be allowed to let their creative juices flow. Requires a UK address for entries although (weirdly) international students can enter via that address. There are several prizes per month and often a reading accompanies the month's theme.

Integration:

• Motivate learners to write and edit their work to a very precise brief
• Challenge learners to submit a tale per month with a class leader board to track progress
• Provides a real audience for writing so learners can really think about tailoring their writing
• Comments feature means learners can leave feedback for each other on the site
• Use as a monthly assessment tool with learners checking their development against their learning goals