This is Not Amazing
Amazing (adjective) astonishing, astounding, surprising, stunning, staggering, shocking, startling, stupefying, breathtaking; awesome, awe-inspiring, sensational, remarkable, spectacular, stupendous, phenomenal, extraordinary, incredible, unbelievable; informal mind-blowing, jaw-dropping
Sometimes I find myself dealing with people in circumstances that are completely unconnected, but which seem to have some kind of bizarre synchronicity that causes them to mirror each other.
The other day, I found myself in one of these situations...
Firstly, I was asked by a colleague to help edit some video footage from a recent school trip. I don't mind helping with such requests because I quite enjoy the process of video editing, so I attached the camera to my MacBook Pro, sucked the footage onto the hard drive and began dragging clips together in iMovie. My colleague looked on as I dragged clips around the timeline, clearly never having seen non-linear video editing before, and, with a little gasp of wonder in her voice, she remarked "That's amazing the way you can do that with video!"
Later that day, I got a call from another colleague who needed help with a mail merge of some spreadsheet data into a letter she was writing. She was aware that such mail merges were possible, but wasn't sure exactly how to do it. So I dropped by her office to lend a hand, and in the process of trying to sort it out I noticed that some of the data formatting in the spreadsheet was a little inconsistent. One of the columns had data with stray spaces in the text... no problem, I hit ctrl-F to call up the Search and Replace command, typed a few characters into the search field, replaced them with the characters I needed to fix the problem, clicked OK, and the changes rippled through the sheet fixing the problem in less than a second. As my colleague looked on, she remarked "That's amazing the way you can do that with a spreadsheet!"
The last example was from yet another colleague who wanted to assemble a short end-of-year slideshow of her students to send home to their parents. She was envisioning a PowerPoint full of pictures set to music. Because I know how much work that can be to create, I suggested a better solution. I asked her to give me all the photos she wanted to include and I uploaded them to Animoto.com, selected a piece of royalty-free music from their online collection and pressed the Make Video button. A few minutes later I downloaded the finished video, an impressive little piece that took me about three clicks and near-zero talent to actually produce. Her response to the final slideshow was, you guessed it... "That's amazing the way you can do that with digital photos!"
Can we get something straight here? NONE of these things were "amazing".
Having these three events happen back to back like that made me stop and think about how often I hear the "that's amazing the way you can do XYZ!" comment. (And just to be clear, it wasn't that they thought it was amazing because I was the one doing it, they thought it was amazing simply because it could be done). They were amazed at what computers make possible... editing video, fixing numbers, manipulating sound and pictures, etc... these things are still amazing to many people and I got to thinking about how often I hear the "That's amazing!" line from people who observe technology doing things they didn't know were possible.
I'm not for one moment suggesting that it's good to be completely blasé about the things that technology can do. There are plenty of totally amazing things that technology enables these days. Separating conjoined twins at the brain with complete success is amazing. Ditching a passenger jet in the Hudson and getting all the passengers off safely is amazing. Crashing a rocket into the moon to stir up dust and rocks to discover water there is amazing. And the fact that the law allows a Japanese man to marry an Anime cartoon character is, well, kind of freaky, but I guess still amazing.
The point is that, yes, there are plenty of amazing things that happen in our world, and its important to retain our sense of wonder and amazement at them. No question about that.
But seriously people... editing video, fixing some numbers in a spreadsheet, or making a slideshow from some photos is NOT "amazing". We, and by we I am particularly talking about the teaching profession in general, need to stop being so "amazed" at things that really are quite mundane. We need to stop seeing the most trivial, mundane tasks as being "amazing" simply because they were done on a computer. Being amazed that a spreadsheet can work with numbers just makes you look a bit silly. Worse than that, being clueless about what technology can really do just sets the bar of expectation ridiculously low for students, letting them believe that they can produce any old rubbish and yet still impress their teacher, who thinks that the PowerPoint their student made is simply "amazing". I haven't even seen that kid's PowerPoint, but trust me, it's probably not amazing.
