Using ICTs @ ISOCS

How strong is your password?

2012-01-30T13:04:00.000+01:00

This morning I read a very interesting post about passwords by Geoff Duncan, on Digital Trends. It made good reading, especially amid all the discussion about Google's new privacy settings. (I urge you to click here to read the whole article.)

"You use passwords every day to access things like your phone, your email, and social networking. But are you really keeping yourself safe?...

...If there’s one thing people associate with modern technology, it’s passwords. They’re everywhere, and most of us use them for dozens of things every day. Yet most people are shockingly indifferent about their password security. Most of us probably know someone who uses the same password for everything, from their computer and email to their Facebook and bank accounts — and that password might be something as obvious as their birthday or the name of the street where they grew up. And we also probably know someone who has a sticky note on the side of their monitor labelled “Passwords” (in red, double-underlined) with a list of everything from Twitter to Netflix just sitting in the open for anyone to read."

Mr. Duncan goes on to describe the ecology of passwords: obscurity versus complexity, how and why passwords are broken, common errors in judgement when choosing passwords, and the necessity of changing them regularly. He gives very useful advice about creating, using and storing passwords.

"The Holy Grail of passwords would then seem to be a password that is complex enough that it is impractical to crack using automated techniques, yet easy enough to remember that users don’t compromise security by storing or managing them unsafely."

Lastly, he reminds us that no password is safe.

"Perhaps the most important thing to remember about passwords is that any password can be cracked: It’s just a question of how much time and effort someone is willing to put into it. The tips here will help reduce the odds your passwords will be rooted out by random attackers and even friends and family, but no password is completely secure. If secure access to a service is very important to you, consider looking into various forms of multiple-factor authentication to further reduce the chances of unauthorized access."

Click here to read the whole article.

photo credits: formalfallacy @ Dublin (Victor) via photopin cc, Secure password of the week cc

Privacy with Google

2012-01-30T12:26:00.000+01:00

Unless you live under a rock (without Internet connections) you've heard about Google's new Privacy Statement.

On 26 January 2012, Google posted this on it's Public Policy blog:
"A lot has been said about our new privacy policy. Some have praised us for making our privacy policy easier to understand. Others have asked questions, including members of Congress, and that’s understandable too. We look forward to answering those questions, and clearing up some of the misconceptions about our privacy policies that first appeared in the Washington Post.

So, here’s the real story:

You still have choice and control. You don’t need to log in to use many of our services, including Search, Maps and YouTube. If you are logged in, you can still edit or turn off your Search history, switch Gmail chat to “off the record,” control the way Google tailors ads to your interests, use Incognito mode on Chrome, or use any of the otherprivacy tools we offer.
We’re not collecting more data about you. Our new policy simply makes it clear that we use data to refine and improve your experience on Google — whichever products or services you use. This is something we have already been doing for a long time.
We’re making things simpler and we’re trying to be upfront about it. Period.
You can use as much or as little of Google as you want. For example, you can have a Google Account and choose to use Gmail, but not use Google+. Or you could keep your data separate with different accounts -- for example, one for YouTube and another for Gmail.

For more detail, please read the new privacy policy and terms, and visit this site to learn more."

Click through to Google's Good to Know website, and click on the Manage Your Data choice. Work through all the links on the left side of the page. If you access your Google Dashboard, remember that the new Privacy Settings won't show up until after 1 March 2012.

Uploaded by googleprivacy on Oct 13, 2011

Tips and advice on how to make sure you're in control of the data you share online. To learn more about your data online visit Google's Good to Know website www.google.com/goodtoknow

If you want to read more, see Mashable's post here, The Washington Post here, or Discovery News here.

Books in stop-motion

2012-01-30T11:18:00.000+01:00

Are you one of the 2,550,967 people who have seen this video in the few weeks since it was uploaded?

Uploaded by crazedadman on Jan 9, 2012

After organizing our bookshelf almost a year ago (see the video below), my wife and I (Sean Ohlenkamp) decided to take it to the next level. We spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books at Type bookstore in Toronto.

Sean Ohlenkamp, his wife and 27 volunteers spend many, many nights, rearranging the books on these shelves, and taking one photo at a time to create this stop-motion animation. It all started with the video below.

Uploaded by crazedadman on Jul 12, 2011

This weekend we decided to organize the bookcase. It got a little out of hand.

I was interested to see what other work this team has created, and found the following:

Uploaded by crazedadman on Jul 20, 2011

New commercial I just finished for the Toronto Zoo's endangered African Penguins. Also, be sure to check out http://www.SayItWithPenguins.com

Uploaded by crazedadman on Feb 26, 2011

One of 5 spots I created for the Polar Bears at the Toronto Zoo

So, how did they do that? Would you like to make your own stop-motion videos? It's not hard, but it's a very, very long process!

This is an older video, but the stop-motion process is very well explained. Photojojo has a good page of instructions, too, using iMovie.

Uploaded by allbeehive on Jan 18, 2008

This is our new updated lego movie tutorial! We will take you through the basics of sets, filming, and editing stop motion movies. In this tutorial we use Windows Movie Maker to edit, but even if you have a different editing program there may still be some helpful tips.

Edward Lear

2012-01-29T22:16:00.000+01:00

This post is for the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS, who are investigating poetry.

Photo from Wikipedia

"There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'"
(From A Book of Nonsense, by Edward Lear)

Today is the anniversary of the death of Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888), an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularized. You can read about his life and work on Wikipedia.

You can read Lear's "Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets" on The Children's Library web page or at Project Guttenberg, and also download it as an epub file, for a Kindle, and several other e-book formats.

You can listen to a recording at Librivox.org, download the mp3 files, or subscribe to them in iTunes. (There's also an iPad app.)

One of the best known of Lear's poems is "The Owl and the Pussycat"

From "The Owl and the Pussycat"

Listen to a sample of the Librivox recording here (Read by Adrian Praetzellis):

Saturday, 12 May 2012 will be Lear's 200th Birthday. There are several events planned - if you would like to celebrate, consult the Edward Lear Home Page, "A Blog of Bosh".

The Future Belongs to the Curious

2012-01-23T12:33:00.001+01:00

This morning I read a post by Ewan McIntosh, titled "Design Thinking 2: Immersion - don't give students a problem to solve..."

I immediately thought about our upcoming Exhibition with the Senior Primary Class at ISOCS, and the conversations some of us have been having about its structure, guidance and format.

Here are the 3 videos included in the post, along with 2 others that are part of the Brisbane Design Thinking series. Some of them may look like they're aimed at teachers, but watch them with the understanding that we are all teachers, and we are all learners.

The Future Belongs to the Curious from Skillshare on Vimeo.
From the moment we open our eyes it fuels our existence. We are on a mission to remind everyone to never lose your sense of curiosity or wonder. Long live learning!

Uploaded by TEDxTalks on Nov 18, 2011
Ewan McIntosh is CEO of NoTosh Limited, a startup that works with creative industries on the one hand, and then takes the processes, attitudes and research gained from working on those projects to the world of education, providing schools, districts and Governments all around the world with ideas, inspiration and research on how to better engage teens. Ewan and his team are all about engaging people, whether they're voters, customers or kids in a classroom.

Design Thinking Brisbane from Danielle Carter on Vimeo.
Introduction Video on Design Thinking in School- working with Ewan McIntosh and Tom Barrett on action learning project 2011.

Immersion from Danielle Carter on Vimeo.
First stage in design thinking process.

Synthesis from Danielle Carter on Vimeo.
The second stage in the Design Thinking process.

"The key to success, and the differentiator compared to other problem-based learning approaches? Students, not teachers, work out the challenge they want to solve." (link)

This is a hot topic in the PYP Exhibition world. What would our Exhibition be like if the students planned it all? Would the allowed 6 weeks be enough time (and what could we do if it wasn't)? What might such an Exhibition look like? How would we record it?

Media literacy begins....when?

2012-01-22T10:58:00.000+01:00

Computer Cartoon by Andertoons

Learn how to skateboard

2012-01-21T11:11:00.002+01:00

This is for the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS, who were recently investigating force and motion. There was also a live interest in skate boards.

A post on App Advice features an app with a Know Skateboarding web site that gives skate boarding lessons. An advantage of having an iPhone app with tips and videos is that you can have it with you (in a protective case) as you practice on your board.

This video is both a review and an advertisement for the app, and at the end urges you to rush over to the app store and buy it. But there is also a free "lite" version. Give it a try first.

screen shot from http://www.knowskateboarding.com/

Does the app help you understand about the force and motion laws that govern skateboarding tricks?

Fresh Water

2012-01-21T10:13:00.001+01:00

This is for the Junior Primary Class at ISOCS, who are investigating water.

Uploaded by CEMEX on Dec 6, 2010

On December 6th, 2010, CEMEX presented "Fresh Water: The Essence of Life" at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico, which shows how Earth's freshwater supply and ecosystems are in rapid decline and require immediate action to better protect and manage one of the world's greatest natural assets.
For more information on the 18th edition in CEMEX's Conservation Book Series please visit: http://cemex.com/qr/mc_pr_120610.asp.

I saw this video on 148apps.com, in a post titled Disney and Conservation International Team Up To Use Where’s My Water For Fresh Water Education Campaign If you have an iPad, click through to the link, download the free "Where's my water?" app and participate with Disney Friends for Change and the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, who are making a $50,000 donation for the "Every Duck Counts" campaign.

