For Hindus, Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. Diwali or Divali is a contraction of the Sanskrit word Deepavali, that means “row of lamps”. Small clay lamps filled with oil are lighted to signify the triumph of good over evil. These lamps remain lit through the night and houses are cleaned to welcome the goddess Lakshmi. Firecrackers are burst to drive away evil spirits. During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes, and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends. Diwali.

In some regions of the Indian subcontinent, is considered to be the celebration of the marriage of Lakshmi with Lord Vishnu. In the eastern state of Bengal the festival is dedicated to the worship of Mother Kali, the dark goddess of strength. Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed God, the symbol of auspiciousness and wisdom, is worshiped in most Hindu homes on this day. For Jains, Deepavali has an added significance to the event of Lord Mahavira attaining nirvana. Diwali also commemorates the return of Lord Rama along with Sita, his wife and Lakshman, his loyal brother, after a fourteen-year exile. In joyous celebration of the return of their king, the people lit up the kingdom with earthen diyas (oil lamps) and burst crackers.

Dance

Click here to download a pdf of Manju’s Diwali dance lesson.

To hear Manju’s pronunciation, click here.

To view a performance by the Berkshire-Hudson Valley chapter, click here.

The post Lesson: Diwali Dance first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Access Session Notes Anytime and Anywhere!

Evernote is a Note Tracking Tool that can be either web based or synced across devices. It allows for organization, sharing and collaborative editing of information. Evernote is available as a free application, but it is the paid versions that actually enables full functionality especially in making information available and editable offline across devices.

The online user interface maybe intuitive to those familiar with applications like Word and Google Drive. The mobile and desktop versions are very similar.

Desktop Image

One of the most efficient ways to use Evernote is to organize Notes into Notebooks. These could be shared with other people using Workchat or Share. They can view or edit depending on the sharing settings. Evernote assigns each user a customized email address that will be found in the Account Settings. This will appear as Email Notes to…. If an email from a regular email address is forwarded to this, it will appear as a New Note in the most recently used Notebook unless the Default has been set to another Notebook.

Attaching and Annotating PDFs and Web Clips

If all the conference notes from AOSA 2016 were to be organized in one place, then a Notebook AOSA 16 could be created. The AOSA website could be accessed and the Web Clip tool used to Save the page in a Note.

A Note could be created for each session attended, then either by using the Web Clipper the PDF of one particular session could be attached to the Notebook, or the hard copy of the handouts could be scanned in.

The PDF version of the notes available on the AOSA website could be downloaded and attached to the Note using the paperclip icon or simply dragging the file into the Evernote Note, or using the web clipper on the session note’s page, the notes could be saved into the Notebook.

Adding Tags is a good way to ensure these notes are searchable.

It is also possible to annotate the notes in the session itself using the Web Clipper, or using the app. Text, arrows, highlights can be inserted.

For e.g.

An additional feature is the video and audio option that would allow for audio and/video recording.

Notes can be moved to and from other Notebooks on all devices. On Mobile Devices, Evernote camera can be used to snap photos of whiteboards and handouts. Evernote runs images through a character-recognition process that makes handwritten words searchable.

These pictures can be brought into Evernote as images or documents. These will appear as new notes. Selecting multiple notes and right clicking allows for the Merge feature to appear.

Evernote also has a Presentation Mode that allows Notes to be presented as slides.

Evernote can be a great organizational tool. It is user friendly, but like most apps one needs to play around with it to find how to optimize and customize it.

Click here to download a pdf version of this article.

The post How to Use EVERNOTE to Organize Session Notes first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

“Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins.  And it’s up to you to make that  happen.  Empathy is a quality of character that can  change the world.” – Barack Obama

The post Movement Lesson: Building Empathy first appeared on Teaching With Orff.