The reason this irks me so much is that personal computers have been around for over 30 years now, and have been a significant part of most schools now for over 20 years. Most schools and school systems have been trying to provide some level of professional development, training and support for teachers for most of these 20 years. Even if a teacher resisted technology back in the early days of the PC, there's absolutely no excuse for not having embedded the use of a personal computer into their daily work over the past 10 years.
It's time to stop being so "amazed" at things that are just part of the technological and cultural landscape of life in the 21st century. It's not "amazing" that computers can edit video, manage numbers or manipulate digital images. It's not "amazing" that mobile phones can stream live video or GPS your current position. It's not "amazing" that you can make phone calls to the other side of the planet at no cost. None of these things are really "amazing" any more... they just "are". To be "amazed" at this sort of stuff is to fail to recognise the invisible role that technology plays in all our lives these days. To anyone working in education, working with young people, you need to realise that simple tasks performed with technology are not something to be "amazed" at, marveled at and gushed over. For our students, the use of technology as the enabler for such tasks seems as natural as breathing air.
I was in another meeting with some students and a teacher the other day, and the teacher was trying to show the kids about a Ning they'd had set up for a class project. The teacher was all effusive, gushed about the Ning's "amazing" features and wanting to show the students all the "amazing" things it could do... "Look! You can use it to leave messages for each other!", she said excitedly. One of the students confided to me later "I can't believe how worked up she was getting about that Ning... it's just a blog. It's like Facebook. Of course we know how to use it." It reminded me of that wonderful line from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, where the people of Earth were considered a bit of a joke for being “so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”
Don't get me wrong, technology provides as with some incredibly useful tools. The rise of Web 2.0 and the read/write web has changed the world forever. Mobile technologies just keep getting more and more impressive. But let's keep things in perspective.
Save the "amazement" for things that truly ARE amazing, and realise that technology is not some kind of unexplainable black magic voodoo... it just "is".
Image: 'iPhone Glee'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45635774@N00/4135434552
Popularity: 4% [?]
Copyright or Copywrong?
I was in a staff meeting at school last week where we were given a presentation outlining 10 common myths about copyright. I thought it not a bad summary of what many teachers just assume to be true. Ironically, I'm reproducing it below basically word for word as it was presented to me, but I'm told on good authority that the original creator has authorised its use for reposting.
The other thing I really would have liked to have had included in the conversation was a little more talk about what the alternatives are. It's one thing to talk about what you can't do legally, but unless you provide a list of workable alternatives, simply making "though shalt not" pronouncements is a bit pointless. Copyright has a place, but in a digital world that place is changing dramatically. There is an obvious tension between the inputs and the outputs of copyright... if you are a content creator, you want the output of your work to be protected so others don't simply steal your stuff, however, unless you can borrow and remix content from others, you will have very little to work with in the first place.
If you've not seen it, take a look at an amazing comic book produced by the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University. Issue 1, entitled Bound By Law, looks at the copyright issues faced by documentary filmmakers, and is an extremely insightful look at the pros and cons of copyright and how it can often unintentionally stifle the very same creativity it is supposed to be protecting. I think it explains it very well, and it should be read by all high school students (and teachers!). You can download a copy (Under a Creative Commons licence of course) from www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics.
For another lucid overview of the real issues behind copyright law, you really can't go past the TED Talk by Larry Lessig (founder of Creative Commons) called How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law. His final summation of the tensions that exist between the extremist viewpoints of "Let's protect everything" vs "Everything should be free" is excellent, and he makes it very clear that, while the law might not be the ass we sometimes think it is, the notion of copyright certainly needs a good injection of balance and common sense if it is to remain relevant and workable.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here are the 10 myths about copyright, as presented by my school last week (and specifically applied to Australian copyright law)
1. It’s OK – I found it on the net
The fact that something is on the internet doesn’t mean that it’s not protected by copyright or that you can use it as you wish. Material on the net is protected to the same extent as anything on paper or in any other type of format. In many cases, however, copyright owners put a statement on to websites stating how people can use the material – the permission they give can often be quite extensive, but don’t assume that it will cover what you are planning to do with the material.