Augmented Reality on your plate

2012-01-19T18:59:00.000+01:00

Are you bored with your dinner?

Uploaded by UnanicoGroup on Jan 10, 2012

"A World Exclusive -- New for 2012!
English Hedgerow, a contemporary chintz design, comes to life with Augmented Reality
Experience the world's first augmented reality ceramics - as the tradition of Royal Winton Fine Bone China meets the latest 3D animation technology.
See and hear life in an English hedgerow as the sun rises - bask in its calm and be replenished by its simplicity. Amid the brambles, beech and dandelions, a busy bullfinch tends to its nest. As a fly buzzes in the oak and hazel, a caterpillar curls in the grass and a butterfly flutters through the hawthorn and stitchwort ...
Created by referencing flora and fauna occurring in natural English hedgerows, the modern Chintz pattern, designed by Andrew Tanner with Jason Jameson and James Hall, is brought to life by an app created by Unanico Group. An iPhone, iPod or iPad transforms the classically-inspired design into augmented reality, unashamedly bringing chintz into the digital age!
Experience it for yourself. Simply download the free English Hedgerow app to your iOS handheld device, point the rear-facing camera at the pattern and watch the story develop on your screen, changing and interacting as you move the camera around the design.
To find out more, visit http://www.unanico.com/ehh.html"

Go to the iTunes App store and download the English Hedgerow app for iPad or iPhone. Then go to http://www.unanico.com/ehh.html and open the plate pattern on a new tab, so that you can see the full plate design.

Follow the directions on the iTunes store page:
1.Depending on the English Hedgerow pattern’s position or plane, choose “horizontal” or “vertical” on the selection screen
2.Point the rear camera at the English Hedgerow pattern, avoiding glare
3.The animation will begin
4.If the animation disappears, check the English Hedgerow pattern is within the onscreen outline

Make sure your sound is turned up.

This has got to be one of the cooler silly things to do with an iPad/iPhone. But think of the possibilities!

"The Artist"

2012-01-19T18:37:00.001+01:00

From a post on The Teaching Palette this week I learned about the YouTube Channel of Sotheby's, the art auction house, where you can see 158 videos about all aspects of the fine arts "business".

The Teaching Palette featured this video, "The Artist", which I think is a good place to start. You can watch the entire video, along with others in the documentary series, "The Collector", "The Rostrum", and "The House" on Sotheby's Your Art World site.

Uploaded by SothebysTV on Sep 26, 2011

"Start where it all begins - with The Artist. Enjoy an inside view of the creative process through the eyes of four of the world's most intriguing and innovative artists: Jeff Koons, Ronald Ventura, Cai Guo-Qiang and Amy Granat."

The videos on the YouTube channel seem to be mostly introductions to, or moments from art auctions (For example, you can watch Picasso's "L'Aubade" be auctioned for $20,000,500.00)

Playing with similes, fonts, colors and images

2012-01-10T11:53:00.001+01:00

In December the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS used the BlackText website to make portraits of themselves, using poems they wrote to describe themselves.

I was wondering how the same site would do to make images of similes (because that's what the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS is talking about in their poetry unit right now. So I did some experiments.

First, I opened a Word Pad document, pasted the text of the poem the class read with Miss Judy, and then eliminated all the punctuation and lines. We learned that this was a quick way to make text usable for copy and paste on the BlackText site when we did our portrait projects. When I was done, the poem looked like this:

A Red Red Rose O My Luve like a red red rose That's newly sprung in June O My Luve like the melodie That sweetly played in tune As fair art thou my bonnie lass So deep in luve am I And I will luve thee still my dear Till all the seas gang dry my dear While the sands o life shall run And fare thee weel my only luve And fare thee weel awhile And I will come again my luve Tho it ware ten thousand mile

Next, I went to PhotoPin , to find a picture of a red rose. I found two I thought might do, so I downloaded them, and copied the photo credit text, and pasted it onto my WordPad page, so I could use it later.

screen shot from PhotoPin

I went back to the BlackText page, uploaded my photo, pasted in the poem text, and began to experiment with font size, color, etc.

screen shot from BlackText.com

I made a lot of versions, but decided I liked this one best

Created at BlackText.com photo credit: DartmoorGiant via photopin cc
Click on the image to see it full size

That was fun, so I decided to use another site we've used before in class, Wordle. I already had the text prepared, so I pasted it into the text window on the Wordle site.

screen shot

Then I began to experiment with the results.

screen shot from Wordle.net

I decided I liked this one best:

screen shot from Wordle.net

Similes

2012-01-10T09:46:00.001+01:00

For the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS, who are thinking about similes and poetry.

After I read Miss Judy's post about similes, I went to Flickr Poet to see what I could see.

I asked it to show me "Love is like a rose".

screen shot
Click image to se it e full size

I clicked "Show Story" again, and the pictures changed.

screen shotClick image to se it e full size

Sometimes it takes several tries to get a string of photos that makes sense, or is acceptable.

screen shotClick image to se it e full size

Flickr Poet is pulling up photos according to the tags that people have given to their photos on Flickr. That's why the photos for both "life" and "is like" are often a little odd. Results tend to fluctuate wildly between random and deeply meaningful. What pictures have you taken that you could label with the tag "is like" ?

Go to Flickr Poet and give it a try.

(Flickr Poet is linked on our unit wiki, too.)

Inquiry and ducks and trash

2012-01-08T12:58:00.000+01:00

Recent news stories about debris on Canadian West Coast beaches arriving from (possibly) Fukushima (visit this noaa.gov page to learn more) reminded me of NPR's story last spring about the rubber ducks washing up on the west coast of North America in the spring of 1992. This morning I read a short post from an IB colleague, Patrick OSullivan, which sent me back to listen to the NPR story again, about the writing of Moby Duck, by Donovan Hohn. (Read an excerpt here)

Patrick quoted a paragraph from the prologue of the book, which he himself had read on the blog of a colleague, who introduced it with "Anyone interested in inquiry, science, adventure, toys, teaching, the environment, high seas, mysteries, and basically anything else will need to pick up this book for a great summer read."

"Follow one line of inquiry and it will lead you to another, and another. Spot a yellow duck dropped atop the seaweed at the tide line, ask yourself where it came from, and the next thing you know you're way out at sea, no land in sight, dog-paddling around in mysteries four miles deep. You're wondering when and why yellow ducks became icons of childhood. You want to know what it's like inside the toy factories of Guangdong. You're marveling at the scale of humanity's impact on this terraqueous globe and at the oceanic magnitude of your own ignorance. You're giving the plight of the Laysan albatross many moments of thought."

Well, as a PYP school we're very interested in inquiry, where one question leads to another. The New York Times review of Moby Duck lists a handful of Mr. Hohn's guiding questions in this inquiry for us:
"Where did the toys come from? What were they made of? What would they look like after spending more than 15 years as castaways? What kinds of people make flotsam hunting their favorite pursuit, and how are the battle lines drawn between conservationists and environmentalists, litterbugs and industrial polluters? How much cargo vanishes at sea? And if it floats, how and where will it travel? What kinds of weather events occur underwater, and how well do we fathom them? How are the perils faced by huge, U-shaped post-Panamax cargo ships different from those that have always bedeviled sailors? And, since Mr. Hohn was an English teacher, how might Melville fit into all this?" (Read the whole review by Janet Maslin, "The Siren Song of the Bath Toy")

The reviewer goes on to paint a picture of Mr. Hohn as an inquirer:

"... “Moby-Duck” makes him sound genuinely open-minded, inquisitive and eager to expand his own understanding of the freakish event on which he’d grown fixated. And he was eager to enhance his secondhand ideas about how the world works with firsthand images and experiences, which he eagerly incorporates into “Moby-Duck.” (link)

Uploaded by donovanhohn on Apr 8, 2011

"Questions can be like ocean currents...wade in a little too far, and they can carry you away. Follow one line of inquiry and it will lead you to another and another..." (D. Hohn, c. min 4:40)

Teach yourself to write computer code

2012-01-04T15:41:00.000+01:00

"Codecademy, a startup that uses interactive online lessons to turn anyone into a computer programmer, has signed up 97,000 students in less than 48 hours for its New Year’s resolution class Code Year. That’s more than twice as many students as were enrolled in the 150 U.S. computer science undergraduate programs that the Computer Research Association surveyed last year." according to an article on Mashable.

The Atlantic Wire describes the course as a cross between Math Blaster and Foresquare.

The course is free. Add your name to the email list at Codecademy, and new programming lessons each week by email. This video gives you an idea of how the web site works:

Uploaded by TonicTech on Dec 14, 2011

The VERY BEST way to learn HTML and Javascript coding!

Protect yourself from photo-chemical changes

2012-01-03T18:54:00.000+01:00

This is for the ISOCS Senior Primary students, who are inquiring into changing materials. Some of you might be in the hight mountains, and others on warm sunny beaches, but in either case, we do not want any material changes due to photo-chemistry.

Uploaded by periodicvideos on Jan 3, 2012
The Professor - donning his clip-on shades - is at Bondi Beach in Australia for a discussion about sunscreen.

