Children CAN Make a Difference!

I just found a moving video through Facebook. It is entitled “The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes.” This video depicts a 13-year old girl, Severn Suzuki. who addressed the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. She and four other children in their organization, Environmental Children’s Organization traveled from Vancouver to Brazil to tell the adults at the conference that they must stop destroying the world.

There is no way that I can explain the emotional impact that this can have on you, so you should watch this yourself. I don’t know what difference this girl’s speech had on the UN conference attendees but it is a fine example of a self-motivated person working to impact the world.

"Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead)

Macintosh Enters the Netbook World

I love the opportunities that the new mini-laptops (also known as netbooks) have provided for learners and users. This idea began with the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) which originated with Nicholas Negroponte at MIT. He was the advocate who went to vendors with a vision of a minicomputer that ultimately weighed only 3.2 pounds. I bought one of the first XO computers and am constantly amazed at its capabilities.

Asus was also a pioneer in this field with their Eee PC (Wikipedia says Eee comes from "Easy to Learn, Easy to work, Easy to play.") They say that they now have an all-day netcomputer with a battery that lasts 6-7.8 hours.

The missing player has been Apple. Why hasn't Apple thrown its hat into the netbook ring so that we can edit our videos using iMovie '08 (ouch) on a 2.2 pound OS gem? Well, I DON'T KNOW. I would guess that Apple is having a problem with the idea of creating a computer that costs less than $500. While I am an Apple evangelist (not at the Guy Kawasaki level but I luv my Mac), Macintosh computers are typically priced higher than their competitors. Personally, I think that these computers are worth paying a few extra sheckles to own a Mac but $500 may be too low for Apple to get its typical profit margin.

Never fear!!! I just found some resources on the web that can help you find eternal satisfaction by having a Mac OS netbook under your arm.

These resources include a rumor about Apple releasing a netbook at the MacWorld 2009 and, for those of you who can't wait until January to see/have a Mac netbook, I have found a site that tells you how to load the Leopard OS onto a netbook.

Mac Netbook at MacWorld 2009
Rumor has it that Apple will be announcing a Mac netbook at MacWorld 2009. While it appears that Steve Jobs is not going to be doing his typical new product introduction at MacWorld, InformationWeek is reporting that pundents are predicting a Mac netbook that will probably run about $599. Technically this doesn't place them in the true netbook (< $500) genre, but it Apple has never been a company that cares about labels. It is also predicted that Apple will justify the additional $100 expense by offering "an array of content, applications, and games through the App Store, which is accessible through the company's iTunes software." Information Week predicts that this will be released mid-year 2009.

Hadley Stern of Apple Matters provides "5 Reasons Why An Apple Netbook will be Released at MacWorld." Hadley says that these reasons include 1) The economy, 2) Chips, 3) The iPhone, 4) Jobs gets to say he invented it, and 5) Extend iTunes reach. It is a lot of logical ideas that are based upon Apple's history. These ideas are fun to read and I think that they can support InformationWeek's predictions.

Running OS X on a Netbook
If you can't wait until July to have a Mac netbook, Wired magazine's site has a video by Brian X. Chen entitled Running OS X on a Netbook. This video shows you how you can make a couple of small chip changes on an MSI Wind Netbook and then load Mac OS X onto the computer (Note: this is a hacked version of Mac OS X which is illegal so I am just sharing this with you as an exercise in exploration.) How well does this run the Mac programs? I don't know, but wouldn't it totally freak our your friends if you opened your MSI netbook to reveal Mac OS X?

Well, I don't know the exact future plans that Apple may have in the world of netbooks but I predict that by this time next year I will be writing this blog on NetMac (or whatever they intend to name them.)

Photo: flickr.com/karenilagan/

Dr. Z Turns into a Potato

Well, it finally happened.

Dr. Z has turned into a potato. (This photo used to be a live, interactive animation, but I got tired of him saying "Hey, Cheer up! Why the long, gnobbly face?" everytime I returned to this page, so I screen captured it. You can see the animation of you use the links in the next paragraph.)

Thanks to the twitter referral from Gina Hartman, I have spudded myself. This Spud Yourself website is run by Walkers Crisps (I believe they are similar to Frito-Lay in the States.)

It allows me to write my own script (text-to-speech) or I can use their pre-recorded pieces. The only problem is that the computer voices that red the text are pretty bad. It would be great if they allowed us to upload our own voice files.

Spud Yourself - It will be fun!

