The Mister Rogers Remix

PBS Media puts out some interesting remix versions of classic Mister Rogers clips, and it recently invited folks to borrow some of the loop tracks from its archives, including the voice of Mister Rogers, to create a remix version. How could I resist? I’ll share out the process of how I created the remix tomorrow (and offer up some suggestions for your own remix). Today, here is the remix that I created:

I also took the audio remix and used Popcorn Maker to layer it in as the audio track for the video from which the loops come from. Unfortunately, it does not sync as well as the original. But still …

Peace (in the remix),
Kevin

 

Inspired by Teach the Web: The Collaborative Poem Expands Outward

Over at the iAnthology (a network of hundreds of teacher-writers via the National Writing Project), I posted a collaborative document and started a few lines from a poem … and then asked my friends in the iAnthology to hack the poem, remix it, add to it/delete lines, and make it into something alive via collaboration. We were using a tool from Mozilla called HTMLpad that I learned about via the Teach the Web MOOC, and the results were amazing to watch (in fact, the poem continues to grow). It only made sense to capture the unfolding of the poem (one of the features in HTMLpad is that you can watch everyone’s add via a timeline) with me reading the poem as a podcast, and so I used another Mozilla tool – Popcorn Maker — to layer in the podcast on top of the screencast.

The results? Pretty interesting (see the published poem, for now anyway .. every time I look, a few new words spring up), and a fascinating example of how writers can become collaborators on a single poem. I’m honored that others dove in to collaborate and hack my words.

Or see the Popcorn project here: http://popcorn.webmadecontent.org/14y1
Peace (in the poem),
Kevin

 

 

Game Review Podcast Reviews

We’re winding up our unit around paragraph writing, and the final assignment (related to persuasive) was to write a review of a game. It did not have to be a video game, but many chose to go that route. Initially, we were going to do podcasts with Garageband, but the computers were needed by another teacher (and I did not want to be a complete laptop hog), so we went to Plan B and used Voicethread. Participation in the podcasting was optional, but even so, it showcases a range of games (although Minecraft continues to have a leg up on other games, particularly with the boys)


Or go to: https://voicethread.com/share/4661162/

Peace (in the game),
Kevin

The Coding Video

I’m a little late to this party for sharing this video (it got lost in my draft pile) but I wanted to share out this video about the importance of learning coding and programming, and its connection to literacy. This fits in nicely with a summer camp program for high school students in which we intend to explore hacking as literacy, and the concept of learning coding as literacy is right in the mix.

Peace (in the code),
Kevin

Book Review: (Giving up on) The Westing Game

I suppose we all have books that others rave about, but which we can’t seem to like or get into. For me, it’s The Westing Game.

Three different times over the years, I have valiantly tried to read this award-winning book by Ellen Raskin and all three times, I have tossed the book aside in frustration and confusion, and as a result, serious boredom. Seriously, I don’t get the fuss. Now, I consider myself a pretty strong reader, and I have always loved mysteries (my childhood went from Encyclopedia Brown to Ellery Queen in a heartbeat). This novel  is about a dead millionaire (Sam Westing) who has left his fortune to one of his 16 heirs, but they all must play the “game” in order to figure out who killed Westing  before they can claim their $200 million inheritance. The heirs are all paired up and given partial clues to a game, and each team must start from there.

On the surface, that sounds fine. A good mystery to unfold, and the use of chess as a metaphor — that’s right up my alley. I can get into that. It even sounds a bit like 10 Little Indians by Agatha Christie, right?  (note: one of my students made that remark to me when I was book talking The Westing Game).

Unfortunately, Raskin seems more intent on adding layers of characters and clues and complexity just for the sake of the act of doing so, and not for the sake of story and character development. I didn’t care a whit about any of the characters (not even Turtle, whom I know I need to be rooting or) nor could I keep track of the little asides that Raskin writes into the story which clearly as clues for the reader, but which don’t connect with each other and are too many in nature, causing an overwhelming sense of “red herring” disease.

No, I do not like The Westing Game.