Words With No English Translation

2012-01-03T09:51:00.000+01:00

Following on from my last post, Seeing and Naming Color, and the unforeseen difficulties of writing poetry.

I read about Alain Levine's web tool to randomly generate some words that have no English Equivalent

Screen shot of http://lab.cogdogblog.com/nowords

Play with his page, and/or go straight to the sources:
• 15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent
• French Words With No English Translation
• 20 awesomely untranslatable words from around the world
• 10 Words That Can't Be Translated into English

What words do you know that don't translate (as a one word) from one of your languages to another?

Alain Levine's post page explains how he wrote the code to create the page, with screen shots and instructions. If you're interested in writing pages "from scratch", you should definitely have a look.

Seeing and naming color

2011-12-28T13:38:00.000+01:00

Robert Kosara wrote a post on EagerEyes not long ago about the interaction/interface between color and language. More specifically, "While color is a purely visual phenomenon, the way we see color is not only a matter of our visual systems. It is well known that we are faster in telling colors apart that have different names, but do the names determine the colors or the colors the names? Recent work shows that language has a stronger influence than previously thought."

He reviews research and litterature on this subject, including " Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination".

This BBC video is also embedded in the post.

I'm posting this here, because our Middle Primary Class is investigating poetry in a unit of inquiry titled "The Eye and Voice of the Poet". That means they're thinking about language, and choosing words, and enlarging their vocabulary. If they were to consider poems about colors, would it matter what language the poem had been written in originally? How would one translate a Russian poem about shades of blue into English, which might not have those words? Or a Japanese poem about willows into English without words for shades of green?

From http://thedoghousediaries.com/1406 Shared under CC: A N-C S license.

I urge you to click through and read the whole blog post on EagerEyes.

________________________

I investigated this a little further and found a fascinating page on Wikipedia:
"The English language makes a distinction between blue and green, but some languages do not. Of these, quite a number, mostly in Africa, do not distinguish blue from black either, while there are a handful of languages that do not distinguish blue from black but have a separate term for green.[1] Also, some languages treat light (often greenish) blue and dark blue as separate colors, rather than different variations of blue, while English does not." (Read the rest of this interesting article.)

You might want to explore the user-named colors on this web site, ColourLovers.

I'll leave you with Ludwig von Drake -

Let it snow

2011-12-18T09:24:00.000+01:00

Here's a chance for you to make the inside of your computer look just like it does outside your window, if you live in a place where it's been snowing.

A few weeks ago I wrote about a Google "Easter egg"* - Gravity - for you to play with. Today, you can make it snow on your computer screen. Open Google.com, type "let it snow" into the search bar, click the search button, and watch it start to snow on your screen. And steam over....soon you can't see the search results...but, hmmm, just like on a real steamy window, you can use your mouse to rub away the steam and see the search results. Or you can press the "Defrost" button. Fortunately, the effect ends when you close the window, or type in a new search request.

This Easter egg also works on my iPad - it was more fun using my finger to wipe away the frost - just like a real window.

Screen shot

Thanks to Mashable for the heads up.

*"A virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message or an in-joke in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game, movie,book or crossword... It draws a parallel with the custom of the Easter egg hunt observed in many Western nations as well as the last Russian imperial family's tradition of giving elaborately jeweled egg-shaped creations by Carl Fabergé which contained hidden surprises.^[2]"(link)

Capturing video at the speed of light — one trillion frames per second

2011-12-16T14:04:00.000+01:00

More in our "Seeing the Unseeable" series

Uploaded by MITNewsOffice on Dec 12, 2011

MIT Media Lab researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion frames per second. That's fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of light traveling through objects. Video: Melanie Gonick.
Read more: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/trillion-fps-camera-1213.html
Project website: http://www.media.mit.edu/~raskar/trillionfps/

On the Project's web page, you'll find this video, and more explanations.

Uploaded by cameraculturegroup on Dec 11, 2011

We have built an imaging solution that allows us to visualize propagation of light at an effective rate of one trillion frames per second. Direct recording of light at such a frame rate with sufficient brightness is nearly impossible. We use an indirect 'stroboscopic' method that combines millions of repeated measurements by careful scanning in time and viewpoints.
The device has been developed by the MIT Media Lab's Camera Culture group in collaboration with Bawendi Lab in the Department of Chemistry at MIT. A laser pulse that lasts less than one trillionth of a second is used as a flash and the light returning from the scene is collected by a camera at a rate equivalent to roughly 1 trillion frames per second. However, due to very short exposure times (roughly one trillionth of a second) and a narrow field of view of the camera, the video is captured over several minutes by repeated and periodic sampling.
For more info visit http://raskar.info/trillionfps
http://femtophoto.info
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/science/speed-of-light-lingers-in-face-of-m...
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/trillion-fps-camera-1213.html
Music: "Rising" by Kevin MacLeod (http://music.incompetech.com/royaltyfree2/Rising.mp3)

In a story in the New York Times about this project, John Markoff writes

"More than 70 years ago, the M.I.T. electrical engineer Harold (Doc) Edgerton began using strobe lights to create remarkable photographs: a bullet stopped in flight as it pierced an apple, the coronet created by the splash of a drop of milk...

"(In this current project) To create a movie of the event, the researchers record about 500 frames in just under a nanosecond, or a billionth of a second. Because each individual movie has a very narrow field of view, they repeat the process a number of times, scanning it vertically to build a complete scene that shows the beam moving from one end of the bottle, bouncing off the cap and then scattering back through the fluid. If a bullet were tracked in the same fashion moving through the same fluid, the resulting movie would last three years.

" “You can think of it as slow motion,” Andreas Velten, a postdoctoral researcher who is a member of the design team, said during a recent technical presentation. “It is so much slow motion you can see the light itself move. This is the speed of light: there’s nothing in the universe that moves faster.”"

Read the whole story on the New York Times web page, and then watch the video below, pretending that each little sequence (egg, milk, apple, ketchup, water bottle, mellon, takes 3 years to watch...that's 18 years you're about to spend here....if you had started watching the day you were born, you would be out of secondary school (high school, gymnasium) before your the video had ended.

Thanks to Open Culture for the heads-up.

Smashing mugs

2011-12-15T07:08:00.003+01:00

Another in our series of "watching the un-see-able"

Several tea mugs get smashed in this video, and there's good explanation about what fps means. You'll be able to judge for yourself which speed you think is the most effective. Be sure to watch until the very end - when the cat gets in the window.

I'm not sure I endorse his movie recommendation at the end for Primary students - but there are probably many other instances of slow motion in movies and TV that you see. Do you notice them? After watching this video, can you gauge how slow they are, or guess their fps?

And for the Middle Primary Class: what are the laws of motion in action in this video? Why do the mugs fall? Why do they stop falling? Why do they break? What kinds of energy do you see here?

Europe’s dry autumn soils

2011-12-12T11:15:00.001+01:00

This post is for ISOCS Junior Primary Class, which is investigating Water. This year's unit will be different from last year's of course - different teacher, different children, and different weather. There just isn't as much water around this year as there was last year.

I saw this post this morning from the European Space Agency, highlighting the lack of rain fall all across Europe this summer.

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMVG15XPVG_index_0.html

"7 December 2011
Dry soil resulting from Europe’s exceptionally warm and dry autumn is being monitored by ESA’s SMOS water mission. The images here show the stark comparison between soil moisture in November 2010 and November 2011.

Like the most of the year, this autumn has been particularly dry. In the Netherlands, for example, just 9 mm of rain fell in November, compared to the average of 82 mm. According to the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute KNMI, November was the driest since records began in 1906.

Prolonged dry weather in Germany is not only disrupting shipping in the Rhine and Elbe rivers, but has also recently sparked a forest fire in Bavaria.

The UK Environment Agency says that even if England experiences average rainfall over winter and spring, parts of the country are unlikely to see a full recovery from drought conditions in 2012...While these maps offer an interesting snapshot, the information is important for a better understanding of the water cycle and, in particular, the exchange processes between Earth’s surface and the atmosphere." Click here to read the whole story.

I explored a little further for more about water, water levels, weather in Switzerland, and found these news stories (I'm focusing on Switzerland here, because that is where our Junior Primary Class is doing its first-hand research):
In April, there was already concern about the low levels of Swiss lakes:
"According to a report by the Swiss Federal Environment Office, the levels of the lakes in Biel, Murten and Neuchâtel are far lower than they should be for April. Lake Biel, for example, is about 40 centimetres shallower than normal, and ten centimetres lower than it was at its previous all-time low for an April 3rd, which was recorded in 1993." (link)

After the summer, the lack of water continues to be news:

"The extraordinary autumn dry spell is having a significant impact on transport, power generation, tourism and aquatic life in Switzerland.

"It’s not just the autumn, the beginning of the year was also historically dry, leading to a dramatic roll-on effect.

