End of the first week back at school for me this week and can’t believe how tired I am. This term looks set to be running at a fast pace from the get go with no likelihood of slowing down. Speech night next week, China for 18 days in two and a bit weeks, then return to correction and reports. Sounds busy just thinking about it!
I am looking forward to next Monday. That’s when we host the Australian cohort face to face meeting of Powerful Learning Practice. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson are visiting our school to introduce us to the concept and help us form connections in the learning community we are to become. I’ve been active in the ning that supports the project and am really enjoying getting to know the US counterparts via activities set up by Darren Kuropawta who is a driving force in our learning community.
But the weekend beckons first! Start it by watching the Human Slinky. Someone sent out a tweet to a video featuring this guy this week and I was mesmorised.
Beautiful weather in Melbourne coming our way this weekend and I intend to make the most of it. Enjoy whatever comes your way.
I saw this on Garr Reynold’s blog this week. This is Flight of the Conchords with their aptly titled piece, ‘Jenny’. Aptly titled in relation to this blog anyway! They’re from New Zealand, a close neighbour of us here in Australia. I love it – really appeals to my sense of humour.
School’s back for me next Monday and I’m kissing 42 goodbye tonight. New beginnings of a sort all round. Hope you have a great weekend.
Regular readers will have noticed that last week marked the first time I hadn’t posted School’s out Friday. And why not? I was out on the streets of Shanghai with Jabiz Raisdana and Brian Lockwood, soaking up all that life had to offer.
Matt is a 31-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.
A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said “Hey, why don’t you stand over there and do that dance. I’ll record it.” He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It’s actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.
A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on. Now Matt is quasi-famous as “That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny.”
The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride gum. They asked Matt if he’d be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they’d be paying for it. They said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.
I’m with Matt. If someone was going to pay me to fly around the world and record myself dancing in major cities and famous locations I think I’d take up the offer. The video above is Matt’s latest effort and involves others dancing with him, his earlier vids just involved him. I love the spirited sense of community that shines through this – people are people and dancing, laughter and good fun cross cultural boundaries.
Check out Garr Reynold’s post about Matt. That’s where I discovered him. Thirty million + people found him before me on YouTube. As the kid from Clarence Fisher’s class said; “You don’t have to be a rich old guy from New York to have a voice anymore”.
This week has been a killer for me. We’ve had all of our Year 7 students working on an inquiry week project project called ‘We’re making history at Toorak’. They interviewed old girls from the school and canvassed archival material to collate information for their digital story presentation. The students used flip cameras to record their interviews and used Windows Moviemaker to put the stories together. To say we encountered technical difficulties is an understatement. We didn’t just encounter them, they hit us in tsunami like proportion. Flip video files didn’t work in Moviemaker, we had to convert them and then we encountered difficulties with that. It was a very long three days to say the least.
Nonetheless, the students continued to impress me. Despite the difficulties they forged on and found ways to work around their problems. They didn’t let adversity get in the way and did their level best to get a digital story happening. My own daughter was one of these students. Her group had no video files that were useable and Moviemaker just wasn’t working on their computers. They reverted to Photo Story and used Audacity to capture the audio file of their interview. I was so proud of her determination to come up with a result despite the fact that she was not well and really shouldn’t have been at school today. I saw a side of my child that I hadn’t anticipated; a determined young woman with a strong resolve to do the best she could for the sake of her group. I couldn’t have been more proud.
Next week I’m attending Learning 2.008. I fly out on Wednesday for Shanghai. Right now, I’m totally exhausted and don’t know how I’m going to do everything that needs being done by next Tuesday afternoon. Big weekend ahead I’m guessing.
Next Friday is ‘Talk like a Pirate Day’. Here in Australia it’s a fundraiser for cancer research. A couple of Library staff at my school are going to be running the event from our Library. Maybe I’ll get something going at the Learning 2.008 conference – nothing like a bit of pirate talk to forge productive working relationships! Take a look at the ‘I’m a pirate’ song to help you get into the swing of things.
