School’s out Friday

Aaahhh…. another joyous flash mob moment to lighten our hearts and remind us all that good exists in our world. This time, two schools joined together for a flash mob performance to deliver the message of acceptance in honour of International Anti-Bullying day. Very nicely done.

It’s the end of another busy week, one that saw our Year 7 students working on a wiki and embedding their Google My Map creations into it. They get it. They just need to be shown once, and off they go, ready to figure it out and make it work. It’s so confirming for me. Seeing them embrace the task (connected to their geography curriculum) and enjoying the work involved helps everyone to understand the need to adopt new technology and make it part of our school curriculum. When I canvassed the classes about how they and their family find their way to places it was overwhelmingly Google Maps and Navman GPS locators. No-one mentioned a paper street directory such as a Melways (a very Melbourne book of street maps). They really loved understanding Google My Maps and learning how to emded HTML code to enable pictures and video to appear. The following video from Google was really helpful, and even showed me a thiing or two I was unaware of.

This weekend I intend to spend a bit of time following the 21st Century Learning Conference from Hong Kong. The hashtag on Twitter, #21CLHK will help update me as to what’s happening. It’s not as good as being there, but it’s probably the next best thing. Already I’m gearing up to watch Stephen Heppell’s keynote, that has been loaded onto the conference site already. I can share it with you!

Have a great weekend. Get some sleep. It’s what I’m aiming for!

 

 

 

School’s out Friday

Late in my time zone, but still current in others!

I love the Christmas season. I’m a sucker for smarmy Christmas movies, decorated trees, houses lit to the nines, and a traditional Christmas Carol or two that can bring a tear to my eye. Handel‘s Hallelujah chorus can have that effect on me, and it’s performed to very good effect here in a very non-traditional food court. As with most flash mob efforts, what really captures my attention are the rapt expressions of the onlookers who delight in what is unfolding before them.

Another Flash Mob viewing this week was thanks to Modern Family. I am loving this series and it’s take on relationships within families. Take a look at their treatment of the phenomenom.

Hope it brought a smile your way and got your weekend off to a good start. Make the most of whatever delights the weekend brings. : )

* Thanks to Ann Oro for tweeting out a link to the Hallelujah Chorus flash mob.