But I should note that I have had students who have liked it and rave about it, and another of my colleagues who used to teach it loved it. Which makes me believe it just must be me and my own style of reading. I can live with that, even if it does leave me a little confused and wondering what it is that I am missing here.

Still, three times … and I’m out.

Peace (in the clues),
Kevin

 

Exploring and Creating Visual Town Histories

I have a group of students just finishing up Kate Klise’s Regarding the Fountain, which is a small novel with a story told entirely through artifacts. My kids are always intrigued when we pull this out because it is so different from the kinds of books they are used to reading (straight narratives). Part of the story involves students in the fictional town of Dry Creek researching and writing about the history of their town. They then provide a pretty nifty visual history of what they discovered.

So …

I had my students do some research on their town (culled from some historical artifacts from the town archives) and I had them create their own visual history of Southampton, Massachusetts. I love this connection to the book because it allows for wonderful discussions about where they live and how their town came to be, and various events that took place (Ted Kennedy’s plane crashed in the town; the movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was filmed here; and the town’s water was designated the tastiest in the country in 2008). All these connections to history are important.

Here are a few of the projects:
Visual History of Southampton2

Visual History of Southampton4

Visual History of Southampton6

Visual History of Southampton

Visual History of Southampton3

 

Peace (in the history),
Kevin

 

The Digital Poster Collection: Making Learning Connected MOOC Teasers

And our collection of teasers for this summer’s Making Learning Connected MOOC continues …
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The digital poster can be accessed directly: http://mrhodgson.edu.glogster.com/making-learning-connected
You can now sign up at the Making Learning Connected website: http://blog.nwp.org/clmooc/ The activities launch on June 15, and we want to invite you to join everyone in a summer of learning, making and fun.
Peace (in sparking your interest),
Kevin

Teach the Web Constructive Criticism: Web Literacy Skills Proposal

This week, at the Teach the Web MOOC, we are being asked to consider the ways that we can offer constructive feedback and criticism to the ideas of others, in a way that is truthful but also positive. Given how much we discern meaning from face-to-face contact with others, technology at once makes criticism easier and more difficult. One of the suggestions is that we take a look at the developing Web Literacy Skills document that a team associated with Mozilla is working on, and offer up some feedback on how it looks, how it might work, and what strengths and weaknesses we notice about it.

I decided to use Thinglink to layer in some comments on top of the competency grid (a visual representation of the ideas being generated), in hopes of using technology to offer feedback in a meaningful way.

Check out my Thinglink Critique

And here it is, embedded. Just hover over the image and find points where I have added notes.

Peace (in the feedback),
Kevin

 

 

Book Review: Field Guide to Writing Flash Non-Fiction

I’ve long been intrigued by flash fiction — shorter pieces of writing that utilize inference and character to drive home an idea or a story in a short amount of time and brevity of words. Mostly, though, I have thought about it terms of fiction. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Non-Fiction, edited by Dinty W. Moore, is a perfect introduction to the approaches that a writer might take when considering flash non-fiction — writing about the real but in a creative vein.

The book is a series of chapters in which published authors talk about the craft of flash non-fiction, and its place in the field of writing and reading. Topics range from image and detail, to finding your voice, to the use of language, to the concept of discovering a structure for your narrative. Each chapter has a short introduction, followed by not only a demonstrative piece of flash non-fiction but also some ways that the reader might “try out” some strategies.

It’s this part that intrigues me as a teacher, and a writer, and I appreciated those three components — overview, sample, suggestions — coming together in this collection. This field guide opened my eyes to some interesting possibilities for writing non-fiction in shorter bursts, but still making those pieces meaningful, insightful and worth reading. And I would be not be truthful if I am not making connections in my mind from this collection to the Common Core’s push towards more non-fiction reading and writing, in the content areas. In some ways, flash fiction is a natural fit for teaching about non-fiction writing. Students would not get overwhelmed by the length of the assignments, and yet, they would be learning about how to notice the world, use critical thinking and convey important messages about their topics.

I have explored this idea of shortened forms of writing before and continue to be intrigued by the possibilities.

Peace (in the small but powerful writing moments),
Kevin