Couldn’t resist. Today was the last day for students from my school. They have now headed off for the holiday and Christmas break. I had a wonderful Yr 7 group who I am going to miss- they really gave me a lot of joy this year.
So this video from YouTube is for them because I know this is something they would enjoy. Have a great weekend. I intend to!
That’s it. I’m never complaining again. Imagine having to do this everyday when you went to work!!
He does have some incredible skill. It reminds me of my recent time in China. One of the things I liked to do was to watch the people riding bikes with the most unbelievable loads attached. Made you very thankful for the life you lead.
Thanks to Paul (a parent from the school I teach at) for alerting me to this video.
I think I am almost free of reports! Should mean a good weekend ahead. Enjoy yours.
I loved Star Wars when I was a kid. I will never forget being 13, sitting in a cinema and seeing that Star Cruiser pan across the screen. It was truly an amazing special effect at the time. I was hooked and returned to the cinema on a further two occasions to take my fill of Luke Skywalker‘s story. Part of the special experience that was Star Wars was John William’s soundtrack. I even purchased the album. I lived Star Wars for a period of my early adolescence!
That’s why I love this a capella effort. It’s a tribute to Star Wars and to John Williams. Another thing I enjoyed growing up in this era were the musical soundtracks John Williams created for classic films like ‘Jaws’, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind‘ and ‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark‘. They all feature here. Clever lad who created this. I think he may have breached copyright somewhere because his original upload to YouTube is no longer available for viewing. I had to revert to someone else’s upload of his work. I found it after someone put out a tweet about it on Twitter earlier this week. Sorry, I can’t remember who it was to give them credit.
I face a weekend full of correction and report writing. Lucky me. Hope you are doing something great. I’ll be thinking of you!
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Well, I’m finally home from my 18 day tour of China with the students from my school. Another great experience. Not only great because I had the opportunity to immerse myself in another culture, but great because I had the opportunity to see the students in a different light. When you essentially live with one another for an extended period of time, you forge lasting links. That’s special and something that I value.
One of the linking experiences we had in China was our shared amusement over signage. Despite the best efforts of the English Language teacher in the above video in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese just can’t seem to get it entirely right at times. Now don’t get me wrong, I have a deep respect for the Chinese people. They are friendly, engaging people who work very hard in trying conditions. You would think, however, that there were some fluent, english speaking people in the country who could vet the signs before they were displayed prominently or etched into concrete. One of our students took nearly 2000 photos. There would have to be 100 or so that are signs displaying English translation that cause much mirth.
My amusement was heightened because I was reading David Sedaris’ latest compilation of essays throughout the trip, ‘When You Are Engulfed In Flames‘. If you’ve never read anything by David Sedaris then you really need to treat yourself and get a hold of one of his books. He writes about the ordinary and not so ordinary things in life and his observations are often laugh out loud funny. In this book he describes his experiences in Japan and he makes comment about English signage there. Very close to our observations I may add as we would pass yet another highway sign reading ‘Do not follow clowsly other drivers’.
Have a great weekend. Recovery is on my agenda before the start of the next week and my return to the demands of classes, correction and running the Library.
Thank God for Hamish and Andy. Sometimes it’s really hard to source a School’s out Friday post, but not when Hamish and Andy are around to provide good fodder. This time they are indulging in the good old Australian tradition of knick knocking. This involves going around and knocking on people’s windows or doors and hiding before you are detected. They’ve added a twist. This time they have a bag over their head when they knock on the door and have only three steps to take to hide. The results are typical Hamish and Andy.
I’ve got a weekend of hard work before I head off to China very early Tuesday morning for 18 days with students from my school. I really don’t know how I’m going to get everything done but I’m going to give it a red hot go. Hope your weekend is nowhere near as busy!!
Yes, I know it is Saturday. Got a bit behind myself this week due to heaps of commitments. We had the Powerful Learning Practice launch on Monday and my school’s Speech Night last night. I organise all the prizes for that so I was quite literally run off my feet this week.
A funny accidents video this week. Thought I’d go with this because it reminds me of my effort on Monday at our Powerful Learning Practice launch. I sat down only to discover my seat had flipped up and I landed on the floor. Caused much mirth and Dean Groom saw fit on Twitter to nominate the day as ‘Jenny Luca funniest Librarian day’. I could only agree.
Weather is gorgeous in Melbourne, friends are coming over for a barbie tonight, life is good. Hope the same goes for you. Enjoy your weekend.
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.
This week’s School’s out Friday highlights someone who soaks up all life has to offer. Matt Harding says this about himself on his website;
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”.
Hope you have a great weekend. I intend to!
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.
Lucacept - intercepting the Web 