Tag: School’s out Friday

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School’s out Friday

I love a good marching band, and the Ohio State University Marching Band are better than good, they’re exceptional. If you’re not impressed by their Hollywood Blockbuster show, then I’m sorry, but you’re very hard to impress.

I’ve been impressed by my students this week. We’ve been looking at the future of journalism in the digital age, engaging in plenty of discussion and even talking with Skye Doherty, a Lecturer in Journalism from the University of Queensland. Skye skyped in last week to give my students her thoughts about the impact of the digital world on journalism and its future. Next Friday, Jewel Topsfield from ‘The Age’, is visiting the class to add her thoughts to the discussion. I’ve been trying to think of an appropriate form of assessment and was really pleased when they embraced the idea of tackling another Project Based Learning task, this one with the driving question being, ‘How do journalists report news in the digital age?’ Here’s the outline of the task:

You are part of a team of investigative journalists who have been assigned the job of responding to a strange incident (or series of incidents) at Toorak College.

You are reporting on the spot, and are using whatever means possible to pull together a story quickly for readers who have heard that something has happened and are hungry for news. Your newspaper is highly regarded and your readers are interested in learning about what has happened.

To get your report out quickly, you will be using a page on iVE* to curate the story. We’ll be trying to get our iVE page looking like Storify. Storify can be updated quickly and is used by some of the most highly regarded newspaper teams in the world to deliver digital content to their readers who are used to accessing the digital versions of the paper.  http://storify.com/guardian

What will your story contain???

*iVE is the name of our Learning Management System

They are enthusiastically working in groups and have come up with some terrific scenarios. They are planning in Google Docs and are assigning group members differing roles eg: some are writing the report, others will be filming witness interviews, footage of the incident etc. I love watching them sculpt the learning and really enjoy the creative process. Stress levels will increase as some of them realise that time constraints may inhibit their grand plans, but that’s all part of the process. Me, I can’t wait to see the outcome of their efforts – they have yet to disappoint!

Melbourne Cup Day here in Melbourne means a four day weekend ahead for me. I am beyond excited about that – relaxation, here I come! Enjoy the weekend ahead. Find the sun and soak in it. 🙂

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School’s out Friday

Hamish Curry shared this on Google+ and it made me smile. If you’re not familiar with the way many of the social networks and websites represented in this video work, then you’re probably going to be more confused than amused. But, if you are familiar, I’m pretty sure you’ll be thinking this is pretty clever.

It’s nearly the end of October and I’ve only posted once this month. Practically unheard of! Yes, I’ve been busy at work and have really struggled trying to find time to write. I’ve started posts, but find myself paralysed at the keyboard, knowing that if I’m going to do the post justice then I need to invest a couple of hours into its construction and I just don’t have that time available. So I start, then stop, and for the first time ever I have drafts sitting in my dashboard, taunting me, making me anxious that I’m never going to get anything of substance written ever again.

Hopefully, the paralysis will leave me and I’ll find myself writing again soon. Got lots to share, so I hope so!

Enjoy the weekend ahead. The forecast for Melbourne is not pretty. I’ll be seeking sun  – I can feel myself deficient in those Vitamin D stores!

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School’s out Friday

Now, if you’re not a Twitter/Facebook/Instagram or any other social network user you might not have any clue what Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake are going on about in the video above. If you do use a social network where hashtags are a common form of curating ideas around a theme or conference experience, or expressing an opinion or statement about how you’re feeling, then you’ll be smiling and possibly laughing along as you watch.

The hashtag is an artform in itself. Don’t use it, and you may struggle to find the tweets you’ve shared, overuse it, and what you tweet is in danger of being lost in a form of hashtag hell. New York magazine has identified seven kinds of hashtag abusers, and the first on their list is the kind that I think delivers you into hashtag hell. Here’s their description;

1. The Hashtag Stuffer

The most common form of hashtag abuse. The Stuffer is incapable of simply sharing a photo of his July Fourth fireworks; he festoons it with #firework #fireworks #july4th #July4 #pretty #boom! #red #white #blue #1776bitches! (Not an exaggeration. A quick search of #fireworks took me here.) Sometimes #he hashtags random #words in sentences.

So, lesson for you all out there. Avoid at all costs the temptation to become the Hashtag Stuffer. Your tweets will become those that are passed over in the stream, avoided at all costs because you can’t see the words for the invasion of hashtags polluting them.

Enjoy your weekend. Grand Final day here in Melbourne tomorrow, and my team are contenders. Go Hawks! 🙂

 

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School’s out Friday

I don’t know about you, but I’ve watched this at least 5 times already, and I don’t think it’s something I’ll tire of easily. Who hasn’t wondered what the world looks like from a bird’s perspective and secretly desired to soar at speeds like this through landscapes?

