The 1,000 Best Movies Ever Made, compiled by the NY Times

The 1,000 Best Movies Ever Made, compiled by the NY Times (I've seen 201 of these, which is impressive considering I generally don't like films made before 1970.) [remainder]

All sorts of Gmail tips, tricks, and resources

All sorts of Gmail tips, tricks, and resources [remainder]

You've Got Mail

So, when did the USPS website become so tech friendly? I've used it to print shipping labels to send packages and I just set dates for the Post Office to hold my mail. You can also print cards and letters and have them sent. You just upload your image or whatever and then create the document step-by-step, and then pay for postage, etc. Too cool!

Onward Oregon

If you're fed-up with the undue influence of the radical right in Oregon and our nation's capitol, you've found a home. You can be a part of Onward Oregon and make a difference. Onward Oregon is the site where progressive Oregonians can make change together. Last year 30,000 Oregonians demonstrated against the war in Iraq. Imagine if all those Oregonians could find a way to work together on the issues challenging Oregon today. Onward Oregon is here to enable the progressive community to work together in unprecedented numbers.

Portrait Illustration Maker

Make an icon of yourself! [via ChicKnits]

Gmail problem solved

Sweet! After trying a couple registry hacks that didn't quite work, this program did what I wanted. It opens a new window with just the new message window populated (without the rest of the gmail "chrome") but I'm sure Google will create some sort of toolbar extension that does the same.

[A Whole Lotta Nothing]

Short interview with David Sedaris in Time magazine

Short interview with David Sedaris in Time magazine ("It's the kind of job where you just couldn't take enough baths.") [remainder]

Transfer your email from your current mail app into Gmail

Transfer your email from your current mail app into Gmail [remainder]

Scum Center

"Portland's snooty corps of Rose Fest-haters got to feel smug this year, when a pair of festival carnies were busted for meth. David Summers allegedly turned his post as operator of the aptly named ride Spin-Out into a speed concession, attracting unusually heavy foot traffic and, in turn, police attention. Another carnival laborer was nailed for tweaking on the job. Congratulations, intelligentsia!" [via Willamette Week]

Aahhh, the fun of Rose Festival!

Fun weblog about getting stuff for cheap

Fun weblog about getting stuff for cheap [remainder]

Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom

This piece by Charlie Lowe and Terra Williams articulates a host of reasons why writing teachers should seriously think about bringing Weblogs into their classrooms. It continues this great string of links lately that are starting to get to the heart of classroom use and providing the foundation for more widespread adoption. Very cool.

Just a couple of excerpts:

Student hypertext projects expand the concept of the public audience to include the entire web. Yet, weblogs as a social, public genre can have equal if not more appeal to a generation who enjoys seeing the private made public on Survivor and MTV's Real World, while also fulfilling the pedagogical goal of expanding audience outside of the classroom. When students hesitate to share their texts publicly--given the association of the word "journal" with the word "private"--an exploration of weblogging will clarify for them that a weblog is a public way of sharing ideas.

Using Delaney's "digital paper," we've found that blogging and reading blogs prepares students to write online. Weblogs can serve as an alternative to hypertext assignments, or even make hypertext assignments more effective. In our experience, students sometimes get carried away with the eye-candy of web site design--images, fancy layouts, Marcomedia Flash--at the expense of working on the alphanumeric part of their texts. Working with weblogs privileges writing: students are more invested in the writing that goes into end-of-the-semester hypertext projects when they've been writing for the web all semester. They learn rhetorical strategies for writing online before moving on to work with graphics. They also learn about how to make effective hyperlinks--a crucial part of website design and blogging. Thus, students spend more time developing their texts, rather than working mostly on graphics and choosing the "perfect" background. These texts likely end up being more rhetorically sensitive than without the intervention of the blog.

And too long to paste in here but well worth the read is the bulleted list of benefits their students got from blogging. Makes me want to get back in the classroom.

I'm definitely going to read and reread this and share portions of it with my English teachers. The sea is shifting here, slowly but surely. Maybe more on that tomorrow... [Weblogg-ed News]

Blogging Lesson Plan

I just realized that there was a lesson plan to go along with today's article in the Times about Weblogs.

In this lesson, students critique three Web logs, each of which offers first-hand accounts, but reflect different points-of-view, on the war in Iraq. They then write a response to one of the entries and analyze what they learned about the war from the blogs.

And I like the follow up questions they ask:

--What makes a "bloggable moment" for you?

--Do you think constant blogging indicates signs of an unhealthy obsession or spirited pastime? Why?

--What makes another person's blog worth reading?

--By what "rules" do you think fellow bloggers should abide and why?

--Do you think most bloggers intend to have conversations with themselves, or intend to communicate their thoughts widely? Why might that matter to a blogger?

Looks like a great introduction for students and teachers to use in the classroom. [Weblogg-ed News]

Building Learning Communities

I feel really fortunate to have been asked to present at the Building Learning Communities conference hosted by Alan November in Boston July 20-22. The cool thing is that there are a number of K-12 educators who will also be presenting including Kathy Schrock, who was one of the first resources I relied on when bringing the Internet into my classrooms. And, Amy Pearl, who I met at NECC last year when she was with Intel, will also be presenting.

My two workshops are tentatively titled "Weblogs in the Classroom" and "New Internet Literacies." I have a feeling there may be a conference blog up and running as well. [Weblogg-ed News]

Purposes of Blogs in the Classroom

(via Rick Barter) Samantha Blackmon at Purdue offers this reasoning behind her use of Weblogs with her students:

There are many reasons for blogs in the classroom. The one that stands out for me most as I use a blog in my summer gender and literature class is that students get the opportunity to write about the texts that we read and to see and respond to what others in the class are writing. They seem to find affirmation that they are puzzled by, frustrated with, amused by, or totally hating the same things about the texts.

