Tag: Did you ever wonder?

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Skype to the rescue.

Launch day for Project Global Cooling.

Was I nervous?

Yes.

Did I fear a breakdown of Technology?

Yes.  

Was all the worry warranted?

No!

Pleased to report all was successful. Bill Farren’s video ‘Did you ever wonder?‘ set the scene and got our student’s thinking. Our Skype calls worked, a bit of break up but nothing drastic. Chris, a teacher from Lindsea’s school Skyped in as well on a webcam – the kids loved seeing him – you could see they were impressed with what was happening. Clay Burell joined us along with Patrick from his school. Lindsea then joined us with a webcam and you could sense the instant recognition from our students – they connected with her Skyping from her bedroom. Some students asked questions – Lindsea could see them thanks to my fantastic AV guy who went out of his way today to make all of this work. Thought we might be losing them towards the end but was surprised by the interest coming my way from the kids who can’t make our follow up meeting tomorrow. 

Left today feeling energised and positive about tomorrow. Can’t wait to see where the meeting will take us. Our kids were expressing their frustration today with adults who talk about making changes to improve sustainability but then nothing happens. Today we’ve given them an opportunity to make change – I hope they rise to the challenge. 

Just finished listening to and participating in the backchannel of Jeff Utecht’s SOS podcast (even if I couldn’t figure out how to change my Ustream number to my name, despite another listener trying to help me. I am still new to all this stuff!).  Really interesting discussion about how we connect. Recommend that you listen to the podcast when he posts it. 

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Did you ever wonder? Did you know with an environmental edge.

Thanks to Clay Burrell at Beyond School for the alert to this video. Just as ‘Did you know?’  became a viral video with an enormous viewing audience, the hope is that ‘Did you ever wonder?’ will reach similar viral proportions. The video was created by Bill Warren from ed4wb.org (education for well-being). On his about page Bill says, “Education For Well-being was started as a response to what is happening (and not happening) in schools today. There needs to be a rethinking of the purpose of education–one that moves away from students as support systems for economies–to one that moves toward education as an instrument of well-being…………Ed4Wb seeks to foster, through the collaborative nature of the Web, the notion that education should help improve our ability to live well, not degrade it.”

The video highlights the notion that we need to be conscious of our responsibility to educate our students that the focus shouldn’t be on economic growth to the detriment of sustainability of earth’s resources; resources being people and the environment. It’s a good message and one that would compliment studies of Globalisation and Global Warming in our schools today.

Thanks Bill for creating another useful tool that can be used as the springboard for lively discussions in our classrooms.