2. We can use it – it doesn’t have a copyright notice on it
While it is recommended copyright owners should put copyright notices on their material, it is not compulsory, and it doesn’t affect whether or not something is protected. We will have a compliance issue to deal with whether or not the material has a copyright notice on it.
3. We’re non-profit so it’s OK
In some narrow cases, the non-profit statues of an organisation can affect its ability to rely on exceptions. However, there is no general rule to the effect that it’s OK to use copyright material for non-profit purposes.
4. It’s all right we’re attributing the creator
If you’re using copyright material, you do generally have to attribute the person or people who created the material. This is a general moral rights obligation. However, you’ll still have copyright issues to consider; attributing the creator doesn’t change this.
5. We only need to worry about copyright if we’re charging money
In some narrow cases, the fact that an organisation is charging money can affect its ability to rely on exception to the general rule that you need permission if you want to use copyright material in one of the ways reserved to the copyright owner. However, there is no general rule to the effect that you don’t have to worry about copyright if you’re not charging people for the material you are using.
6. The copyright owner should see this as good promotion
Whether or not a copyright owner sees your use of their material as good promotion is their decision, not yours, and you can never be sure they’ll see the situation in the same light as you do. Also, even if the copyright owner does see your use of the material as good publicity, don’t assume that this means that they’ll give you permission to use it for free. Many copyright owners make their living from the licence fees they charge, and they will often want to know beforehand how you want to use the material. If you don’t get a clearance when you’re supposed to, you’ve still infringed copyright – which may, for the College, work out as bad publicity.
7. It’s OK – I’m using less than 10%
There is no general rule that you can use less than 10% without permission. If you’re using any ‘substantial’ part of a copyright owner’s material – whether you’ve made changes to it or not – you’ll have to deal with the copyright issue. In the context, a ‘substantial’ part is any part that is important, distinctive or essential. It doesn’t have to be a large part to be ‘substantial’ in a copyright sense.
8. It’s all right – I’ve changed it
There are two common, but wrong, beliefs in this area. First, there is no general rule to the effect that it’s OK to use copyright material if you change it by 10% or more. Second, there is no general rule to the effect that you can use copyright material if you make five or more changes. As noted above, if you’re using any part that is important, distinctive or essential, you have to deal with copyright issues.
9. It’s OK – we paid for it
The fact that the College paid a contractor for something – such as a report or a series of photos – will have a bearing on how we can use it. However, this is not by itself a guarantee that we own copyright in it, and can use it as we like. Similarly, the fact that we own a physical item – such as a painting or photograph or a DVD – does not mean you can use it as you like (such as copying it or screening it).
10. No one will ever find out
If you know, and your colleagues know, why mightn’t the copyright owner – or the collecting society that represents them – get to find out too? Organisations that infringe copyright are always at risk from disgruntled employees, let alone the other people they come in contact with. Also, copyright owners have six years to take action for an infringement – that’s a long time for information to come to light.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Argh you talkin to me?
Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, maties!
Yes, it be that time of the year again. a time when all good pirates dig up the buried treasure an make those around them walk the plank.
I've absolutely no idea why the idea of talking like a pirate captures so many people's imaginations, but it seems to.
Dave Eggers. when starting his school, decided on a pirate theme. Apple always considered themselves to be the pirates of Silicon Valley. And the Pirate Bay is challenging plenty of assumptions about how software distribution works.
Argh. Just argh. Just because.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Using Twitter to develop a PLN
Another article written for Education Technology Australia. Probably not much new in here for regular readers of this blog, but I thought I'd post it just in case anyone found it interesting...---
Of all the tools to emerge from the Web 2.0 revolution, few are as intriguing as Twitter. When Twitter first appeared in 2006 it was one of those hard to define web tools that, on the surface, sounded silly and trivial. However, in the last few years it has risen to be one of the web’s most powerful simple ideas.