"Figures compiled by the national weather service MeteoSwiss show precipitation levels in western Switzerland and the Rhone valley for 2011 so far (January 1 to November 19) are the lowest since records began in 1864." (link)

Vowels Control Your Brain

2011-12-12T10:11:00.001+01:00

This post is for the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS, which is investigating poetry. Poetry is made of words and sounds, so I thought the class might be interested in the thoughts expressed in a blog post I read this morning:

A few days ago, Robert Kulrich of National Public Radio in the USA wrote a column titled "Vowels Control Your Brain". "Here's something you should know about yourself. Vowels control your brain...OK, here's the weird part. When comparing words across language groups, says Stanford linguistics professor Dan Jurafsky, a curious pattern shows up: Words with front vowels ("I" and "E") tend to represent small, thin, light things. Back vowels ("O" "U" and some "A"s ) show up in fat, heavy things...." The post explores research about this idea, and gives some interesting examples. Click here to go to read the full story. I think it's especially interesting when thinking about poetry. What words would we choose to write about "thin light things"? about "fat heavy things"? Do your choices support the research described in Mr. Kulrich's blog post?

Screen shot from http://n.pr/rrLsj6

Baroque.me

2011-12-11T11:33:00.001+01:00

This morning on a Flowing Data blog post, I found this video:
Baroque.me: J.S. Bach - Cello Suite No. 1 - Prelude from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.
Baroque.me (2011) by Alexander Chen. Video capture. http://www.baroque.me visualizes the first Prelude from Bach's Cello Suites. Using the math behind string length and pitch, it came from a simple idea: what if all the notes were drawn as strings? Instead of a stream of classical notation on a page, this interactive project highlights the music's underlying structure and subtle shifts.

Grab and interact: http://www.baroque.me
More details at: http://blog.chenalexander.com/2011/baroque-bach-cello/

Built in: HTML5 Canvas, Javascript, SoundManager
Made while a resident at Eyebeam (http://eyebeam.org)

http://www.chenalexander.com
http://www.twitter.com/alexanderchen

Of course, I clicked through to http://www.baroque.me to see what "interact" means here. As the page loads, it looks just like the video. But if you grab one of the little white dots with your mouse you can drag it around, ruin the beautiful circle patterns the white dots are making, and totally mess up Bach's music.

Give it a try!

Keyboarding

2011-12-05T10:34:00.001+01:00

The Senior Primary class at ISOCS is concentrating on learning to keyboard with 10 fingers, not much looking at the keyboard, and few errors...
I added a new typing game (Typing Tidepool) to the Keyboarding page on our Netvibes ICT site, and have grouped all the other posts about keyboarding on this blog at this link for you.

In our PC laptops at school, we're working with KeyBlaze Typing Tutor, a no-frills, serious sort of free software. Serious as in no story line, no songs, no animation. Just keyboarding. Read the CNET review here.

Image from NCH Software

My advice to the Seniors is:

Practice for a short time every day (10-15 min is enough)
Don't cheat yourself by looking at your fingers. Learn the home position, and then use it.
Take as long as you need to perfect this skill. It's like riding a bicycle: once you've trained your fingers and your brain to work together, you will never forget how to do it.
Concentrate on the vowels and consonants. Punctuation will vary from computer to computer, depending on where you live, where you bought it, what language you have it set on, etc. Numbers will always need to be verified. Vowels and consonants are your basic writing tools.

Using "Comic Life" by Plasq

2011-11-30T07:28:00.001+01:00

The Middle Primary Class at ISOCS spent most of a happy day yesterday using Comic Life - a software program by Plasq - to retell the story of their trip to Technorama in Winterthur. They had chosen the pictures they wanted to use from our pictures from the Flickr set, and drafted their writing beforehand, so when we opened the computers, the assembly process was pretty straight forward. You can read about the day on their class blog.

There were the usual confusions over saving, and exporting the finished pages as images. Some of the students had used the program before, and some were new to it. Although it's fairly user-friendly, there are details and fine points that take a bit of practice to master. We plan to use it again soon so we can master it.

Here are the pages we made (You can see them on Flickr, too):

Incorrect laws of motion

2011-11-27T10:00:00.000+01:00

We're coming to the end of our Force and Motion Unit of Inquiry in the Middle Primary Class. Here's a new video for the Middies, so they can check their understanding. Do you agree with what the speaker in the video is saying?

Text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by 1veritasium on Mar 10, 2011

Newton's Three Laws of Motion are a landmark achievement in physics. They describe how all objects move. Unfortunately most people do not really understand Newton's Laws because they have pre-existing ideas about the way the world works. This film is about those pre-existing ideas. By recognizing what people are thinking, it becomes easier to describe the correct scientific concepts of Newton's Three Laws and how they differ from this 'intuitive physics'.

I found this video on the Best Physics VIdeos playlist.

Learning with mobile media

2011-11-25T13:11:00.000+01:00

This morning I read a post on Teaching with Technology, by Ben Rimes, which outlined ideas for teaching and learning for teachers, but also ideas for parents.

Photo by Roger's Wife on Flickr

Under the heading "Supporting Your Child's Learning with Mobile Media", he suggests:

"Load up on digital content before a new topic or unit of study – If you can look at your student’s syllabus or assignments ahead of time for a class they’re taking, try to load up their mobile device with podcasts, videos, and other digital media that pertain to the topic coming up. You now have a digital handheld library of content that serves as a good starting point for reference.
Small “infobytes” can be just as helpful as longer content – Often all learner’s need are small pieces of information to help support their learning. Having longer pieces of media in the form of audio lectures and videos can be helpful, but often with a mobile device you just want a few minutes worth of an explanation or demonstration of a topic.
Capture learning moments all around you – A lot of learning takes place in the real world, away from the classroom. Many mobile devices have cameras and microphones built right in, so you can capture audio, still images, or video whenever you come across a “teachable” moment. Students can use it later for studying, sharing with their classmates, or just as a valuable reminder of application of their learning in the real world.
Play a little – When approaching the end of a unit or learning objective, students have much more to rely on when it comes to reviewing. Audio podcasts, videos, and apps are helpful, but increasingly games and other “play based” forms of review on websites and in mobile apps are playing a role in learning. Allow time for your child to play games and simulations related to the content on their mobile devices.
Know when to put the device down – Although mobile devices are everywhere, don’t let them dictate every aspect of learning. Sometimes it’s good to put down the devices, get your hands dirty, or communicate with others face to face. Make sure to balance time spent “plugged in” with time spent communicating and interacting with others without the mobile device."

ISOCS parents can follow our program of inquiry at this link, and can keep up to date about what's happening in each class room through our class blogs (links are in the side bar of this blog, under "ISOCS Class Blogs"). ISOCS keeps a list of bookmarks about iPad apps for Primary Students on Diigo. It is by no means complete, or exhaustive, but lists apps and information sites which seem to be appropriate for younger students as they are discovered by our staff.

Photo by nooccar on Flickr

Middle Primary Class at Technorama

2011-11-25T10:53:00.004+01:00

As part of their unit of inquiry into force and motion, this week ISOCS Middle Primary Class visited Technorama in Winterthur - a huge, hands-on science experience. The teachers had preped the trip during the summer, creating a map and a "passport" showing which of the hundreds of exhibits the students should visit.

All the photos are on Flickr, there's a post on the class blog, and here are snippets of unedited video to give you more of an idea of the investigating that went on during our Technorama visit.

Imagine a fantastic garden

2011-11-21T15:07:00.000+01:00

Here's a quick Animoto video of our Junior Primary Class's trip to Bruno Weber's Sculpture Park in Zurich last week. Read all about the visit on their blog.

"The elusive technological future"

2011-11-12T10:50:00.000+01:00

I recommend this nearly hour-long video of John Naughton's keynote speech at the 2011 conference of the Association for Learning Technology to anyone interested or involved in using technology in education. The speech itself is only 30 min; the rest of the video is comments and questions, some of which evoke very interesting answers from Dr. Naughton.

Text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by ClipsFromALT on Nov 2, 2011

"The elusive technological future" Keynote speech by John Naughton, Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University, at Thriving in a colder and more challenging climate, the 2011 conference of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT). Session given in Leeds, UK, on Thursday 8 September 2011 at 11.40. For information about ALT go tohttp://www.alt.ac.uk/. Made publicly available by ALT under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England and Wales licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/.

"...Whenever something new arrives, you have to ask yourself, 'What do we loose? What do we gain? Who benefits, and who looses?' from the adoption of this stuff..."

Towards the end of the video, Dr. Naughton makes a reference to the work of Michael Wesch. Here is one of his TED talks, TEDxKC - Michael Wesch - From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-Able:

Text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by TEDxTalks on Oct 12, 2010

"TEDxKC talk synopsis: Today a new medium of communication emerges every time somebody creates a new web application. Yet these developments are not without disruption and peril. Familiar long-standing institutions, organizations and traditions disappear or transform beyond recognition. And while new media bring with them new possibilities for openness, transparency, engagement and participation, they also bring new possibilities for surveillance, manipulation, distraction and control. Critical thinking, the old mainstay of higher education, is no longer enough to prepare our youth for this world. We must create learning environments that inspire a way of being-in-the-world in which they can harness and leverage this new media environment as well as recognize and actively examine, question and even re-create the (increasingly digital) structures that shape our world..."

Video Story Problems

2011-11-11T07:37:00.000+01:00

I just found a Vimeo Channel of Story Problems, as in Math. Its "a collection of Video Story Problems created by students, teachers, and anyone looking to bring more of the 'real world' into their classroom through the use of video."

Brownie Video Problem from Sean Dardis on Vimeo.

