Tag: Reddit

Posted on

School’s out Friday

Sir Fedora, you’ve won my heart. How does a young kid post a video hoping to get one like, and then end up amassing close to one million views in the space of a few days? Well, making it to the front page of Reddit and having that community vote your video up is one way to do it. The video above is the follow up to this young boy’s initial posting, where he thanks the YouTube community for giving one like to that initial offering.

His reaction reminds me of the morning after I’d made my first post on this blog. I woke up to find two comments had been left by people whose blogs I read. If I’d had a video recording my amazement, you would have seen a similar reaction to that of Sir Fedora.

Perhaps we as educators need to take note of the power of publishing in public spaces. I’m betting Sir Fedora is motivated beyond measure to continue to grow his audience and develop content. The challenge he will face is realising that it’s going to be incredibly tough trumping the explosive first week he has just experienced launching his YouTube channel. Let’s face it, not many people find themselves remixed to honour their efforts!

Off to bed for me. It’s been beyond huge at school this week. I’ll try and tell you all about it in a post this weekend. Enjoy your two days off. Sleep in, seek out friends, soak it all up.  🙂

 

Posted on

School’s out Friday

Now I know some of you might be looking for some high brow thoughtful video that might cause you to involuntarily smirk with appreciation at the wit being shared, but I’m here to disappoint you tonight.

Instead, you need to delight in the presence of Grumpy Cat.

grumpy cat

Yesterday was Grumpy Cat’s first birthday. Last September, the 12th to be exact, her owner’s brother posted photos of ‘Tard’ to Reddit (see above – hard to miss!), where they were up-voted by the Reddit community more that 25,000 times in the first 24 hours. How do I know this? I know this because I know about ‘Know your Meme‘, a site that tracks Memes that are shared across the Internet. The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines a Meme as the following:

 an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture

Believe you me, if you know your Memes, you have hit an entry point into the lives of the students you teach and you just might find yourself able to converse in their language and maybe even improve the teacher/student relationship in the process. Knowing the Memes that are out there has improved the relationship between myself and my children. We’re often laughing together uncontrollably while my husband looks on in confusion. That’s a power position to be in my friends. Take my advice – read ‘Know your Meme‘ on a regular basis.

In the meantime, delight in the presence of Grumpy Cat. I’m tempted to order a Grumpy Cat coffee mug, so I can smile at work every time I look at it.

Have a great weekend. Beautiful weather forecast for Melbourne. I’m intending to make the most of it. I hope you do too, wherever you are and whatever the forecast is. 🙂

Posted on

School’s out Friday

As part of the the follow up to the Project Based Learning task my Year 10 class have just completed, we reviewed the identified 10 skills for the future workplace as identified in the Future Work Skills- 2020 report. In the course of our discussion, we talked about the use of robot seals in Nursing Homes in Japan and the possible impact robot technology would have on jobs that are currently performed by human beings right now. Tonight I came across the video featured above on Reddit. It’s further proof that robot technology is powering along and will have an impact on the way we live our lives. After a big week at work, I wouldn’t mind a few Swarm Robots cooperating with an AR Drone to perform some household tasks for me and free my weekends up for the finer things in life!

Early to bed for me. I stayed up very late last night writing a post for the ABC Splash site and my eyes can take no more.

Enjoy your weekend. Find some sun. Maybe some good wine too. I’m hoping to. 🙂

Posted on

School’s out Friday

I’d never heard of Henry Rollins until this week. I was on a plane flying to Sydney, and there was an article in the in-flight magazine where he discussed his life. Then tonight, I was searching around for a School’s out Friday post, and on the front page of Reddit was a link to the above video. I like the message, and think it might be useful to use as a starter for my Year 10 class in one of our lessons next week. I hope they pay close attention to the examples used in the latter stage of the video, and note that they are all men. Considering the message was for, ‘Young people’ and not specifically, ‘Young men’, it would have been good to find a couple of female role models to add to the mix.

Big week, and tired eyes are testament to that. I’m off to a Bell Shakespeare professional development day tomorrow where we’ll be exploring ways to teach Romeo and Juliet. You know, that seemed like a great idea when a couple of my colleagues and I discussed it a few weeks ago, but right now, it’s not exactly holding great appeal. I have no doubt it will be incredibly useful, and I’ll probably be really glad I went around this time tomorrow night. Just right now though, a good long sleep-in holds more appeal!

I hope you’re able to avail yourself of that sleep-in tomorrow. I’ll be envious! Enjoy your weekend. 🙂

Posted on

School’s out Friday

I tried to catch some of the TEDxOntarioEd event last weekend, but got there just as they were going off air. What was playing was this TED Talk, recorded at TEDIndia in December 2009. It’s Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit, a social-voting news website. This is the story of Mr. Splashy Pants, and how the Reddit community helped to make him a Greenpeace marketing asset. It’s a wonderful, fast paced and funny insight into how social media works. I defy you not to smile as you’re watching.

Enjoy your weekend. I’ll be contemplating the future of my Ning networks (!) and thinking about the classes that begin in Students 2.0 next Wednesday evening. I’ll also be planning for the SLAV Shared Learning Conference at Etihad Stadium next Monday where I’ll be delivering a presentation about Cybersafety.

Rest up.