By Internet standards, this is old news, but seeing as how I’ve failed to post School’s out Friday for the last two weeks, I’d like to share it with those of you who have yet to see it. It was filmed as a prank for the Jay Leno Show in the US, and this couple make me smile every time I watch them. They are joyous in their approach to life, and heaven only knows we need more of this in the world and less of the bad news stories that seem to flood our news services on a daily basis. Take a look at the follow up video too, where the couple appear on the Jay Leno Show and entertain the audience as members of the band.
It’s been awhile since an Improv Everywhere video featured here, but this one is worth watching. I can see the benefits in this service, can’t you? We really need this kind of service to combat the behaviour of people in cars – cannot tell you how many people I see looking down while driving and who are obviously reading screens or texting. Unfortunately, it’s a by-product of a population immersed in quick access to information. I’ve fallen prey – my phone sits beside my bed acting as my very efficient alarm clock and it’s there when the dog or cat wake me at some ungodly hour to be let outside. I read, watch videos and send tweets at some very odd hours for my time zone. There are others out there like me – I often see other Aussies in the twitter stream at hours that are deigned for sleeping and not tweeting!
I began a Project Based Learning task with my Year 9 students today and I hope to find some opportunities to blog about its progress over the coming weeks. Today was a lot of fun as we launched ‘What does it take for an idea to go viral?’. Next week will be telling as we move into investigation and the students begin to determine what their product will be. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing where this one takes us.
I hope the weekend treats you well. Chilly days forecast here. Electric Blanket is on – all is good with the world. 🙂
I presented at a Secondary School in Melbourne today and opened the proceedings with this video. It raised a few chuckles, just as it has done this week when I’ve shared it with family and friends. To contrast, I then shared Google’s Glass video. With well over a million views, there’s a good chance you’ve seen it already, but if you haven’t, sit back and enjoy the ride.
Every week is a busy week it seems. This one was no exception. I’ve continued to use my Chromebook as my ‘on the fly’ computer (as my son likes to call it) and my reading about Chromebooks and Google apps in schools further convinces me that it’s a path we need to follow. We’ve held very productive meetings about the rollout of our new Learning Management System at school and we’re in the process of designing an exciting interface. I’m organising a Skype call with Daraja Academy in Kenya for next Tuesday as students from my school gear up to participate in ‘Race for Daraja’ to support the education of Lilian, a young girl attending Daraja. I also found out I’m headed to Borneo on a school trip that leaves in six weeks! There’s going to be lots of fundraising and organisation to do in the interim. Life never slows down, and to be honest with you, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
But, I am looking forward to the weekend. Looks like one of the last of the warm days awaits Melbourne tomorrow. I’ll be finding some time to sit outside in the sun with a cuppa, maybe even a glass of wine in the late afternoon. Helen, if you’re reading this, pop on over!
Enjoy your weekend – hope it treats you well. 🙂
Aahhh…Google. They do it well. Take delight in their clever advertising campaign about Search. If only all advertisers understood that a good story, cleverly told, is the most powerful tool at their disposal.
I’ve been Googled today. Not in the search sense, but in the Google Summit sense. I’m in Maroochydore tonight, which is close to Buderim where the Google Apps for Education Summit is being held at Matthew Flinders Anglican College. Today was the first day of their two day conference, and I was very pleasantly surprised that there was so much learning to be had today!
My twitter stream is literally flooded with information and links that I shared. If you care to, take a look at #gafesummit on Twitter and you’ll see some of the great tips and ideas that were shared today. I’m very interested in Chromebooks and their potential for use in schools and tweeted that I had to get my hands on one to check it out. Suan Yeo, the head of Google Enterprise Education efforts, saw my tweet and replied asking me to find him out to talk about that. I did during the next break, and he gave me a Chromebook to try out for the day. Very cool! I was very impressed. A Chromebook is a thin client device – it contains no hard drive and relies on the Google Chrome operating system and obviously an Internet connection. I was using a Samsung Chromebook. It was very light and had a USB, SD Card and HDMI port. You’d be relying on your Google Drive account and the Chrome App store for creation tools, but that’s pretty achievable these days given the options available there. I think I’m going to invest in one of these in the near future and see how it goes in a school setting. At around $350, the price point is good. Given the demise of netbooks, this is looking like a viable alternative for schools with the infrastructure that can support them.
I’m going to Storify my tweet stream and try and write a halfway decent blog post about the summit on the plane journey home tomorrow night. I need to take the opportunity to write in the air, because that kind of dedicated lack of distraction time doesn’t come my way all that frequently these days.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow and the learning to be had. Better charge those devices in preparation!
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.
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. 🙂
I like this film by Josh Soskin. Sometimes you want the mundane to surprise you, to take you somewhere unexpected.
The start of the Easter Break has meant a day of sublime rest. I’ve even taken the liberty of watching two movies – one after another! Unheard of for me of late. It felt so indulgent to just sit and immerse myself in other worlds. My mind needed it – this term has been frantically busy I’ve felt like everything has been on fast forward. I’m looking forward to a few days of rest and maybe more time to just sit and do very little.