Video Story Problem - Domino Estimation from Ben Rimes on Vimeo.
"I was volunteering in my daughter's kindergarten class while they had some free play time. I watched them start to build a pyramid, and wondered if they would have enough dominos to complete it. They only had a box full of 200 dominos to try and build the pyramid.

"I didn't want this to be a simple "count the dominos" problem, so I didn't provide any other numbers besides the pyramid being 6 layers of dominos high. You'll have to watch the video carefully and estimate to see if they can do it."

The Channel is the idea of Ben Rimes, who writes at The Tech Savy Educator. He's the K-12 Technology Coordinator for Mattawan Consolidated School District in Michigan

How would you make a video like these? Do you have a good idea for a "story problem" ?

How we see the IB Learner Profile

2011-11-09T17:02:00.000+01:00

Inquiring into the Learner Profile from ISOCS on Vimeo.

The Middle Primary and Senior Primary classes at the International School of Central Switzerland inquired into the IB Learner Profile for their first unit of inquiry of the year. They share their learning, and reflect on their experience in this 20 minute film.

Measuring Time

2011-11-07T09:01:00.000+01:00

The Middle Primary Class at ISOCS is looking at measurement of time. Here's a video to help you understand Daylight Saving Time, or, perhaps, to confuse you a little more! Switzerland went back to Standard Time a week ago.

Published on Oct 24, 2011 by CGPGrey

If you want to read more about Daylight Saving Time, check out this web page. The Wikipedia article is here.

If you want to be a little more confused, or perhaps not so confused, read about how the ancient Romans kept track of time on this web page. This page has lots and lots of links to other pages about measuring time (It's an older web page, but most of the links still work).

Thanks (once again) to Richard Byrne for the link to the YouTube video.

Google Gravity

2011-11-06T13:27:00.000+01:00

For the Force and Motion crowd

Open Google.com, and enter the words "Google Gravity" in the search bar. Then click on "I'm feeling lucky" under the search bar. Watch what happens to your screen. Is this really gravity at work?

If you can't make the above happen, click on http://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/google_gravity/ instead, and the click on "I'm feeling lucky" as above.

Click on another open tab in your browser, and then come back to the Google page. Watch what happens. Could there be wind in your computer?

Napping

2011-11-05T07:48:00.001+01:00

Another bit of Measurement.
Do you take naps? Would you like to take them at school? Do you have a regular pattern of naps? Check out all the information in this infographic. An infographic is

A way to visualise and give meaning to data using pictures, maps, diagrams, graphs, or other graphic elements.
www.informationactivism.org/glossary

How many ways are naps measured and described in this inforgraphic?

Shared with permission - even encouragement! by infographicarchive.com

How much does the Internet weigh?

2011-11-04T07:45:00.000+01:00

Another video about measurement for the Middle Primary students, who are probably not going to measure the amount of information they gain from this....

Text from the YouTube page:
Uploaded by vsauce on Oct 29, 2011

Thanks to @lakefield83 and @zconsortium for these facts!

READ MORE:
Weight gained from e-books:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/science/25qna.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&sr...
Gadsby:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1466216735/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486...
Flash Memory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory
Map of the Internet: http://www.opte.org/
Size of the internet: http://www.martingover.com/2418/size-of-the-internetdata-growth-info-overload/
Weight of all electrons in motion that make up the internet:http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2006/10/weighing_the_we.html
Weight of all information on the internet:http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/how-much-does-the-internet-weigh/article...
Smallest sand particles: http://science.jrank.org/pages/6039/Sediment-Sedimentation-Sediment-size.html

Thanks to Dan Coleman for sharing the video.

Why Parents Help Tweens Violate Facebook's 13+ Rule

2011-11-02T09:38:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, Danah Boyd (Senior researcher, Microsoft Research and Research Assistant Professor, New York University) published an article in the Huffington Post titled "Why Parents Help Tweens Violate Facebook's 13+ Rule".

Ms.Boyd describes the well known statistics concerning children under 13 on Facebook, their relation to the US COPA law (the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ) and the research she and her colleagues did about that data:

"My collaborators and I decided to focus on one core question: Does COPPA actually empower parents? In order to do so, we surveyed parents about their household practices with respect to social media and their attitudes towards age restrictions online. From a national sample of 1,007 U.S. parents who have children living with them between the ages of 10-14 conducted July 5-14, 2011, we found:

Although Facebook's minimum age is 13, parents of 13- and 14-year-olds report that, on average, their child joined Facebook at age 12.
Half (55%) of parents of 12-year-olds report their child has a Facebook account, and most (82%) of these parents knew when their child signed up. Most (76%) also assisted their 12-year old in creating the account.
A third (36%) of all parents surveyed reported that their child joined Facebook before the age of 13, and two-thirds of them (68%) helped their child create the account.
Half (53%) of parents surveyed think Facebook has a minimum age and a third (35%) of these parents think that this is a recommendation and not a requirement.
Most (78%) parents think it is acceptable for their child to violate minimum age restrictions on online services."

She points out that

"Rather than reinforcing or extending a legal regime that produces age-based restrictions which parents actively circumvent, we need to step back and rethink the underlying goals behind COPPA and develop new ways of achieving them. This begins with a public conversation about what it means to parent in a digital world."

She is writing from the US; her audience is mainly Americans who could be in touch with their law makers. (In Britain, the site is banned for children under 13 under a voluntary "good practice code".)

Those of us outside the US are interested in this discussion because most of the websites we use with our students (and our own children) are based in the US, or another country which follows strict child protection laws. Everyone's decisions affect all of us. Read the whole article, which includes very interesting, graphic charts.

For more information on our findings and their implications for policy makers, see "Why Parents Help Their Children Lie to Facebook About Age: Unintended Consequences of the 'Children's Online Privacy Protection Act'" by danah boyd, Eszter Hargittai, Jason Schultz, and John Palfrey, published in First Monday.

From The Huffington Post article. Image Credit: Tim Roe

What do you think? Where do you fall on this chart? How does this discussion fit into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? A child has...

"...the right to love and understanding, preferably from parents and family, but from the government where these cannot help.
... the right to go to school for free, to play, and to have an equal chance to develop yourself and to learn to be responsible and useful. Your parents have special responsibilities for your education and guidance.
...(a child) should be taught peace, understanding, tolerance and friendship among all people."

(Taken from the Declaration of the Rights of the Child Plain Language Version)

Measurement

2011-11-01T20:46:00.000+01:00

These are links to websites that might be useful for the ISOCS Middle Primary Class, which is interested in finding out how to know how big something is.

Screen shot from Math is Fun

Basic information can be found at Math is Fun

Click here to go to the BBC Bitesize site and measure some Bamzooki

Screen shot from BBC Bitesize

If you click here, you'll find some scientific equipment in a weather station that needs to be read. (click on the word "Go" to get started.)

Screen shot from http://www.teacherled.com/

If you want something harder, try the Scale Challenge.

Screen shot from Scale Challenge

On this page you'll find lots of activities. Choose "Measurement" under each year group, and then click on the arrow in the picture to make it open full screen. Here's one that's not as easy as it looks.

Screen shot from TES Board

Math in real life

2011-10-31T20:53:00.000+01:00

Can you figure out what they're doing wrong?

Thanks, Eriks, for showing me this video!

Keyboarding race

2011-10-31T18:24:00.000+01:00

In case ISOCS students are bored in the next two days, while the teachers are learning about Math, I bring you this challenge:

You notice that he never looks down at his hands.

Now that you're inspired, go to our ICT Netvibes Keyboarding page and choose a typing exercise.

This video shows him typing even faster! (Or rather, shows him using a web page called TypeRacer, and reaching 212 words per minute (WPM)

Finding out about Friction

2011-10-30T11:41:00.000+01:00

These videos are for the ISOCS Middle Primary Class, which has been wondering about force and motion, and investigating friction.

And in case you forgot about Newton's laws of motion over the holiday, here's a refresher:

I'm a scientist

2011-10-23T06:58:00.000+02:00

This video from The Guardian is for the Middle Primary Class, who are investigation Force and Motion right now, and have just had a hard look at the IB Learner Profile.

Stephen Curry, who made the film, says
"... I have made a film by interviewing six different scientists, to give them a chance to share their stories. They talk openly about how they got into science, why they like doing it, what they think it takes to be a good scientist and speculate on some of the big questions that still need to be tackled."

Go to The Guardian page and read the whole story.

Are you a scientist?

Odd Girl Out

2011-10-22T21:40:00.000+02:00

This afternoon I listened to an National Public Radio Podcast, "All Tech Considered". Part of the episode was a conversation with author Rachel Simmons about her updated book, Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. You can listen to the story in the player below, or at the show page (where you will also find a transcript of the program), and read an expert from the book here.

Click here to read more about the book

"You can't really talk about girls anymore without talking about the role of social media in their lives," Simmons tells All Things Considered co-host Michele Norris. "For many girls, technology is not just what connects them, but it's part of their relationships. So many girls will say, 'I don't exist if I'm not on Facebook.' It's a huge part of how they navigate their lives."

Listen to the segment, especially if you live with teenagers (or anyone over the age of 8!)