At its best, Twitter is the ultimate real-time communication tool, enabling ideas to spread across the Internet with unprecedented speed and reach. As a mechanism for gaining insight into the “wisdom of the crowds” it has few equals. During the recent elections in Iran for example, Twitter proved its worth as a vehicle for people in Tehran to keep the flow of information going to the outside world, even when official news crews were being silenced and censored by the government. Thanks to Twitter, the truth still had a voice.
At its worst, Twitter can be nothing but an embarrassing parade of personal ephemera, filled with people publicly sharing the most inane and trivial aspects of their lives.
Twitter was created in 2006 as a side project by Odeo Corp, but has since evolved into one of the web’s hottest properties. Thanks to its recent “discovery” by Hollywood stars and TV personalities, Twitter has experienced a massive burst of growth and visibility. It seems that everywhere you turn these days you hear about Twitter, and yet it remains generally misunderstood by most people.
So what exactly is Twitter? Think of it as a cross between SMS, email and blogging. Usually referred to as a microblogging service, Twitter enables users to send out short 140 character messages to anyone who chooses to “follow” them. Some people have thousands of “followers” reading their updates, or “tweets”, each supposedly answering the simple question “what are you doing?” Followers have the opportunity to engage in dialog with those they follow by sending a public reply - usually called an at-reply due to the Twitter convention of prefixing their response with an @ symbol - or to reply in private with a direct message, usually called a DM. These short 140 character bursts of text between individuals are generating thousands of simultaneous conversations that anyone can take part in.
Originally the domain of the geeky elite, Twitter has expanded its reach into far more mainstream uses. Celebrities are using Twitter to build their fan base. Marketers are finding Twitter powerful for spreading the word about new products and services. Companies monitor the flow of Twitter messages to see what people are saying about them. Politicians are using Twitter to converse with their constituents. It seems that many people are finding plenty of uses for a tool that lets you quickly and simply communicate you are doing.
But what about educators? What possible uses could teachers find for a tool like Twitter? As it turns out, quite a few.
The trend in professional development for educators is towards the development of a Personal Learning Network, or PLN. PLNs utilise the principle of just-in-time learning by encouraging teachers to surround themselves with others who share similar interests or knowledge. A teacher with a well developed PLN is able to turn to her network of colleagues to share ideas, ask questions, get feedback or find an audience. Many teachers have limited opportunities to surround themselves with like-minded others, either because they work in a small school, teach a niche subject, or simply don’t have access to people who think like them. Consequently, it becomes easy for many educators to feel as though they work in a vacuum, with limited opportunities to discuss ideas or get advice from others. Attending conferences or professional development days can be really useful, but these are usually limited to a few days a year.
By using a tool like Twitter to surround themselves with a network of other educators, and then using these networks to engage in ongoing conversations about teaching and learning, any teacher can have access to the “brains trust” of a larger groups of people at any time. Twitter can play a key role in connecting people together to form these personal learning networks.
Anyone can sign up for a free Twitter account at www.twitter.com. Upon joining Twitter, they will be provided with a list of suggestions for people to follow, but these are usually a random assortment of Hollywood celebrities, companies, politicians, musicians and sports stars… not exactly the right foundation for building an education-based personal learning network! Of course, there are no real rules about who you can and can’t follow - follow whoever you want - but remember that if you want to develop a Twitter network with an education focus then you should begin by following people who are already engaged in these conversations. During the signup process, Twitter will also offer to search your email address book to see if any of the people you know are currently using the service. If it finds any, it will offer to add them to your network.
The best way to start building your network is by following someone you already know and seeing who they follow. Clicking on the grid of icons will lead you to the Twitter pages of others, where you can read their bio, their latest tweets and see who else they follow. Once you find someone that sounds interesting to you, just click the “Follow” button to add them to your network. The real value of a Twitter network does not become apparent until you add at least 40 to 50 people, so continue this process of finding people to follow until you build this critical mass. When you follow someone, they receive an email notification about it and can then decide whether they want to follow you back or not. Don’t be to concerned or offended if someone does not follow you back immediately.