How to Make a “Terrific” Web Show

I just found a 10-minute video on Epic FU on how to make a K-A Web Show. Epic FU identifies themselves as the Zadi Diaz runs through a epic list list of resources that you can use to create your own video shows. Fortunately they have a list of the scores of resources that Zadi introduces. Epic FU uses the Epic FU blog to support each of their broadcasts with additional resources. While this video appears to be designed for Web-based video producers (be they professionals or teenagers), this could be an Awesome resource for educators who want to integrate video into their learning environments.

They referred me to a place that I hadn’t seen before – wikiversity. This is a place I had never visited but it appears to be where you can learn about a myriad of topics for free. It is run by the Wikimedia Foundation that is the same group that runs Wikipedia. They specifically linked us to the Filmmaking page which they describe as “a preparatory school for budding filmmakers who plan to go to film school or take classes in motion picture production.” I haven’t tried wikiversity before. What are your experiences?

Personal Note: This is funny, I feel a difference in the voice that I am using when I discuss using video in education versus using it in the “Real World.” Why is this? Is it because of the “anything goes” feeling of a production like Epic FU. When we are working with students we have to worry about propriety.

Epic FU says "popular culture -- it's about conversation and interaction." Is that our problem? That's funny. Good teaching/learning is about conversation and interaction too. Are we doing that enough?

I don’t know about this. What are your opinions?

A New Look @ Research-Based Keyboarding Instruction

Last summer I wrote a white paper for Sunburst Technologies, A New Look @ Research-Based Keyboarding Instruction, which was a review of the existing research in teaching keyboarding. I want to share this document with you because I believe that it is an important overview of what has been found out about best practice in teaching keyboarding and addressing the needs of students in their pursuit towards becoming efficient and effective keyboarders.

Admittedly, this document was sponsored by Sunburst Technologies but that doesn’t reduce the importance of the research synthesis provided here.

A New Look @ Research-Based Keyboarding Instruction

If you have further interest in Teaching Keyboarding and the research behind it, visit my blog - KeyboardingResearch.org It is filled with references that you might find useful when you are trying to answer questions about keyboarding or need research to support what you are trying to do in your classroom.

photo: www.flickr.com/atcbugman

Consumption Causing Global Warming

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Leo Murray has released a dramatic illustrated video, Wake Up, Freak Out - Then Get a Grip, that talks about the scientific and social causes of Global Warming. He explains the scientific process but takes it all the way to the potential social implications of the global warming effects. This change will not be an either/or situation where today we aren't affected and tomorrow we are. As global warming brings gradual change, many humans will take extraordinary measures to hang onto what they have.

I must admit that I had not thought of the societal implications of global warming as citizens work to keep what they have. As some countries are dramatically affected by rising sea levels and erratically violent weather patterns, their inhabitants will look for somewhere else to live. This will cause a mass migration to already stressed nations throughout the world.

Murray's video doesn't leave us with Doomsday Despair. He talks about how reduced consumption is a matter that all of us need to address. We need to identify what it is that we need and how that differs from what we want. We need to reduce, reuse and recycle to relieve the strain on our planet.

This world is the only one we get. In the 70s we tried to tell the world about the impending implications of overconsumption. I have been actively recycling for over 40 years. I can't say that I am the beacon of conservation, we all need to make conscious changes in what we do and how we think about consumption.

I STRONGLY suggest that you watch Leo Murray's video. Teachers: You MUST preview this video before you share it with your students because there are some sections that are almost scary to consider. But consider it we must as well as act upon it beginning TODAY.

Story Visualization

I was just reading Guy Kawasaki's blog, How to Change the World, when he referred to Garr Reynold's Blog, Zen of Presentation. I had never heard of this blog before but it is filled with Garr's reflections on "issues with professional presentation design." We talk about Visual Literacy in our classes but Garr is living it. He discusses how the media succeed and fail in using visuals to convey their messages. Looks like he has a book called Presentation Zen.

One of his postings that I found exceptionally inspiring was entitled "Beautiful example of the visualization of a story." He discussed the D-PAN (Deaf Performing Artists Network). This is an organization that creates "media designed specifically to serve deaf audiences through the use of American Sign Language (ASL). It would be repetitive to post them here, but Garr has embedded samples of videos the D-PAN created as well as a CNN new report. The message that they "have a dream" is beautiful.

Oh, well . . . I guess I will be repetitive by embedding the "Waiting for the World to Change" Video here.



P.S. I also found Guy's posting The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint This is where Guy says that no PowerPoint should have more than 10 slides, last longer than 20 minutes or use a font less than 30 pt. The first two were incontrovertible, but he got soft on the font rule by saying that you should take the age of oldest person in your audience and divide by 2 to determine your minimum font size. That would mean that I would cause you to use 27.5 fonts. Should be interesting. ;-)