Play Again

2011-10-19T08:49:00.000+02:00

I found a link to this video on the PYP Library Facebook page.

text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by playagainfilm on May 10, 2011

"PLAY AGAIN is a new, award-winning documentary about the consequences of a childhood removed from nature. At a time when children play more behind screens than outside, PLAY AGAIN explores the changing balance between the virtual and natural worlds. Is our connection to nature disappearing down the digital rabbit hole? To find out more, please visit us at www.playagainfilm.com or www.facebook.com/playagainfilm."

Watch this interview with the Producer:

text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by playagainfilm on Jun 27, 2011

"Interview with PLAY AGAIN producer, Meg Merrill, at the Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington D.C."

You can read about the film at its webpage http://playagainfilm.com/film-synopsis/
"One generation from now most people in the U.S. will have spent more time in the virtual world than in nature. New media technologies have improved our lives in countless ways. Information now appears with a click. Overseas friends are part of our daily lives. And even grandma loves Wii.

But what are we missing when we are behind screens? And how will this impact our children, our society, and eventually, our planet?"

2011-10-15T13:29:00.000+02:00

The KQED television station in San Francisco and NPR have a show page from their Mind/Shirft program which asks "How Young is Too Young for Kids to Start Social Networking?" The story discusses the statistics about under-age users on Facebook:
"What’s the appropriate age to start logging onto social networking sites? According to the Terms of Service for Facebook, at least, the answer is 13.

But that doesn’t stop thousands of younger children from signing up. According to Facebook’s chief privacy adviser Mozelle Thompson, Facebook removes about 20,000 users a day who are underage."

Screen shot from http://mindshift.kqed.org/

It mentions sites aimed at younger children, like imbee, Club Penguin, and Togetherville as alternatives. It asks "(W)ill kids be interested in Togetherville or Club Penguin when their friends and family are on Facebook? Should parents be complicit in signing up their under-13 kids on Facebook?"

Do you thinks kids are interested in being on Facebook because it's Facebook, and "everyone" is there, or is it a desire for a media social existence...in which case, is Club Penguin as good?

Mind/Shift has published two pages on this topic since the one mentioned above :
Should Parents Have the Backdoor Key to Their Kids’ Facebook Accounts??
The Pitfalls and Promises of Social Media and Kids

You might also be interested in
8 Social Media Sites Just for Kids

Flu Season

2011-10-09T10:15:00.002+02:00

Open Culture reminded us a few days ago that the flu season is just around the corner for us here in the Northern Hemisphere, i.e., here in Zug.

Text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by npr on Oct 23, 2009

"When you get the flu, viruses turn your cells into tiny factories that help spread the disease. In this animation, NPR's Robert Krulwich and medical animator David Bolinsky explain how a flu virus can trick a single cell into making a million more viruses."

See and hear the rest of the story on NPR.org:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114075029

This made me curious about other web sites with information about the flu. I found this video which is not so imaginative, but offers some practical advice:

What is ‘flu? - Explania

These web pages offer good advice, too:

KidsHealth ("TeensHealth is part of the KidsHealth family of websites. These sites, run by the nonprofit Nemours Center for Children's Health Media, provide accurate, up-to-date health information that's free of "doctor speak.")

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention - a page about handwashing

"Keeping hands clean through improved hand hygiene is one of the most important steps we can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others. "

and a page about "Cover your Cough"

"Stop the spread of germs that can make you and others sick!

Influenza (flu) and other serious respiratory illnesses like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), whooping cough, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) are spread by cough, sneezing, or unclean hands."

Flu and Cold Prevention Tips for keeping your family healthy.

Washing hands is the best way to prevent illness.
Baby wipes are not strong enough to kill germs.
Teach your child to cough or sneeze into her sleeve.
Don’t send your child to school with a fever, stomach flu or if she is feeling ill.
Everyone over the age of six months should get a flu shot.

When you search the internet for information about a topic like "flu" - a very generic term, a popular topic, and one about which people want information and want to publicize their own opinions, it's difficult to sort the fact from the folklore. I searched for what is the flu, using the advanced search tools to limit results to a "basic reading level" and pages posted within the last year. Even with those limitations, there were still 60,900,000 results! By putting what is the flu in quotation marks ("what is the flu"), the results were limited to 486. This list was much easier to sort through!

I decided to try the same search on some of the search engines linked to our Online Library page, to see if it would be easier, or there would be more reliable results, on the search engines created with young children in mind.
This is what I found on Ask Jeeves for Kids, Duck Duck Go, and Kid Rex (clik on the image to open it full size):

Screen shot of results on Ask Jeeves for Kids

Screen shot from results at KidRex

Screen shot of results from DuckDuckGo

All the sites returned reliable information, but my vote for favorite goes to Duck Duck Go, because of the refined search options ("Search Ideas") listed on the right of the screen.

This last video is for the Middle Primary Class, which often begins a unit of inquiry on Sesame Street. Their videos offer a precise, easy to understand presentation of the Big Idea behind many of the concepts we're interested in.

Caves, art and children

2011-10-01T13:49:00.000+02:00

This video is for the Middle Primary Class, who investigated early people in the Zug region last year in our "Structures" unit of inquiry.

Text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by CambridgeUniversity on Sep 29, 2011

Archaeological research reveals that 13,000 years before CBeebies hunter-gatherer children as young as three were creating art in deep, dark caves alongside their parents.

The History of Switzerland describes early people in Switzerland: "A few traces of early hunters (weapons and tools made from stone splinters, bones of prey animals and human skeletons) dating back to a relatively warm period about 150,000 years ago have been found in several natural caves in eastern and western Switzerland at an altitude of some 1,000 to 1,500 m (3000 to 4,500 ft) above sea level. These people belonged to the species homo neanderthalensis that disappeared later in history. They hunted mainly big animals." That's about 145,000 years earlier than the Lake Dwellers we were thinking about last year.

Are any of these caves around our area in Cham - Zug? There are the Höllgrotten near Baar. Are they the sort of caves people might have lived in?

There are caves nearby in Luzern, too.
"Wildkirchli is the name of a system of three caves in the Alpstein massif of Appenzell, Switzerland. They are notable for the traces of paleolithic (Neanderthals) habitation discovered in 1940 by Emil Bächler (1868–1950), dating to ca. 50,000 to 30,000 BP. Even earlier are remnants of cave bears found in the caves, dating to ca. 90,000 BP.
The caves were inhabited by hermits from 1658 to 1853.
Today, the caves are a tourist site. They can be easily accessed on foot via a short trail down from the cable car station at Ebenalp." (Read more at Wikipedia)

Wildkirchli, Appenzell, Schweiz on Wikimedia

Have you ever used your hands to make pictures or designs in clay or mud? How did it feel? How long did they last?

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Lost Tulsa

Off Book | Street Art | PBS Arts

2011-10-01T08:58:00.000+02:00

I'm sharing this video with the ISOCS classes who are investigating shape and space. Do you think color or texture makes any difference to how you perceive a shape? Is a rough or furry cube different from a smooth paper one? Is a florescent pink sphere different from a white one? Do you feel connected to a shape you've drawn or built? Watch this video all the way to the end.

Text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by PBS on Sep 27, 2011

"The street is a space where art thrives, and a place where artists can shape the public aesthetic. Olek, a sculptor whose medium is crochet, and Swoon, a mixed media artist, disrupt daily life with work that creates wonder, emotion, and humor. Equally at home in museums and galleries, both artists also create installations that challenge the formats of traditional art spaces. With powerful layers of meaning, beautiful aesthetics, and using unique media, these two prolific creators are pushing the boundaries of contemporary art."

Force and Motion - a cup of tea

2011-09-28T05:11:00.000+02:00

Here's a short clip for the Middle Primary Class, who have begun to think about Force and Motion. Making a cup of tea at 1000 frames per second makes it easy to spot the motion involved - but what about the forces? How many can you see?

Nature videos as UI resources

2011-09-19T10:22:00.000+02:00

I've been watching a lot of nature videos on the Internet recently, as we prepare a unit of inquiry for the Middle Primary Class, "Who do we share the planet with?"

Do you think the Middies will be able to spot the spoof?

I've also been experimenting with the myriad of tools now available for editing, viewing, downloading, etc. videos. Here are some of my results:

TubeChop lets you cut up a video, and create an embed code for just the part you want to share. Here are bits of a "Funny British Animal Voiceovers" video:

and

At Snip.it you can also cut up a video, and embed just the parts you want

cropped with SnipSnip

Watch this one:

Do you think it's "real"? Has it been edited? Is the added commentary "real"?

Here's the original BBC Clip:

How to Help Your Child's Brain Grow Up Strong

2011-09-16T09:01:00.000+02:00

Do you listen to the radio on the Internet?

I heard this program expert from National Public Radio, on my computer, and thought I'd share it:

There are two main ways to find radio stations on the web - one is to go to the page of station you know "normally" (Like the BBC, NPR, Swiss Radio), and see if they have a "listen now" capability. There's a directory of most of these stations on Wikipedia.

The other is to use one of the hundreds of guides to Internet radio you'll find on the web. such as www.online-radiostations.com - a radio search Engine. or www.temptation.fm - a list of all available web radio stations in Europe.

There are also two main ways for a station to make audio available on the Internet - on demand files, which can be replayed, downloaded and/or embedded (like the file above), and presenting listeners with a continuous stream of audio that cannot be paused or replayed, much like traditional broadcast media. Many stations offer both modalities for listening.