The other way to quickly develop a network of people is by using a list such as that found at http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com. This list, built using a wiki by Gina Hartman, a teacher from Missouri, contains organised lists of teachers who use Twitter to help make the process of building your network simpler. Similar lists exist at http://twitterpacks.pbworks.com, where you can search for all sorts of interesting Twitter-using communities. Another excellent list of education professionals to follow online can be found at http://c4lpt.co.uk/connexions. Take some time to explore these lists and you’ll soon find plenty of interesting, relevant people to add to your network.
Once you begin to build this network around you, you’ll find a constant stream of new ideas, new links and new tools to explore. People in your network will be sharing thoughts with each other, having conversations that you can join or simply eavesdrop on. With the right group of people in your network you will be exposed to more new ideas and suggestions each day than you would normally get in a whole year of regular PD. You will have a team of people around you that you can ask questions and get suggestions from. You can tap their collective wisdom. You can get perspective from outside your regular contacts. You can find people to collaborate with. You can find an audience for student projects. Having a global network of people surrounding you, enabled by Twitter, opens up a world of professional possibilities for your own learning and sharing. You will get a much better feel for the pulse of the web.
Unlike social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, Twitter has not become hugely popular with school-aged users and it remains somewhat of a place for “grown-ups”. Many specialist communities have adopted Twitter for their own uses, and education is one field which seems to have truly grasped the value that the service can bring to their community. Because Twitter is driven by short, to-the-point messages, it seems to be a place where content and conversation is valued. If you find particular users talking about trivial things that don’t interest you, or “overtweeting” - tweeting so often that it simply becomes annoying - you always have the option to unfollow them. You have complete control over who you want in your network. It is a very democratic environment… if people add value they find followers.
Once you start to use it more you will probably find the Twitter website a fairly inconvenient way to use the service, so there are some excellent Twitter clients - specialised software for using Twitter in an easier, more integrated way from your computer or mobile phone. There are many to choose from, but TweetDeck, Twhirl, Tweetie and Nambu are very popular. There are also plenty of Twitter clients tools that run on mobile phones - mobile versions of TweetDeck and Nambu for the iPhone, or Gravity for Nokia phones, enabling you to tweet from wherever you are.
If you haven’t tried it yet, give Twitter a go. Try using it to build a personal learning network of people you find interesting. You might be pleasantly surprised as just how powerful this simple idea can be.
Evil Twitter image by http://www.flickr.com/photos/dorsner/ CC BY-SA-NC
Popularity: 6% [?]
Footsteps
If you’re not blogging in this day and age, are you at a disadvantage?
I can see a day in the not too distant future (if it's not already here) where your "digital footprint" will carry far more weight than anything you might include in a resume or CV.
It's perhaps not so relevant (yet) in the public edcuation sector where the criteria for employment is not always totally just based on a meritocracy, but in the independent sector there is a definite awareness of an individual's digital footprint as a way to gauge their involvement, passion, engagement and understanding of their chosen field.
It may not yet be happening in the public sector because of unionisation and the existing promotional structures in place, but in the outside world where people are employed, promoted and recognised by their actual contributions and not just by the amount of time they have been in a given role, the notion of knowing about an individual because of the trail of ideas they leave behind them in their online networks will play a larger and larger role.
I'm certain that almost EVERY employer these days has Googled you before they call you for an interview. Many people in the private sector (and I'm not just talking about education) are being offered positions or getting headhunted because of the presence they have in their online spaces.
Having a blog, a Twitter account, even a Facebook... these things are not just about giving you a place to talk about stuff that no one is interested in... they are in fact building a "personal brand", as the marketers would say. You can say that's pretentious and that you want no part of it, but the fact is that the online persona and online presence you develop by creating this digital footprint is playing an increasingly important role in defining who you are (or at least who you appear to be).