Friday again. Today was a wonderful day at our school. It was House Drama and Variety day, a day that is steeped in tradition and gives our students an opportunity to display their creative talents through drama and dance. It’s a highlight in the school calendar as far as I am concerned. Houses compete against one another and the students create a production that melds dance, comedy, some lip syncing, some hammy acting and most importantly, loads of fun. It does interrupt our curriculum, but it provides the connective experience that I think is vital for schools – it is a day they will all remember, long after they leave the place.
Wouldn’t it have been great if we had uploaded some of this wonderful creaative work to YouTube so the world could see how great they are and they could help to foster a positive digital footprint of themselves. Maybe next year….
So, because we can’t see Tripp house’s brilliant retelling of Peter Pan, we’re watching Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. This was broadcast on US television last night and is the first of a series of commercials to try and get the public to see Vista in a new light. It’s a bit obscure at the moment – as the series unfolds I’m sure the story will gel. I can see they are taking principles that Garr Reynolds would no doubt find interesting. They are relying on story and the connectedness that forms through this to imprint their message. Will be interesting to see how the story unfolds. (Just as an aside, apparantly Jerry was paid 10 million dollars to appear in the ads . Nice little earner!)
Enjoy your weekend. Spring is here in Melbourne and the air feels warmer. Ain’t life grand!
Had to revisit Hamish and Andy who took on the Olympic city of Beijing to take the sport of Ghosting to a new level – Forbidden Ghosting in the Forbidden City! Funny guys, and game ones at that, without a doubt.
For those of you wondering howSheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s visit to my school went yesterday, it was great. I’ll write about it tomorrow when it’s not one o’clock in the morning and I’m not sitting at my laptop with a glazed expression that reeks of too much to do, too little time and too little sleep!
Nearly spring! (Or Autumn/Fall for all you Northern Hemisphere folk) Enjoy the weekend.
Friday again already! Hope your week has been a good one. Time to revist the improveverywhere team and see what Charlie Todd has been up to. This is their latest effort. Using the subway system (a favourite location of theirs) they managed to get 15 sets of identical twins to form a human mirror on a train. Watch the quizzical expressions from the unsuspecting passengers as they look from one side of the train of the other and try and fathom what is going on.
Charlie Todd, in my book, you are a superstar. I so look forward to seeing what you will come up with next. You and your team of voluntary improvisors lift my spirits. A real tonic for the weekend. Enjoy.
How quickly does the weekend come around huh? (And how quickly does it go!!!) This is a recommendation from a student of mine for this week’s School’s out Friday. It’s the Discovery Channel’s ad called Boom de ah dah. It’s a lot of fun. I love the fact that my students want to share their good finds with me. Saves me a lot of time looking and I really appreciate it. On YouTube the Discovery Channel are looking for people to create their own video response to this ad. Here’s one of the efforts that have been made by the public. It’s a couple of inventive kids with a trebuchet – they could cause a lot of damage if let loose with this!
So hard to choose this week because I’ve had two suggestions from my students for this week’s dose of School’s out Friday. I love it that the kids I teach want to be involved in the process. They love the School’s out Friday post and often ask if they can watch them in class. I have them during last lesson on a Friday so as a treat they sometimes get to watch the previous week’s post just before leaving school for the weekend.
Can’t disappoint them so there are two funny vids this week. The first is a quickie – a mother panda who gets a shock from her newborn’s sneeze – guaranteed to put a smile on you face. The second is two Australian comics, Lano and Woodley, who did a farewell tour when they decided to part company. This is Frank Woodley and his song explaining the origins of everything including their meeting, career togehter and decision to part. And all in one and a half minutes!
Yes, it’s time for School’s out Friday. Thought I’d check out what ImprovEverywhere have been up to. This is them making the day of a little league baseball team, by turning their game into a major league event. The players, coaches and parents were in the dark about what had been planned for the day. I love it when the Goodyear blimp comes into view. What a great day for those kids! Like one of the coaches says, the rest of the season was going to be a letdown after this. Love it.
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