What would be on Einstein’s Facebook?
Dale Basler April 30th, 2008
March 14th was Albert Einstein’s birthday. I always like to do something Einstein related for the day. In the past, I’ve had students write short reports about his life but this year I decide to try something different.
I had my physics students describe Einstein by creating his Facebook profile. Since we can’t access Facebook at school, I had my students create a mock-up of the profile using Microsoft Publisher. I provide the students with a Publisher template, some screenshots of actual Facebook profiles and links to Einstein information to get them started.
I also provide the following requirements:
- interests, occupations, education and work information must be accurate
- make up some Groups and Networks that Einstein is in
- put 10 stories in his mini feed
- change his status
- add The Wall and put a few posts on it
- add two more things to his profile… something he would have in it for fun
Most of my students had fun with the activity and it was a way for them to bring a little bit of their recreational world into the classroom. Here is an example profile.
It turns out that this activity can work for objects too. Right now my ninth graders are creating profiles for the element they’ve been assigned. A few students even realized that their element (a noble gas) can’t have any friends.
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- Comments(2)
What a creative and engaging idea! I love it! I’m an English teacher and you’ve just inspired me to do the same for authors or characters in a novel. Did you just grab screenshots from your own Facebook and blank out all the info, leaving the frame for them?
Thanks for the idea, Dale!
Great idea! Thanks for sharing. I’m definitely using the idea next year to spice up the element reports my 8th grade students do.