Unfortunately, NOT having an online presence says a lot about you too. If I was staffing a school where a passion for education was valued, and I had free rein over who I employed, I would be very dubious about employing someone who had no evidence of any online presence. If I couldn't find any record of them being part of online communities, being involved in online projects, contributing to the global conversation about education, I'd be extremely doubtful about whether they were the right people for the kind of school I wanted to staff.
This is one of the reasons why we need to not just block kids from accessing network resources... The question is not whether they will have a digital footprint... they will. The question is whether it will say positive things about them or will it portray them in a negative way. We have a unique opportunity to provide our students with a digital footprint that says wonderful things about who they are, what they can do and where their passions lie, but unless we actively teach them how to make it positive it may not be the case.
And if we don't actively understand and engage with that process ourselves, we will most likely do a pretty ordinary job of helping our students do it right.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Better than Stealing
The Internet has made it easier than ever to find virtually any digital resource we might want. The ability to locate, download and use a piece of music, a passage of text, a video or a photo for our own use is so trivially easy to do that in the excitement of knowing we CAN do it, we sometimes overlook the question of whether we SHOULD do it. The idea of the Internet as a place where things are freely shared has become so much a part of our thinking that we sometimes believe we have a right to reuse whatever resources we happen to find online.
One of the casualties of this cavalier approach to sharing can be a loss of respect for the intellectual property of others. In a world where everything appears to be so freely available, it is easy to overlook the fact that someone, somewhere, owns these resources. We tend to rationalise our use of them, reasoning that if people put them on the Internet they must be willing to share them. And that’s not always true. Some people do not want you to take their work without asking.
On the other hand, some people ARE prepared to share their work. There are many who would be thrilled to think that someone wanted to look at their pictures, listen to their music or read their writing. The problem is that we don’t always know the author’s intentions. It would be nice to be able to tell, clearly and unambiguously, what the terms and conditions are for using their work.
This is precisely what Creative Commons sets out to do. Creative Commons is a set of conditions that clearly outlines the terms under which an author will allow their work to be used. All CC licences require attribution, or some acknowledgment of the author, usually with a link back to the original work. They provide a distinction between commercial and non-commercial uses, allowing the author to choose whether they will allow someone else to use their work to make money or not. CC licences also provide options for whether the work must be used exactly as is, whether it can be edited, adapted and remixed, and can also stipulate that a work must be shared under the same conditions as it was made available.
Applying a CC license to your work is easy. The Creative Commons website, found at www.creativecommons.org, provides a couple of simple questions to define the conditions under which author is prepared to publish their work, and then generates badges, computer-readable code and an easy-to-understand license document. It’s a very simple process that will help make it much clearer to anyone who wishes to use the works exactly what they are legally able to do with them.
The huge benefit for educators is the removal of the many barriers created by traditional copyright. Teachers are able to locate thousands of CC digital resources that can be freely used with students without worrying about violating copyright or interpreting the often vague “fair dealing” law. These digital resources can be used, remixed and, most importantly, republished back to the web, all without fear of a copyright violation since the terms of use are clearly and explicitly stated upfront.
Of course, not every resource will be available under a Creative Commons license, so students still need to be taught about traditional copyright and the responsibilities that accompany it. If suitable resources are not available under CC, and permission cannot be sought for its use, then all the usual copyright restrictions still apply. However, Creative Commons offers a viable alternative for the legitimate remixing of digital media, while providing an excellent environment in which to frame discussions with students about the legal and ethical responsibilities of being a good digital citizen.
This article was written for, and recently published in, Australian Teacher Magazine
Popularity: 1% [?]
Virtual Busking her way to Japan
My daughter Kate loves to sing. She discovered this ability a few years ago when she came home from school and announced that she wanted to try out for a solo part in a local performing arts concert. Although we always thought she had a nice voice that could carry a tune, we had totally missed the fact that she was actually quite talented vocally and so her intention to sing solo at this concert was a bit of a surprise. Long story short, she has discovered her voice and is working hard at developing it further. She's done workshops and music camps and is now working with a singing coach. She really does love to sing.