Missing the news from "home"? Trying to learn a new language? Want to know what music is listened to in a far away place? Use radio through the Internet as a learning tool.

Snails

2011-09-08T18:26:00.000+02:00

This is for the Early Years class, which has been immersed in snails.

Snails in the Early Years Aquarium

text from the web page:
"Josef und Silvia Beeler have an unusual occupation. They breed snails on their organic farm in Steinen, central Switzerland. The molluscs could soon help the Beelers make their fortune, as they're about to be offered as delicacies in upmarket restaurants. (SF/swissinfo)"

Snails appear in this BBC Nature video - but remember, it is a time-lapse film. That means we are seeing things move much faster than they really do.

Text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by BBCWorldwide on Aug 31, 2010

"Spectacular slow motion and time lapse photography take us into the heart of the forest as the sun brings to life an array of plants and wildlife. Amazing natural history clip from the BBC's Shadows of the Sun. Visit http://www.bbcearth.com for all the latest animal news and wildlife videos and watch more high quality videos on the BBC Earth YouTube channel."

If you want to know much more about snails, look at the Snail World web page.

Tidying up art

2011-09-07T21:57:00.002+02:00

This is for the Junior Primary students who are investigating systems. Last week they worked at organizing their art, under the influence of Ursus Wehrli. You can see the results in our Flickr Photo Set.

"Ursus Wehrli shares his vision for a cleaner, more organized, tidier form of art -- by deconstructing the paintings of modern masters into their component pieces, sorted by color and size." read the transcript of this TED Talk video, at its web page.

Ursus Wehrli's website is at http://www.kunstaufraeumen.ch/

3 Linear Concepts

2011-09-02T07:49:00.001+02:00

This is for some ISOCS students who may be thinking of making a video in the near future:

Text from the Vimeo page:
"3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage... all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ....into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films....= a trip of a lifetime..move, eat, learn"

What makes this video seem so interesting? Did you notice the pacing - how the cuts match the music exactly? The use of perspective, and the use of a single line of site? Did you follow the 3 "linear concepts" of the film - movement, learning and food?

I looked for the other videos from this journey, and found the other two parts of the three linear concepts referred to above, in the first video's description:

These were made as advertisements for a travel company in Australia. Do they make you want to move, learn and eat? travel? make videos?

P.S. I also had to do a little research on "a terabyte of footage". "The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 10¹² in the International System of Units (SI), and therefore 1 terabyte is 1000000000000bytes, or 1 trillion (short scale) bytes, or 1000 gigabytes." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte) Which means?
"The first 20 years worth of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope has amassed more than 45 terabytes of data."
"One terabyte of audio recorded at CD quality will contain around 2,000 hours of audio. "
"Released in 2009, the 3D animated film Monsters vs. Aliens used 100 TB of storage during development."

The Middies' Blog as a Book

2011-09-01T07:54:00.000+02:00

The Middle Primary Class @ ISOCS blog from August 2010 - June 2011, i.e., last school year, has just been published. Here's how it looks:

The Middle Primary Class @ ISOCS 2010-2011 by Judy Firkins

Looking through the book brings the school year back to life, and provides a window into the curriculum and program of inquiry followed by the Middle Primary Class (2nd and 3rd Grade) at ISOCS.

Last year about this time, Miss Judy's blog from the school year before, 2009-2010 was turned into a book, too. Click on this link to see the preview.

While you're looking at ISOCS books, you'll find two from the Middie Primary Class' last unit of inquiry into structures, Visiting Schloss St. Andreas and Visiting the Museum fuer Urgeschichte(n) Zug. And of course, there is the 2010-2011 ISOCS Year Book.

Taking care of our laptops

2011-08-29T12:19:00.000+02:00

It's that time again - new classes, new students, new teachers, using our school laptops. Here are some reminders about how to take care of them:

More information for PCs running Windows:

NASA on Flickr

2011-08-29T08:47:00.000+02:00

Unless you've been under a rock for the weekend, you've probably been made aware of a hurricane named "Irene" moving up the East Coast of the North America. There were several Twitter feeds (including one in the name of the storm itself) which was interesting reading for us, at a great distance, especially if you're interested in Social Media.

Not being on the East Coast, and not being directly affected by the storm, I found the most interesting resource to be NASA's Flickr photo stream. NASA releases many photos - current and historical - through Flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution License,

Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
Hurricane Irene as Seen from Space

An Expedition 28 crew member aboard the International Space Station captured this image of Hurricane Irene off the east coast of the United States on Friday, August 26, 2011, around 4:30 p.m. EDT (8:30 p.m. GMT).

Credit: NASA

Click here for a large (1600x1005) version of this image.

Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
Full Disk Image of Earth Captured August 26, 2011

"NASA / NOAA GOES-13 satellite image showing earth on August 26, 2011 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT). Hurricane Irene can been seen on the U.S. East Coast.

Irene Almost 1/3 the Size of East Coast. Irene has become a major hurricane, and NASA satellite data shows its diameter is now about 510 miles -- roughly 1/3 the length of the U.S. Atlantic coastline. Hurricane watches are in effect for much of the East Coast."

Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project

Click here for a very large (3072x3072) version of this image.

There are several videos in NASA's Hurricane Irene Set.

Hurricane Irene August 26th [hd video]

"The GOES-13 satellite saw Hurricane Irene moving closer to the east coast August 24 12:40 UTC thru August 26 at 12:32 UTC.

Hurricane Irene is raging the U.S. East Coast and will affect the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast through the Weekend.

At 5 a.m. EDT this morning Hurricane Irene was centered 420 miles south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, NC. (29.3N and 77.2 W) Max. winds 110 mph., moving north at 14 mph. Pressure 942 millibars."

Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

Besides images which are interesting and beautiful, there are images of a more scientific nature. For example

Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

TRMM Satellite Shows What's Happening Under the Hood of Hurricane Irene's Clouds

"NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite radar saw the inner core of Hurricane Irene for a fourth time on Friday afternoon, August 25. On Friday afternoon, the TRMM radar showed that the southern half of the eyewall was gone. Some strong precipitation did still exist in the remaining eyewall to the north of the eye.

The weakening of the inner-core precipitation structure that we see as Irene approaches North Carolina is similar to the pre-landfall weakening of the inner-core of Hurricane Isabel in 2003, the most recent hurricane to make landfall in North Carolina's Outer Banks.

The lack of a compact symmetric eyewall suggests that there is relatively little chance of intensification at the time of the satellite overflight. TRMM showed that the highest towering thunderstorms were about 7.5 miles high (12 kilometers)."

Credit: NASA/GSFC

Owen Kelley
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Read the rest of the article here.

Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

TRMM Satellite Views Irene's Strong Rains Over Cape Hatteras

August 28, 2011

"The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite had another very good daytime view of hurricane Irene on August, 27, 2011 1:50 p.m. EDT. The rainfall analysis was derived from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) data. It shows that the center of circulation was still well defined and Irene was dropping intense rainfall over Cape Hatteras east of the hurricane's center.

TRMM rainfall images are false-colored with yellow, green and red areas, which indicate rainfall between 20 and 40 millimeters (.78 to 1.57 inches) per hour. Dark red areas are considered heavy rainfall, as much as 50 mm (2 inches) of rain per hour. The TRMM satellite is managed by both NASA and JAXA."

Click here to read the rest of the information

Hal Pierce/Rob Gutro
SSAI/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Click here to see the original size of this image (1024x1048)

This photo was taken closer to the ground, and is not in the NASA photo stream. It comes from Irene's Twitter feed.

http://yfrog.com/g0u6hkj

Droplet Collisions

2011-08-27T10:52:00.001+02:00

One of my regular correspondents emailed this video to me:

Uploaded by theslowmoguys on Feb 18, 2011

In the slowest slow mo video yet, Gav shows us the classic colliding droplets shot in liquid. Using a mixture of coloured water and milk shot at 5000 frames per second (200 times slower than real-time.)

I looked at other videos by the "Slo Mo Guys"

Uploaded by theslowmoguys on Nov 20, 2010

To Gav and Dan's dismay, viewer feedback indicates that Lloyd the cat is in fact the most popular member of the Slow Mo Guys team. So here is a short and sweet clip of Lloyd in action.

This one is for the Middies' next unit of inquiry into force and motion:

Uploaded by theslowmoguys on Mar 21, 2011

Gav and Jack went to a near by sandpit to show Jack doing some impressive acrobatics. He does a front flip at 2500fps (100 times slower than real time) and a back flip at 1000fps. Gav also tries his trick which is called "Jump completely upside down and then do nothing." Gav still has sand in his pockets.

Have a look at the Slo Mo Guys YouTube Channel for more fascinating slow motion videos, and see ordinary things through the magic of their slow-motion video.

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Digital Youth Portrait: Cameron

2011-08-21T14:53:00.003+02:00

I've been looking for resources for our upcoming units of inquiry, and came across this video about not-your-average 11 year old.

"My name is Cameron, and I live in Indiana. I have my own Mac, and I just love making movies and stuff like that. I'm a very visual learner. If our teacher describes something that maybe I don't understand, I go back and look at it. Then I picture it, and I think, "Now, what would that look like if I put it on film or on the green screen?""(link)

There is more information about Cameron at this page, and explore some of his work here.

