Experimenting with Video again

I created this video on Animoto from pictures I had posted to Facebook after a horrendous hail storm in May of this year. We had to replace the roof on our house and have our two vehicles repaired because of all the damage from the hail. I'm experimenting with creating videos to post to blogs so that I can find an easy way for students to use this technology.

Lessons for Today from Mike Mulligan and Mary Ann

Virginia Lee Burton wrote the story about Mike and his steam shovel Mary Ann in the late 1930s, and the book celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. I was a child of the 70s, so why did it appeal to me? Was it because of Mike and Mary Ann's work ethic? Mike's loyalty to his machine? On a child's level, I remember being more impressed with Mike's friendship and loyalty to Mary Ann, a machine personified in my mind.

I wonder what Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel teaches us today. If I consider it in a contemporary context, it is a book about the role of technology in our lives. When new technological advances/tools are at our disposal, should we disregard the technologies they can easily replace? Should we throw away card catalogs and reference books now that we have Google and Wikipedia? We now live in a disposable society. Until recently, Americans had quite a bit of disposable income that they would spend (even before they earned it) on disposable diapers; disposable razors; disposable plates, cups, and flatware; and even disposable caskets. Hopefully, the pinch Americans feel from their empty wallets will reawaken our desire to conserve, to reuse, to utilize resources more effectively.

Mary Ann proved that she was still useful to a society which had moved on to other technological advances, but in so doing, she forced herself into retirement by being unable to escape the hole she dug. Instead of dismantling and removing her, though, she was transformed into another useful machine which still continued to contribute to her society.

Emails That Put Me In A Pissy Mood

I hate opening an email from a well-meaning friend lacking computer literacy/media literacy/information literacy skills. For example, when someone forwards a message, email etiquette says to delete any extraneous information prior to forwarding, such as the HUGE list of email addresses the first sender used to distribute the email to her friends. That way, when I receive the witty, interesting, or cautionary email I do not have to scroll five minutes to finally reach the message. Along that same vein, if I am required to open an email within an email within an email, the impact of the original message diminishes with each click of an attachment. Typically I find it easier to click delete than all of those attachments.

Then there is the friend who sends me emails with animated clip art such as cats, dogs, hearts, and Precious Moments children. I call these the "feel-good" emails. In addition to such lovely clip art, which by the way has no less than twenty spaced throughout the email so that the reader must scroll through them one at a time, these messages typically contain synthesized music that missed the cut at Mr. Otis's elevator company. What is the purpose of these emails? Are they supposed to make me feel good? The sender feel good? How did the sender intuit that I was having a bad day and needed to read her email? How did she know I would be her audience?

I prefer to give equal-opportunity complaints to other friends who send me hex emails. You know, the ones that tell me if I don't pass them on to at least ten people I will be nailed by an out-of-control driver as I cross the street. Or the ones that say I will receive a new computer, free meal, or cash if I forward it to 50 people. And then the ones that exist on a higher, moral plain, the cyber-prayer emails, which insist that if I want God to bless me I will forward the message to at least ten of my closest friends. Are there people out there who cling to the hope that I will forward them an angel email from God? Surely not.

WWW.SNOPES.COM. Please utilize this information resource to fact-check prior to forwarding any emails to my inbox. Afraid that a child has been kidnapped and your email will be the one to save the little red-haired girl named Penny in the picture? Look first on Snopes to see if it is real, or just an urban legend. If I do have a little free time on my hands, I will hit "reply all" and post the rumor verification information myself so that all of the other friends you emailed it to will not be fooled. If something sounds too good to be true, or in other words, if you really think that you can make money by sending me an email, then go right ahead. Send it to me. Just don't expect me to verify our friendship by returning any emails to you.

BWP Freewrite 06-17-09

For the price of a stick of butter...

Freewriting from BWP that wants to be a poem.

Thank you Paula Deen
for giving women the courage
to use butter.

A pound of oleo
required in any dish adds
moisture, flavor, and fat grams.

"It's just like Granny did it,"
you'd say. Or maybe, "It's so good,
you'd slap yore granny, y'all!"

Tell me how one takes brown bags
from the Coastal Empire and recycles them
into a Financial Empire?

Perhaps its your blue eyes.
Without them, you look like most of us,
round in places children want to hug, gray on top.

Or perhaps it is because those Yankees
watching on Food Network can't get enough
of your "Howdy" and "Y'alls."

No one really uses that much flavor
in their speech. You aren't a pretender,
but you don't really talk that way, do you.

People save their pennies to eat at the Lady,
a highlight of any Savannah trip,
but I know the truth.

The same food on the buffet in the evening
appears cheaper at lunch.
Same butter, same flavor, different price.

When I cook your recipes at home,
they taste better than your meals at the Lady.
Maybe they lose something in the multiplication.

You should try smaller pots.
Come for Sunday lunch; according to my husband,
the casserole and cake are fine eatin'.

So, thank you Paula, for teaching me
that the only ingredient I really need
is the stick in my refrigerator door.

Just don't step on a scale, y'all.

Video blogging

For BWP Summer Institute Project

My particular research interest is using emerging technologies in the secondary English classroom. The term "emerging" is relative, but in rural South Georgia, where I teach, the use of blogs (and visual media) as well as audio podcasts as part of learning is not the norm. I wish it were. That way my students could spend more of their time being creative rather than learning how to use new technology tools. I do remember when my students did not know how to use PowerPoint or MS Word! So I trust that a time will come when this digital generation will begin incorporating new technologies into their educational lives.

This particular video was created using Animoto, an online video creator. Students can use this tool to create a 30 second video using their own photos and choice of music. Ideally, a student would create a video for his/her blog, choosing which photos to include (usually no more than 15) and incorporating a written component. Hyperlinks would be optional but would give readers more choices.

As a side note, I viewed the preview video for Google Wave that will come out later this year. It has the capability for users to create collaborative documents within Wave and embed those within blogs and other apps. How cool would it be for a student to create a video and post a blog and have peers collaborate and write about the clip or create a fictional account of a trip they never took, or carry on a conversation where they ask questions of the filmmaker about the film and receive immediate feedback? Google also has a translator that will allow your ELL students to type in their own language and have it immediately translated into English. Cool.