Category: globalvoices
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Downloading and Converting Ustream FLV Videos to DVD
The medical missionaries to Niger whose presentation I recorded and webcasted on Sunday (with permission, of course) asked yesterday to have the Ustream video recordings of their presentation taken offline. They reviewed the recordings and were concerned that some of the things they said might be perceived negatively by the Niger government, and they didn’t…
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Tracking and translating blog conversations: Google Blog Search Mentions and Yahoo! Babel Fish
This evening reading one of Chris Pirillo’s old posts, I noticed in his sidebar links for “My Profiles” he includes a link for “Blog Mentions” which includes code for a Google Blog Search for his site: http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&scoring=d&partner=wordpress&q=link:http://chris.pirillo.com/ I’m not lacking digital reading material these days, thanks in large part to the wonderful educational bloggers to…
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International Education Partnerships: The Need for a Global Perspective
These are my notes from the presentation “International Education Partnerships: The Need for a Global Perspective” at the OU K-20 Center’s MidWinter Conference in Norman, Oklahoma, on 29 January 2009. MY REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The conference Ning is http://k20center.ning.com, and is open to anyone. How do we broaden students’ perspectives so they are…
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Numeracy and Reading Development with the iPhone Weather App
It is important for students to be enthusiastic about learning. Motivation can be tied to many things, and one of the most important elements is background knowledge or schema. For the past several months, my five year old has enthusiastically continued developing her emerging numeracy and reading skills using the weather application on my iPhone.…
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Iran, Sovereignty, Colonialism and the Values of the West
As a student of history, I suspect Dick Cheney may be regarded by historians in years to come as an enemy of self-determination, human rights, and long-term political stability internationally on a comparable scale to John Foster Dulles. I say “long-term political stability” because while short-term political stability can (at times) be realized by political…
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UNICEF Photos of the Year Give Cause to Pause This Holiday Season
Around the world this holiday season, many families are gathering together to share food and give thanks. Yet amidst these moments of togetherness and gift giving, there are many reasons to remember those who are less fortunate and in need of our assistance as well as prayers. This photograph by 21 year old Alice Smeets…
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New South Wales throws down the glove for student hackers
Monday’s CNET Australia article “NSW to censor student laptops” is both surprising and saddening. How can a government official stand up and boldly claim, “Our Internet filtering scheme is unbreakable?” I’m not sure this can be done credibly, yet that is what officials down under are doing. In the name of “internet safety” they are…
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Darfur Issues highlighted via a student-created Southpark style video
I learned about the following student-created Southpark parody video today entitled “Genocide: Lost in Translation” from Joyce Valenza. This is a great example of a transformative, creative work which arguably meets US fair use copyright provisions because of its transformative nature. Take a few minutes to watch the video, it is just 3 minutes long.…
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Filmmakers document incredible courage of Liberian women
My knowledge of Liberia has been pretty limited to date. I learned about the Liberian Renaissance Education Complex talking to Dr. Dennis Harper (founder of Kijana Voices and Generation YES) at NECC in 2007 as part of a podcast interview. Before our conversation I had not heard of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the current president of Liberia…
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Central Asia, Oil, Geo-Politics and Smart Playlists
One of the delightful potentials we have today if we’re fortunate to be digitally connected to the Internet and own (or have access) to a mobile audio player (like an iPod) is to be influenced regularly by amazing people and their thought-provoking ideas. Several months ago I became aware of the power of “smart playlists”…