Enjoy the Easter break and eat plenty of chocolate. You no doubt deserve it – that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. 🙂
You can’t tell me there’s not at least one common misconception you might have believed that has been now been corrected for you forever more from this Mental Floss video. I think this would be fun to use with kids – I’d like to see if they knew of the misconception, or if most of what they hear here is entirely new to them in the first place!
I held a parent meeting at school today to discuss Digital Citizenship, and one of the things discussed was the fact that our children all seem to love YouTube and can spend hours being ‘distracted’ there. If the distractions they meet are anything like the videos created by John and Hank Green, then my take is that they are worthwhile. They sure beat some of the mind numbing drivel being served up on commercial television of late.
Once again, apologies for the absence here  – did not post School’s out Friday last week if you happened to notice, and am scraping it in tonight at 11.54pm. You never know, a window of opportunity might present itself this weekend and a post may materialise…or, maybe not. I may find myself curled up in a corner, claiming back the sleep I seem to be depriving myself of lately.
Enjoy what comes your way this weekend. Make the most of the fine Autumnal weather we have been promised (if you’re living in Melbourne, that is). 🙂
Here’s one to test yourself on over the weekend – find your life purpose in less that five minutes. It’s worth a look to assess if you fit the happiness criteria set out by Adam.
Here’s the five questions Adam suggests we need to ask ourselves to determine our life purpose.
Who are you?
What do you do? Â
Who do you do it for? Â
What do people want or need?
How do they change or transform as a result of what you give them?
What will 2020 look like? What are the future work skills that will be expected from the students we are teaching today? How do we prepare them adequately?
Join Jenny in a discussion that will focus on projections for the future, the importance of effective pedagogy in our schools today to meet this future, and the marriage of this with meaningful use of technology to support learning environments that will assist in the development of mindful digital citizens.
I enjoy presenting to groups of teachers and sharing the thinking I’ve acquired from my immersion in networks. When I think about it, sharing my learning has become my life purpose in many ways, when you separate my commitment to my family out of the equation.
If I think about the last of Adam’s questions, I hope I can fulfil the following for teachers: I help people see a different way of doing things so that they can prepare students well for the future.
Adam makes the observation that two of the questions are about yourself, and the rest relate to your interactions with others. He speculates that most successful people focus on the people they serve, and that if you can make other people happy, then life teaches us that you will be taken care of.
So, there’s a bright future ahead for those of us who share in networks to support the learning of others!
Have a great weekend. It’s a long weekend here in Victoria. I Â can’t tell you how happy I am to know there are three days ahead of me instead of two. Maybe those dark circles under the eyes will disappear by Tuesday morning. Here’s hoping!
Have you figured out yet that I am madly in love with the mind of John Green?
Mental floss on YouTube. Just my thing. Those kind of random, weird, but strangely addictive pieces of useless information that make for the most interesting discussion fodder. I wish John Green lived next door to me. We’d have a lot in common. I’d invite him over for a cuppa or glass of wine and I’m sure we’d laugh into the wee hours. I’ll just have to get my dose of John Green via YouTube, cuppa or glass of wine in hand. I’ll laugh by myself, and maybe leave a comment on YouTube. If you’re anything like me, you’ll subscribe to Mental Floss on YouTube, and the videos might just be some of the most entertaining parts of your week.
Off to bed for me. I’ve just posted this tweet on Twitter.
Sometime, over the last week, I sent out my 20,000th tweet. The last five years here have been the best prof. develop. I’ve had. And all free.
Some of you might be thinking that I’ve wasted a lot of time on Twitter. Nothing could be further from the truth. The learning made possible from the network there has been a decisive part of my growth as an educator. I’m forever grateful to Clay Burell for introducing me to his network and supporting me in my early days there. You were very generous Clay – I am indebted to you.
Have a wonderful weekend. The weather looks good for Melbourne, and I intend to spend some time outdoors appreciating it. I hope you have a similar outlook where you live. 🙂
I’ve been lucky enough to visit Grand Central Station in New York and marvel at its beautiful architecture. The Improv everywhere team staged this light show to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of its construction. The images I like best are those of the peoples’ faces as their day is made that much more enjoyable because of the team’s efforts.
We need more of this in our world. People doing something for the pleasure of others and making them smile. Just think how much more enjoyable our days would be if we set about with purpose to make others feel good and smile. I ran a meeting today at work where we laughed, ate chocolate biscuits, shared some things we’re doing in our classrooms and enjoyed one another’s company. One of my colleagues stayed back to say it was the best meeting she’d been in all year – she felt connected to others and was energised about what we were talking about. Work needs to be like this more often. Let’s face it, sometimes the greater part of our waking day is spent there.
There’s a challenge. Set about with purpose to make someone’s life more enjoyable this weekend. I bet you’ll feel better for it too. 🙂
Lucacept - intercepting the Web 