No Matter, There

My children have led me into new uses of technology ever since they were little. It’s happened again!

The Back Story

12 years ago, when we brought my two older boys away from school for half the school year, to rural New England, we learned how to get a computer in the public library to dial up and log on to another computer at a university in our hometown (techno-babble term: telnet). My children’s classmates also had logged onto the hometown computer from their classroom, and people from the two locations typed messages which appeared at both locations, thus enabling classmates and teachers to “chat” long distance.

Years later, when we were vacationing away from home, our boys figured out they could play a role-playing game (RPG) with their friends back home, and with no long distance charges, by using the “voice chat” option in IM (techno-babble: using an “Instant Message” computer program to transmit sounds back and forth in real-time).

Now, I have one son using an online project monitoring program to coordinate collaborative efforts of a team of writers and editors–most of whom have published together before, but never met in real life.

And Now…

I’m at Autism Network International’s Autreat (a conference/retreat run by and for autistic people-read the web site for a better description) with one of my sons. People came from Japan, Canada, Israel, and the U.S. for the event. One presenter set up an informal discussion session about the future of their aims and the direction members want to pursue. He had a projector on the screen at the front of the room, and it showed the window of an IRC chat channel that had been set up for this. A typist was at the keyboard, transcribing the discussion in the room onto the chat channel. The presenter moderated, passing a microphone to people in the room, taking time now and again to read aloud the comments being posted in the chat channel from members who were not physically present, and passing along questions or comments from those physically present to those present in the chat room. The typist had her hands full from time to time, but the people in the room helped her recap, and everyone was valuing the inputs. It was a rich discussion, enhanced by those who joined via the internet–people from Britain, the Netherlands, Georgia (U.S.), and so on who could not join us physically.

It was amazing! The level of discussion, the consideration of everyone including each other in genuine discussion, the head-spinning ability to ask “so and so, what’s your experience with government regulation of this educational program in Britain?”

I had no idea what a wonderful resource IRC could be. Frankly, I’d overlooked it, assuming it would be too clunky and slow, difficult to use. Yet, here I was barely keeping up with the conversation sometimes. I am aware that it was the conversation, and the people having it, that made the session so wonderful–but their use of this tool was superb, and they used it to enhance their ability to have a genuine interaction–to connect.

And it wasn’t a fluke, there was another discussion later that evening–different topic, different moderator, same rich quality and international connections.

I’m so glad my children are educating me!

Photo: “Lead Me” courtesy Spleenboy http://www.flickr.com/photos/spleenboy/270741497/

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Filed under: Autreat, Differences, Information Literacy, media, Neurodiversity, social

Students are really enjoying this exercise!

• Siblings have been enjoying commenting on sibling blogs (“You never tried octopus, how can you say you like all seafood?”)
• Some students find it frustrating not knowing who made a comment.
• Students are replying to comments on their “blogs” and inviting conversations.
• Students are discussing the pros and cons of keeping negative or nitpicking comments.
• Some conversations are between students who never knew they had a common passion.
• A bevy of intermediate students asked permission to head for the library to “check their blogs” during their lunch break!
• Favorites include pea soup, and root beer floats with mint chocolate chip ice-cream.

Conversations have opened up about family customs (Monday night milkshakes), ethnic foods, our diversity of taste, and body image. The body image discussion really impressed me, as one student complained that she couldn’t eat her favorite food because she was “too fat”–other students argued that she was lovely and should know that; that she shouldn’t worry about dieting if she usually made good food choices; that there were less-fat versions of her favorite; and one offered a recipe and shared that she was dieting, too.

Having the 5th grade girl and the 3rd grade boy and the 8th grade boy all learning that they share a passion for shrimp with cocktail sauce may not change their lives, but it has been a nice way to connect with each other. As we prepared to leave for Spring Break yesterday, I saw one student crushing a comment slip in a hug before replacing it on her “blog”! I am so glad we are helping these students feel the excitement of blogging in our small community, rather than online.

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Filed under: Body Image, media, My Middle School Tech Class, paper blog, social

Ok, now that student evaluations are finally done…I am going to post those links to images that I find helpful, especially for inspiration,when talking with middle schoolers about making video. I’m really posting this for my own benefit (to have these links to video handy for next year)–which begs a question that I’m wrestling with these days–why blog?  I know that I started this to learn the ropes so that I could teach them, but I think I will continue to blog.  I’ve always had a habit of talking to myself in the library, and this blog has a small enough audience for it to qualify as mostly talking to myself, which is ok by me.  I’m not trying to get popular, and I’m not sure what place blogging should have in my life.  Right now,  I’m just finding it motivating–more so than personal journaling, since there is a possibility of a (small) conversation arising from a post.  More on that later.

1. I ask students to think about what point they want to make before beginning. Examine the data, decide your message, pick an image. It doesn’t have to be a bunch of camera tricks. I like Sony’s Bravia commercial, which  makes the simple point “Color like no other” without any computer trickery. Here’s the link:

In order to capture the vibrant reality of the balls and the way they moved, every single frame was shot on camera – computer graphics weren’t used at all.

Sony : The BRAVIA ‘bouncy balls’ commercial : United Kingdom

It is a beautiful video that my students enjoy. They also enjoy the “making of” explanations linked here next, where they show how they blasted balls out of cannons, were ready with many cameras to catch the quick action, and broke windows in the making…

Behind the scenes How we did it

Sony : The BRAVIA ‘bouncy balls’ commercial : United Kingdom

2. A fun spoof of the Bravia commercial and related website that an ad firm put together, using fruit instead of balls (they have a link on the web page that shows you the “commercial” they are complaining about).

Swansea North Residents Association website

Swansea North Residents Association – Welcome

We are a non-profit organisation that meets every Sunday, around about tea time, to discuss the needs and views of Swansea North residents.

3. Next, here’s a link to a Bravia spoof created as machinima (having “Avatars” in a game or other online world operated by people who arrange to go online to the already existing scenery provided by the game world and meet and act out scenes using their avatars. Having one or more avatars act as the “camera” stationed to observe the mayhem, the action is captured and can be shared). Warning, this is filmed with battlefield avatars, and each character is military, and carries a weapon as part of the gameworld design.

Circulating only throughout the internet, a video filmed by a clan features 64 players simultaneously hopping down a slope and over HMMWVs on the Sharqi Peninsula, a map in Battlefield 2. Instead of “BRAVIA – Color like no other” at the end of the original Bouncy Balls commercial, the clan’s video read “Bunny Hopping – Like no other”

BRAVIA – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an overhead shot from another spoof video/in-game melange. It doesn’t have the Bravia reference (it does include references to the seagulls in “Finding Nemo” (Mine), Monty Python, and CNN news coverage of Iraq). This was also done by the same group, dubbed “Snoken,”as the machinima above. Each avatar on the screen is operated by a different person, and they have coordinated quite a bit to accomplish this. Again, warning, the characters are armed, and in this one, there are some other challenges, like explosions.

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Filed under: Avatar, Cool Stuff I Found To Share, Machinima, media, My Middle School Tech Class, Web3D