I thought it apt to share this video tonight, when teachers in Victoria and other states of Australia embark upon a two week break. The first Friday night of any holiday period feels like flight. You’re unemcumbered from responsibility, the days are stretching out before you, you’re literally soaring with the possibilities of what could unfold within the next two weeks.

Of course, for many teachers, the holiday period is peppered with correction, preparation and sometimes professional development. All three of those will be features of my break, and I’ll be presenting as well at the Google Summit in Melbourne at Yarra Valley Grammar on the 3rd and 4th of October. My session abstract is as follows;

Chromebooks are changing the face of computing in classrooms across the world. Find out how Chromebooks work, why they are a viable and equitable option for 1:1 deployments, how they can be managed in the Chromebook console of Google Apps, how the Chrome Web store works and why you might consider a Chromebook vs a Mac or PC option.

I’ll be presenting on the Friday, which coincidentally, just happens to be my birthday. Hope there’s cake at the conference – it’s no birthday without cake!

Have a great weekend. Soar to great heights. 🙂

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School’s out Friday

I will be sharing this with my students next week. I teach girls, and what Sarah Kay has to say to them here may not translate so well at their delicate age, but maybe it will plant a seed and when they need it one day they will return to it. I hope so, because there is a powerful and important message in the words she speaks.

My students have watched a lot of spoken word poetry performances this year, largely because I want them to appreciate the power of language and performance when they combine so beautifully to create something that moves you into a space you weren’t occupying before you entered the world of the poet. One of my new students this term asked me if I’d seen Shane Koyczan‘s ‘The Crickets Have Arthritis‘ and I confessed I hadn’t. I went home that night and read it from his blog and was moved by the words on the page. The next day we listened to it in class, and for seven minutes, there was no sound other than the transcendent quality of Shane’s voice. When it finished, the silence continued as we appreciated the story that had unfolded and the profound impact it had on us all. Here it is. Maybe it will move you as much as it moved us.

Have a lovely weekend. Make the most of all life offers.  🙂

 

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School’s out Friday

I love it when I read something that introduces me to an idea and terminology that help me to articulate thinking. For years now, harking back to childhood really, I’ve been fascinated with things that creep me out. Yes, a strange thing to admit, but I spent a lot of time reading ghost stories as a child and went on to become a prolific reader of Stephen King novels as a young adult. I remember Moira Robinson (wife of Phil Robinson, my employer for many years at Robinson’s Bookshop) quizzing me as to my fascination with horror novels. I qualified my addiction by stating that Stephen King was an accomplished writer ( IT, The Stand and The Shining along with many of his short stories still hold up) and that it was easier to control the fear when you’re reading it and not viewing it.

I’ve never been comfortable viewing ‘creepy’ movies or images. I’ve always found the visuals stay with me for longer than the written word. Tonight I came across the idea of the ‘Uncanny Valley‘ and was amazed, given my information junkie disposition,  that I’d never heard of it before. Here’s Wikipedia’s take on what it means;

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of human aesthetics which holds that when human features look and move almost, but not exactly, like natural human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. Examples can be found in the fields of robotics,[1]3Dcomputer animation,[2][3] and in medical fields such as burn reconstruction, infectious diseases, neurological conditions, and plastic surgery.[4] The “valley” refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of humans as subjects move toward a healthy, natural human likeness described in a functionof a subject’s aesthetic acceptability.

Wpdms fh uncanny valley 3
Wpdms fh uncanny valley 3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In my reading tonight about it (because yes, once I’d got wind of it I had to read everything I could find) sees many discussing animated films and how some of them dwell in the ‘Uncanny Valley’ with characters who suffer from the dead eyes effect and are almost zombie like. One that cops a lot of criticism is ‘The Polar Express‘. I have to admit, it’s an animated movie that has never sat well with me. The characters didn’t look quite right, and reading the theories behind the ‘Uncanny Valley’ seem to help explain why I found it unsettling.

Anyway, it’s certainly whiled a Friday night away for me. Off to bed now, and off to the polling booth in the morning for voting in the Australian Federal Election. Will we be in for a shock result, or the trouncing everyone’s expecting and Rupert Murdoch is hoping for.  All will be apparent tomorrow night!

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School’s out Friday

Having been a Mac user for the past four years, I’ve almost forgotten what it was like using a PC with Windows installed. This clever video demonstrating what the Google Glass experience might be like if the Windows operating system powered them brings it all back!

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll find some time to write this weekend.  My head is full of information concerning Network security, firewalls, fibre connections and cloud storage. These are things that I was aware of when I was the Head of Library, but now they consume me as Director of ICT and eLearning. I’ve been on one giant learning curve since the start of this year and the time for writing or anything much else has disappeared. To be honest, I miss writing. It allows me to share what I’m learning, but the act of writing also helps consolidate my thinking. We’ll see if the weekend affords me time to get back here.