She was recently selected to be part of the Talent Advancement Program (TAP), a program for kids with musical talent aged 13 to 18. For the 23 kids selected to be part of TAP, it's a pretty special group to be take part of. They get to learn and grow by actually performing in front of people. Tomorrow, they are all performing at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, next week they do a gig for some senior citizens, and so on. All great experience.
From the 23 kids involved, 16 of them were chosen to take part in a cultural exchange to Japan later this year. Our local city, Bankstown, has a sister city arrangement with Suita, a city just outside Osaka. The kids will be going over in October, performing in local schools in Suita and living with a host family for 5 days. They also get to travel on the Bullet Train, see a bit more of Japan, and even perform at Tokyo Disneyland. It will be quite the experience for a 13 year old girl!
As parents, you want your kids to have experiences like this. The things she will see and experience on this trip will be amazing. To be immersed in a different culture for 10 days, especially one like Japan which has such different customs and food, will be awesome and unforgettable.
Of course, it comes at a cost. Despite the fact that the TAP program subsidises part of the airfare, there is still a significant cost involved in going. As excited as Kate was to have been selected, she was also quite apprehensive about accepting because of that cost. Despite that, her mother and I will try to find the money because we think it's an experience worth having. To help out, the TAP kids were encouraged to come up with ways of doing some fundraising to help contribute to the costs of the trip.
So Kate came up with an idea. She collected a bunch of videos of her singing and put them together on a website as a sort of "virtual busking" site. The videos were added to YouTube and embedded in the site so that viewers can watch, and a "tipjar" connected to Paypal in case anyone wants to make a donation to her trip. She asked me for a hand with some of the technical stuff, but the rest of it was all her idea.
I'm very proud of her, not just for being part of a group like TAP, but also for her initiative in wanting to find an innovative way to raise some money to cover this cost. She's telling family and friends about it, but I said I'd also try to help spread the word about it via Twitter and the blogosphere. I hope you take a moment to check it out, leave an encouraging comment on the discussion tabs, and possibly even drop a small donation in her tip jar. I know she would appreciate it greatly.
The site is at www.katebetcher.com.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Happy Humans
There is a backstory on this video, but to be honest, it probably doesn't really matter all that much. It was made by Matt Harding, the famous "wherethehellismatt" guy from YouTube. The real point for me is that life is for living and that people all over the world want basically the same things - to be loved, to feel happy and to enjoy life.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
I look at that video and love seeing the sheer joy on people's faces that comes from just being happy.
Enjoy. I'm off to dance!
Popularity: 1% [?]
Things I said recently…
- Be Better
- The Connective Writing Project
- Season’s Greetings
- Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam.
- My Edublog Award Nominations 2011
- Happy Snappy
- The Ron in Toronto
- Steve
- Enough is Enough
- Lessons from the Yamanote Line
Things you said recently…
- Tracy Richardson on Be Better
- Kynan Robinson on Be Better
- Richard Olsen on Be Better
- david eldridge on Be Better
- Kathleen Morris on Be Better
- Anthony Butterworth on Be Better
- Darren Howell on Be Better
- VIckie Vance on Be Better
- All our jobs… : Darcy Moore's Blog on Be Better
- Caitlin Burns on Be Better
Ah, Nostalgia!
Posts you apparently liked...
- 100% Tiny Bursts of Learning
- 86% You Don't Have To Like It
- 52% Taking control of your Calendars: Part 2
- 45% Teaching Kids To Think Using Scratch
- 43% Taking control of your Calendars: Part 1
- 36% The Cloud
- 32% The Interactive Teaching and Learning Masterclass Conference
- 30% ISTE in less than 140 Characters*
- 29% The Sydney Google Teacher Academy
- 28% Not Opinions. Facts.
The way I see things
|
Site Admin
