If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. ~ Charlie Parker
(NOTE: this one has been sitting in my blog bin for some time)
This wonderful video — appropriately titled “Inclusion” — was shared through a listserve that I am on through the National Writing Project and it features a fourth grade classroom that uses Skype to videoconference with a fellow student who is homebound due to Leukemia. The video is narrated by students and it is powerful in the ways that we can use technology to reach out and connect with others.
Peace (with potential),
Kevin
I came upon an interesting article in Wired Magazine about something called Creative Crowdwriting and it involves writing a novel by opening up the publication to the entire world to add to, edit and alter. The platform is often a wiki and the response to such endeavors is mixed — some see it as nothing more than unstructured mayhem while others tout it as an ideal product of collaboration.
Here are two of the “novels” that the article cites:
This concept is similar to the one I have used with wikis and collaborative storywriting, in which I invite a set audience (usually my students but sometimes my teaching/professional colleagues) to add to a developing story via a wiki. The results have always been interesting but the product is less the goal than the collaboration, I think. I am not sure more brains have made the stories any better.
Here are two of my collaborative wiki stories:
But here is an application of this concept that I would like to try with students with wikis and collaboration — creating Make Your Own Ending Stories via a wiki site and I might try that this year.
Peace (in wikis),
Kevin
One of the fun podcasts I have in my Bloglines is called One Minute How-to and the host invites folks to come on and discuss something, anything really, in about a minute. The topics are all over the place and really insightful.
This is the brief overview of the site by George Smyth:
The One Minute How-To is your podcast. Each episode features someone just like you who explains how to do something. The catch is that the participant is only given 60 seconds. This means that they need to get right to the point, but isn’t that a good thing?
Here are two that I saved:
Peace (in brevity),
Kevin
A blogging friend — Alice Mercer — interviewed another friend — James Farmer, creator of Edublogs — for her Webcast Academy show. Nice job, Alice! And James seemed like a wonderful guest to have on her show (called Alice’s Restaurant).
It’s great to see people making connections everywhere. Their discussion centers on the future of teaching and conversations that have been sparked over at Will Richardson‘s blog.
Take a listen to Alice and James.
Peace (in podcasts),
Kevin
Peace (with waves and sand and family),
Kevin
I was following Alice’s blog site, when she mentioned a “contest” over at the dy/dan blog in which people are asked to create a no-frills elevator pitch using slides (no video, no audio, no animation, etc). After reading through Alice’s variations of work, I decided to craft one myself, thinking of my students as my audience. Four slides …. not much room to work and forces you to get to the essence of your message.
But here it is:
[slideshare id=88903&doc=just-who-am-i-anyway3325&w=425]
Peace (in four pieces),
Kevin
I just received a nice email from James (Edublogs) that this site is featured on the front of his new Edublogs 2.0 homepage for the week. What a nice honor!
Peace (in high profile),
Kevin
When you have little kids, and an aversion to television (as we do in my house), it is helpful to engross them in stories and children story sites on the Net are something we turn to every now and then. This site — called Storybee — was launched recently by a family who lives not far from us ( a few towns over) and it is loaded with great MP3 files of engaging storytellers doing what they do best — drawing you into a story.
Another great site for stories is called Kiddie Records Weekly, and it revamps and shared old vinyl story records that are now part of the public domain. Some of the stories are very outdated but my kids get a kick out of listening to them from time to time.
For example, during the height of baseball season, we listened to Casey at Bat and then, during all the news about Jackie Robinson, we listened to a story that had the real Jackie Robinson in the story, talking. They could hear his voice and that was a thrill for them!
Peace (in stories),
Kevin
Sometimes you stumble across something so amazing and intriguing, it makes you glad to know there is a wired world of inventors and artists. I love jazz, and I love John Coltrane (our cat is named Coltrane) 
and this artist used the classic song, Giant Steps, to create an animation based on the notes of Coltrane. It’s based on building blocks and notice how the movie shows the song and solo building up, and then tearing the melody back down again.
The movie is by Michal Levy and is wonderful. Be warned, though — there is a significant load time (100 seconds, I think) but it is worth the wait.
This is one snapshop from inside the movie
Peace (in jazz exploration),
Kevin
Last weekend, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy piece about recognizing that blogging has been underway for a decade (although I bet even that is in dispute somewhere out here). It was an interesting overview of the evolution and transformation of the Weblog World and notes how the Weblog really helped spark the content-driven revolution that underpins most of our notions of the Web 2.0 world. I can publish, you can interact, we are connected.
Here is a quote:
The consumption of blogs is often avid and occasionally obsessive. But more commonly, it is utterly natural, as if turning to them were no stranger than (dare one say this here?) picking one’s way through the morning’s newspapers. — WSJ
The articles goes on to profile some folks who blog and asks them to reflect a bit (Tom Wolfe blasts the idea of blogging while Mia Farrow discusses its power to a writer).
So, ten years? I have been married ten years. Interesting to think of the timeframe and how the world has changed in that time.
Peace (in decades),
Kevin