Enjoy what comes your way this weekend. Melbourne could do with some sun – I hope there’s some wherever you reside. 🙂

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School’s out Friday

Oh. my. god. (OMG in today’s speak)

I so need me one of these. Watch the video about Tile, and I’m guessing you’ll be thinking by the end that you need one too.

Take a look at this screenshot from their webpage to get an idea of how many people out there are convinced they need a Tile.

Screen Shot 2013-07-19 at 11.36.58 PM

I’ve never committed to funding a product via crowdsourcing, but at $18.95 I think I’m going to pre-order one of these. What I want to know is, have they designed one that can be implanted into my dog? She’s been in the pound 3 times in the last two years, and cost me close to $1000.00. It would save me a lot of money in fines to have a Tile implanted for easy location and no pound fees!

Have a good weekend everyone. A cold blast is set to hit Melbourne this weekend, so I’ll be bunkering down with the electric blanket on high! I hope the forecast is better where-ever you reside. Enjoy. 🙂

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School’s out Friday

OK, there are so many levels I like this video on. First up, it’s an incredible effort by the staff of Penketh High School to recreate as close as possible Psy’s original Gangnam Style video. Secondly, I tip my hat to you, Head Teacher Mr. Jeff Hughes, for staying true to your word and following through with a promise. Thirdly, this is a brilliant way to form and unite community, especially when up to 50 of the staff dedicated four weeks after school hours to get this video created. Furthermore, this is a brilliant piece of marketing for a school that specialises in media and visual arts.

Schools often shy away from use of social media, but Penketh’s efforts here have been viewed close to 290,000 times on YouTube and the video has received media coverage in Liverpool newspapers and even the Huffington Post. They toned down some of the video segments to make it more family friendly and wisely so. Head Teacher Jeff Hughes doesn’t come across as creepy, he comes across as someone getting into the spirit of  things. The decision to add the prefacing comments explaining what motivated the creation of the video was, once again, a stroke of marketing brilliance and will no doubt attract prospective students to a school that embraces a sense of fun amongst their staff and students. Looking at the range of comments on YouTube (which are no doubt being carefully monitored) it has been well received. Take a look at this sample.

  • TheJackofrost 4 weeks ago

    That’s how a principal should work. Not because he did a stupid thing like this, but because he tried to make his student better at every cost. Respect.

     Mitsuki 

  • Mitsuki4 weeks ago

    Fantastic! I would like to have a principal like you!

    mixer19492 weeks ago

    Huge congratulations to everybody at Penketh – to the staff for having the guts to make the video and particularly to the students for their improved studies. I’m just thinking back to my secondary school days and our 1960’s staff. They still wore black gowns! What I would have given to be educated in today’s schools. We didn’t have slates to write on but it feels like it when I see this! Very well done. Sudents – make the most of these opportunities. You are lucky. How did you keep the secret?

The school enlisted the help of the local community to assist with the production. Here’s a portion of the Liverpool Echo’s article explaining how things were done.

The filming was done before and after school and to ensure the budget was practically zero kind-hearted businesses and community figures did their bit to help when it came to providing props and locations for shooting.

This included the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Warrington putting the school in touch with a customer who loaned the use of her red SLK class car.

The garage even supplied personalised Penketh High School number plates.

It is the same model of car which features in  Psy’s original offering which, in December last year, became the first video to clock up more than one billion views on YouTube and has a Guinness World record for the most ‘liked’ song ever .

The clip reminds me of the excellent effort from Yr 12 students at my school in 2009 that they left as their parting gift on their last day. While not an exact recreation of The Black-Eyed Peas, ‘I Gotta Feeling’, it showcased nearly every student from that year level and utilised much of the school grounds.

And if you haven’t seen Psy’s original Gangnam Style video, here it is so can compare it with Penketh’s effort.

Have a great weekend everyone. If you work in a school, think about what you could be doing to engender community utilising the tools of social media. My mind is racing… 🙂

 

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School’s out Friday

It’s been awhile since I’ve included an Improv Everywhere video here for School’s out Friday. I like this recreation of an 1860’s New York bar where everyone’s in on the act other than the two unsuspecting patrons who get caught up in proceedings.

After the past couple of weeks in Borneo (see my previous post for details) I’ve been enjoying the last few days holidaying in similar tropical conditions, but this time in Port Douglas in North Queensland. Here the temperature is a very pleasant 26 degrees celcius every day rather than the 35 degrees we were dealing with daily in Borneo. It’s wonderful having time with my family and wandering along the Four Mile beach here rather than scaling a mountain!

We’re off to the Barrier Reef tomorrow and hope we encounter some migratory humpback whales who have been sighted by tour boats over the last few days. We saw them last time we made a trip up here two years ago,and it became the highlight of our holiday. Fingers crossed that history repeats itself!

Have a wonderful weekend wherever you are. I hope the sun shines and you get an opportunity to share some fun times with your loved ones. Enjoy. 🙂