She has a class blogging about Pride and Predjudice that gets to some of what she describes. [Weblogg-ed News]

Website Envy

Chris Lehmann writes about the school Website model that he's using at the Beacon School in NYC. He's close to creating a "fully interactive portal for all members of the Beacon community," and it's a great model. Here's a list of things that Chris is doing that I wish I could do:

"All members have a way to create content, and...all members have easy access to information that is relevant to them as well as relevant to the entire community" -- In theory, this is where we are headed. In reality, there is a lot of resistance to allowing everyone to create content, and it's just not the right environment right now to really push it. I'm sure next year we'll be doing it in limited ways, but it takes more than the tool to shift the paradigm. Too bad.

"This system has grown organically, not as part of a pre-packaged software package, but created, whenever possible, using free software tools and written by myself and the students of Beacon." -- I love thinking about this. Unfortunately, I have no programming skills and no understanding of code on that level. Nor do I have any support for open source type solutions. I need pre-packaged. I'm starting to feel guilty.

"We don't want to merely use technology; we want our students to be creators of technological innovation." -- Again, I love this concept. But this is a scary proposition to many here.

"All of the stories are entered on a password protected administration center so that student writers and editors can collaborate with teachers on stories in progress." -- Manila can get me to this in some way, but Chris makes it sound so easy.

"Beacon students are able to broadcast radio shows, poetry, sporting events and other events." -- Sigh. We just had a huge, long, grueling (did I mention huge?) discussion about consent issues and whether or not we can televise or Webcast sporting events or plays without written approval for each student involved. Actually, I poked through Chris's site and frankly, I doubt he has the state imposed restrictions that we do in terms of getting parent/guardian consent to include kids on the site. In New Jersey, it's amazing. Our school policies are equally strict.

"Our Parents Association publishes minutes of meetings, notices of upcoming fundraisers and other information on their Web page." -- Maybe if Chris reads this he can comment on the process here. My guess, they're trusted to make good decisions about content. Here, we'd have to have review.

"And of course, hundreds of students and many teachers keep their own personal Web sites, thus insuring that beaconschool.org is a living document that reflects the diversity of experiences at Beacon." -- Um, yeah. We have lots of sites, but they're pretty much restricted to academic content. Little reflecting happening, little diversity captured.

"Every student and staff member at Beacon has an account which gives them space on Beacon's file and Web server, a beaconschool.org Email account and access to the portal. The portal is linked to our programming database so that, once a student or teacher logs in, they will then have access to their personalized schedule, as well as several functions that are for the entire community. All Beacon portal members get Web access to their Email, a personalized bookmark system and access to the school-wide discussion forums." -- Can you say "green?"

"For teachers, in addition to the school-wide services, logging on to the portal gives them access to a great deal of services." -- Check them out. We're moving towards this with our SIS, but it's not in concert with Manila.

"When students log into the portal, they are greeted with a page listing all of their classes, with the five most recent homework assignments posted in front of them. One click and they can get to all of the homework assignments posted in the class for the year." -- Nice.

There's more, but I have to stop. This is what a Website should be, and Chris has the vision and the skills to make it happen. It sounds downright dreamy, and I'm jealous as heck...people shouldn't be able to think it without the skills and the environment to do it. Not fair, I say... But great job by Chris and his kids. [Weblogg-ed News]

Posted by actionhero at 04:57 PM

The Educated Blogger

David Huffaker has published a really nice piece on Weblogs in the classroom at FirstMonday titled "The Educated Blogger: Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom." David's study at Georgetown was also featured in a BBC.com article a couple of days ago. Here are a couple excerpts:

Blogs represent a perfect medium for literacy. Authors must read and write as they would on paper, while increasing their comfort with computers and the Internet. Because blogs do not require exceptional technical skills, but still offer the opportunity to "tinker" using Web programming languages for customization, blogs remain equitable for all age groups and both genders, and still provide a medium for learning programmatic skills.

While it's not the literacy that I'm most interested in when it comes to blogs, there's no doubt that they can be a good way to learn many of the technical skills that go along with the Internet.

And:

The characteristics of weblogs such as the personal space it provides and the linkages with an online community create an excellent computer–mediated communication context for individual expressions and collaborative interactions in the form of storytelling and dialogue. Ease–of–use and anytime–anywhere access make blogs an excellent tool for educators. It’s easy for bloggers to understand and easy for teachers to implement. It offers an environment where learning is not limited to the classroom; authors can access their blogs when an Internet connection is available. Finally, it’s fungible across disciplines — it can be advantageous in the science class as it is in the creative writing class.

To be honest, the storytelling angle is not one that I've thought much about, but it certainly has potential, and he does a good job of exploring that in some detail. [Weblogg-ed News]

David Sedaris, literary rock star

David Sedaris, literary rock star (He was at Barnes and Noble in NYC last week reading and signing books for almost 5 hours.) [remainder]

Suggestions for TiVo

The NY Times announced today that TiVo will be introducing some new features to their service, allowing people to watch content from the Internet on their TiVo. As with Apple's AirTunes & AirPort Express, Slim Devices' Squeezebox, and networked DVD players, the idea behind the new TiVo is that people should be able to play their media, independent of file format, source, or delivery mechanism, on the device or through... [kottke.org]

HOWTO skin a PC to look like a Mac

Engadget has a great step-by-step HOWTO for skinning your WinXP box until its desktop is nigh-indistinguishable from a MacOS X box.

Link

[Boing Boing]

Pop!

Pop Goes the Gmail
http://jaybe.org/pgtgm/

Neat! But only for PCs right now. :-(