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Moving a colossal statue

2011-08-20T15:44:00.000+02:00

This is for the folks who will be thinking about force and motion this fall, and who are interested in simple machines.

Text from the YouTube page:

Uploaded by metmuseum on Aug 18, 2011

On Monday, August 15, 2011, a monumental statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat II (ca. 1919--1885 B.C.) was installed in the Met's Great Hall. It is a special loan from the collection of the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin -- Preussischer Kulturbesitz. It will remain in the Great Hall for one year and will be on loan to the Met for ten years.

What were the challenges for the museum personnel? How did they solve them? Can you think of other ways they might have solved them? What simple machines do you see in the video? Which laws of motion do you see being illustrated?

Words of the World

2011-08-13T07:44:00.001+02:00

Uploaded by wordsoftheworld on Aug 10, 2011

The word biscuit comes from the French language.

Today I watched a video from Words of the World YouTube Channel that I thought might interest our multi-lingual friends at ISOCS.

Uploaded by wordsoftheworld on Oct 22, 2010

Why is the German language called "Deutsch"?

Uploaded by wordsoftheworld on Aug 3, 2011

Linguist Nicola McLelland discusses standard languages, with particular interest in German and English.

Words of the World , from the University of Nottingham in the UK, has a very entertaining main page on their website - click through and have a look.

The website describes itself like this, on its "About" page:
"From Nazi to Chocolate, words play a vital role in our lives.
And each word has its own story.

But where do they come from? What do they mean? How do they change?

Some of these questions will be answered by "Words of the World" - a series of short videos presented by experts from the University of Nottingham's School of Modern Languages and Cultures.

In addition to exploring the words themselves, we'll explore a little about the varied research our experts are working on.

The project is created by film-maker Brady Haran, whose other work includes the successful Periodic Table of Videos, Test Tube and Bibledex."

Are you a web curator?

2011-08-06T08:42:00.000+02:00

This is long, sometimes rambling video of Howard Rheingold intervieweing Robert Schoble.

Uploaded by howardrheingold on Mar 7, 2011

"Increasingly, curation is becoming an important participation/collaboration skill for digital citizens. I interviewed Robert Scoble, one of the most prolific and highly knowledgeable curators about how he does what he does and what advice he has for others."

In the video, Rheingold and Scoble discuss:

How to be a curator? "See patterns that no one else sees... verify that pattern, and expand the pattern."
Curating is "knowing something about sources, or a particular subject," "using tools that magnify your skill".

How do you begin?
Start with a list of people you trust, and like reading. Understand who they are, and "follow" them.
Use tools - (Twitter), TweetDeck, Flipboard. Use high level aggregation - Yahoo News, Huffington Post, Tech News (depending on your interests)
Don't try to compete with other people. Pick a very specific, small area, and become an authority.

"Using your systems, you'll build a "pattern recognizer" in your brain...to look for the pattern that you care about...".

I've shared this video here because I think that as a class investigates a unit of inquiry topic, it becomes a short-term curator for that central idea. Together they question, research, discuss, collect resources, write, present, etc., their understanding of an idea. Most of that information is stored in the record of the unit - a portfolio, a planner, a blog. They've created a curated collection for the next class interested in the topic, in their own school, or somewhere else in the world. How are we sharing these collections? How are they indexed, tagged, and posted? Why is this important in an environment which is also encouraging digital literacies of participation, collaboration, attention, critical consumption, and network awareness?

Up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a...robot!

2011-08-05T07:32:00.000+02:00

"Plenty of robots can fly -- but none can fly like a real bird. That is, until Markus Fischer and his team at Festo built SmartBird, a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull, that flies by flapping its wings. A soaring demo fresh from TEDGlobal 2011."

Here's a longer video from Festo, the company which designed the "bird" explaining the project more fully:

If you want to know more, visit the Festo YouTube Channel.

What do you suppose their work will lead to?

New Faces at ISOCS

2011-07-31T21:10:00.000+02:00

Look carefully at this picture - something strange has happened to some of our students....it might have to do with kittenfaces.com.

Exploding Rain

2011-07-28T08:23:00.000+02:00

More the Middies who looked closely at water and energy, and the Juniors, who investigated air.

This morning I was checking my YouTube subscriptions, and found this intriguing video from New Science.

"Tibetan singing bowls produce a haunting sound but they can also make droplets dance on the water's surface. Ripples are formed when the edge of the bowl is skimmed with a mallet, deforming its surface. If the water waves are excited enough, droplets are ejected." Read more at New Science TV.

The article on the New Science website explaining the video links on to this one (from July 2009), "Myth of raindrop formation exploded", about "exploding rain drop research".

After a brief description of the history of rain drop research, the article relates how Emmanuel Villermaux , at Aix-Marseille University in France, and his colleague Benjamin Bossa at the University Institute of France in Paris have come to think individual droplets inflate and then explode to create the smaller droplets so common at ground level.

"The pair got the idea from the unusual but well known transformations of fuel droplets travelling at high speed in diesel engines. As they travel, drops flatten from a sphere into a pancake-like disc; this catches passing air and inflates like a liquid parachute that eventually explodes in a shower of smaller droplets."

Below is a brief video of this happening. (Unfortunately, there is a strange advertisement before the rain drop video.)

4 Ways iPads Are Changing the Lives of People With Disabilities

2011-07-26T07:05:00.001+02:00

I read a post this morning on Mashable, by Zoe Fox, "4 Ways iPads Are Changing the Lives of People With Disabilities"

Screen shot of http://mashable.com/2011/07/25/ipads-disabilities/

The post describes the learning journey of a 3 year old with Cerebral Palsy, and how his iPad has helped him:

"When he turned two, his language, cognitive abilitity and fine motor skills were diagnosed by a developmental specialist as being at least 12 months behind. Then Noah got an iPad.

Four months later, his language and cognition were on par with his age level. His fine motor skills had made significant leaps."

His father is co-founder of a website called SNApps4Kids. It is "a community of parents, therapists, doctors, and teachers who share information on how we are using the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices with children who have special needs. We have found these mobile devices to provide accessibility for children who may have been previously disengaged from the world because of challenging language, motor, or other developmental delays. Given the rising number of apps on the market and the diverse skills of children with special needs, parents have found each other to be one of the best resources for choosing apps to enhance everyday life for our children. While our group is primarily parent-driven, our efforts are naturally collaborative with the people who help our children develop particular skills — therapists and educators." (link)

Screen shot of http://www.snapps4kids.com/

If you have a tablet device, or are thinking of buying one, click through and check out the site, especially the Find an App page.

Visiting the Museum für Urgeschichte(n) Zug - the Book

2011-07-25T21:12:00.003+02:00

The next Middies book is out - Visiting the Museum für Urgeschichte(n) Zug

Visiting the Museum für Urgeschichte(n) Zug

Preview it here, order it at this link.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

2011-07-19T10:15:00.000+02:00

(I posted this on the ISOCS Library Media Center blog, too - it's a case where the line between "book" and "ICT" is so blurred, it's disappeared!)

This morning I read an exciting post at A Year of Reading about "The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore. "THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE is an incredible story that seems to change things when it comes to what is possible with multimedia storytelling. First of all, it is a great story. I sighed when I finished and I watched other people sigh at the end too. It is a great story about the power of books and reading and the art (without the animation) is pretty incredible. The animation and the multimedia effects make the book and the story even better." (link) Click through and read the whole blog post. It will make you want to "read" the book yourself, and if necessary, buy an iPad 2 to do it with!

The plot summary describes the book this way:
"Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/ illustrator William Joyce and Co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a hybrid style of animation that harkens back to silent films and MGM Technicolor musicals. Morris Lessmore is old fashioned and cutting edge at the same time."

Have a look at the book's website, for more plot description, photo galleries, some fascinating "making of " videos (see one of these, below), etc.

Here's the book trailer:

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore iPad App Trailer from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

The book is available from iTunes and from the iTunes App Store.

Moonbot Studios, in Shreveport, LA (USA) describes itself on its Vimeo page as "a place where outstanding individual talents come together to bring extraordinary entertainment to our clients and our audiences from an array of media platforms." I'll agree with that!

The Making Of Morris: Part 3 (Thousands Of Books) from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.
Part 3 of a 9 part series of " The Making Of The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. " Expect Part 4 July 1, 2011.

The Arithmetic Revolution

2011-07-18T10:34:00.000+02:00

Listen to National Public Radio's Weekend Edition broadcast segment Fibonacci's 'Numbers': The Man Behind The Math. "Weekend Edition "Math Guy" Keith Devlin tells the story of this arithmetic revolution in his new book, The Man of Numbers. Numerals 0 to 9 had been around in Hindu and Arabic cultures for centuries, but the problem was, Europeans didn't really do business with the numbers."

On the post page, you can read the transcript of the interview, download the mp3 file, read an excerpt from the new book, and see pages from the original Liber Abaci.

Google+: The Complete Guide

2011-07-18T07:56:00.002+02:00

Curious about Google+ ? Have a look at Google+: The Complete Guide over on the Mashable blog (posted 17 June 2011). It covers everything, and includes all the Google videos. Starting with "Why Should Someone Use Google+?", moving on to "Getting Started", and then exploring each of the features in Google+.