Archive for September, 2009:


Podcast329: Playing Civilization Revolution on the iPod Touch / iPhone

This podcast features an interview with 11 year old Alexander, discussing his experiences playing the iPod Touch / iPhone version of the game Civilization Revolution. According to the English WikiPedia entry for the game: Civilization Revolution is a turn based strategy game. In past installments the player had more control over the rules of the

(Read More…)

Arrange iPhone icons now in iTunes 9.0

Woo hoo! I’ve been waiting for this functionality for months, and it’s finally here with iTunes 9.0. iPhone and iPod Touch / iTouch users no longer have to tediously arrange application icons on their iPhone / iTouch: it is now possible to arrange icons as desired using a drag-and-drop interface included with iTunes. It is

(Read More…)

Addressing the R Word Proactively and Flagging YouTube Videos

We refer to students with special needs as “disabled” for good reasons. This 30 second public service announcement video by Special Olympics HQ explains why, and recommends the “The New R Word” should be “respect.” I found this video, unfortunately, when researching YouTube Community Guidelines for flagging videos. This short tutorial gives the basics on

(Read More…)

Criteria for moderating comments on a viral video

Cross-posted to Google’s Education Blog, “The Infinite Thinking Machine.” Two days ago, my nine year old daughter recorded a two minute video response to President Obama’s September 8th speech to students and I posted it to YouTube. Since then, in a little over 48 hours, the video has been viewed over 70,000 times, received thousands

(Read More…)

YouTube comment moderation is great (and recommended) when videos go viral

My 9 year old’s YouTube response to President Obama’s speech to U.S. students yesterday has become quite popular around the world in the past 28 hours. At this writing, it has been viewed over 20,000 times and received the following daily honors. Note these are in 20 different countries, in addition to the United States.

(Read More…)

Over 17,000 views on YouTube in 24 hours

This does not qualify as a viral video, perhaps, but I was still blown away to see that my daughter’s 2 minute response to President Obama’s speech yesterday has had over 17,500 views on YouTube in just 24 hours. Whoa! What happened? I’m not 100% certain, but apparently thanks to Twitter and Facebook links it

(Read More…)

Great experiences today with Google Moderator and Wimba discussing Copyright

Late this afternoon I was a virtual guest speaker in Larry Moore’s class at Columbus State University in Georgia, and responded to questions regarding copyright and intellectual property in the classroom. In advance, students were asked to view my presentation “Copyright for Educators” shared at the ITSC conference in Portland, Oregon, in February 2009, and

(Read More…)

Using Blogs and CoverItLive to Discuss President Obama’s Speech

This morning, since my 4th grade daughter’s teacher chose NOT to show President Obama’s speech to her class, I pulled Sarah out of school 30 minutes before the speech began and brought her home so we could watch it together on CSPAN, as well as interact with 5th grade students and teachers in Littleton, Colorado,

(Read More…)

President Obama’s Speech to Students: A Great Opportunity for Synchronous, Live Discussions

Novel, stressful or otherwise challenging situations can often tell us a great deal about individual and organizational attitudes and values. The responses of schools and school leaders to next Tuesday’s Presidential address to U.S. students is a case in point. It is instructive to listen carefully to the reasons school leaders are providing to either

(Read More…)

Exemplary Digital Stories from Kansas, Oklahoma

Teachers in Kansas, Oklahoma, participated in our phase 1 Celebrate Oklahoma Voices workshop this past week, and created some superb digital stories. These are five we’ve featured among the 431 videos now included in our online learning community. The Five Fighting Starrs of Oklahoma tells the amazing story of Paul Starr’s grandfather and five of

(Read More…)

Advocating for balanced approaches to Internet filtering in schools

I was delighted to read Kathleen Kennedy Manzo’s article for the latest issue of Education Week today, “Filtering Fixes,” which features on-the-mark quotations about how we should be approaching Internet filtering in our schools from Shawn Nutting (of Trussville, Alabama schools) and others. The lead image includes April Chamberlain and Shawn, who are both past

(Read More…)

Branding, Advertising, and the Attention Economy

I’m following the lead of my wife and son this past summer, who both read 4+ eBooks on their iPhone / iTouch devices using the free Kindle for iPhone app. This week I started reading Naomi Klein’s book “No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs” in eBook form. According to WikiPedia’s entry, Klein: …

(Read More…)

Transferring cell phone recorded audio (voicenote) to a Mac computer

I’m in Kansas, Oklahoma, this week leading a Celebrate Oklahoma Voices workshop for teachers in Kansas Public Schools. One of our participants, Carolyn Emde, is creating a story about one of her neighbors who went to Australia last summer on a People to People exchange trip. The student, Adam, brought back a digeridoo from Australia,

(Read More…)

What questions do you have about copyright?

Misconceptions abound among educators regarding copyright inside and outside the classroom. What questions do YOU have about copyright that you’d like answered? Next week, on Tuesday evening, I’ll be connecting with a class at Columbus State University in Ohio via Wimba and discussing copyright issues and questions particularly as they pertain to education. This won’t

(Read More…)

Proposed Fall Conference Sessions

I’m going to be traveling more than normal this fall for conferences in Oklahoma, Hong Kong and Hangzhou, China, Kansas, Maine, and Illinois. While I’ve shared a large number of keynotes and conference presentations in the past several years, I definitely have some favorite topics to share when I’m invited to make suggestions to conference

(Read More…)

Your Superintendent Crisis Plan Doesn’t Prepare You For This

Cross posted to the Storychasers blog. Terry Brown is the superintendent of Earlsboro Public Schools, in Oklahoma, and participated this past summer in one of our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital storytelling workshops. In May of 1999, Terry was superintendent of Bridge Creek Schools, an unincorporated community devastated by a F5 tornado. Terry’s 4 minute COV

(Read More…)

© Creative Commons License