No specific educational tie in to this one. Unless you think there’s more to life than test scores and that art appreciation is an important part of educating well rounded students.

Enjoy.

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Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to.

As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly?

Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults?

Enjoy:

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One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs.

For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better.

I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think they’d certainly appreciate having the freedom to do some self-expression, and who knows what they might learn in the process….. in addition to the actual curriculum they were supposed to learn. Bonus perk, you aren’t wasting extra in class time on this. It’s up to them.

One other example, so long as we’re on a musical kick. Check out this video Lisa Thumann shared on Twitter.

You may say, “But the video doesn’t truly demonstrate their knowledge! I mean, could a student really learn anything just from this YouTube video?” I’ll let the author of the video respond, by sharing a comment he left someone asking that very question on YouTube.

This video was a project to summarize trig formulas and to create a song parody. It’s not intended to be a a study guide.

Here’s a suggestion for doing well in trig. Read from your textbook; don’t go on youtube to get your answers.

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Janet English over at KOCE has been hard at work putting together the Film on the Fly video challenge and yesterday was the big day! Early in the day, she sent out a text message to everyone who signed up with the prompt: “Everything changed – when the box mysteriously arrived at my doorstep.” The challenge was to then grab your cell phone and create a short story (2 minutes or less) based on that prompt, filmed entirely on your cell phone. The results have already been fantastically creative. You can see the videos over at their group ning, FilmontheFly.ning.com.

Two of my favorites so far were Hall Davidson’s, who actually did his while in the security line at the airport. You gotta see it to believe it. Yes, he got his phone back and the men with the rubber gloves were surprisingly gentle! My other favorite was a Dr. Seuss style incredibly creative story featuring hand drawn images.

Matt Monjan and I are in Pennsylvania together right now and decided to team up for it. We shot the entire thing on my Nokia N95 and then did just a touch of editing. We used iMovie 6 and pieced the entire thing together in about an hour or so.

If you think this looks like fun… well, it is. And if you’d like to be a part of the next one, you can. The next Film on the Fly is going to be on 3/14: PI DAY! I can’t wait. To signup, visit FilmOnTheFly.

So here’s our entry. Hope you enjoy it!

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This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them.

Consider it your weekend video break.

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YouTube blocked? TeacherTube not quite what you’re looking for? Ever wish you could just do the darn thing yourself? I recently discovered that you CAN!

Via a Tweet from BudTheTeacher, I found a link to WeberTube. If you check it out, you’ll find it’s remarkably similar to YouTube, except with the abilty to upload pictures and documents as well. Users can create profiles, rate videos, watch them there or embed them elsewhere. And it looks GOOD. I was so impressed that I poked around until I found a link back to the application they used to build it.

I’d never heard of it before, but it turns out to be an Open Source project called OSTube.

osTube is the first content management system for media content (MCMS) – a basic framework for creating websites similar to YouTube, Veoh, and Revver. After the successful release of osTube 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1 we have just published the brand new 2.2 version of osTube – a quantum leap in player-functionality and CMS-scalability.

A complete revision and further development of current features as well as numerous new features guarantee even better usability of the framework. Also, many features requested by the osTube community are now part of version 2.0. The addition of AJAX, social bookmarking services and extended search capabilites are just a few key-aspects that will make the implementation of osTube more seamless than ever before.

There are premium versions available that allow you to insert ads into the videos, rotate banners and other such silly things. But for a school, the community FREE version is just peachy. On the backend it looks like you can maintain all the controls you might want, including moderation, video approval queues and other such things.

Pretty darn sweet considering the price. Definitely worth checking, whether for public consumption or for use behind a walled garden.

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I’ve been working on a Second Life article, and part of it was spent checking out a few other virtual worlds. And while I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what was out there, this video shows that I really was just barely scratching the surface.

Think you are a Virtual World Guru? Then share just how many of the worlds in this video you have avatars in!

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Thanks to Justin Karkow for point out this post of Christine Southard’s on the New York DEN Blog.

Just in time for the beginning of the school year, Dalton Sherman has a message that is sure to inspire anybody who has chosen to devote their lives to education.

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You can take this as a social commentary on the way we teach foreign languages here in the states, or just sit back and enjoy it. Either way, I think you’ll get a kick of this video Larry Anderson shared with me at NECC.

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It’s no secret that I think streaming video is going to be huge at NECC. I’ve already blogged about it once. A thread that I started on the NECC Ning site caused some major conversation. This led to an ISTE proclamation that sent ripples throughout the EduBlogosphere and led to a quick retraction by the conference organizers.

Without a doubt, video streaming is going to be major at the conference this year and the real challenge is figuring out where it’s all happening at. Many will be announced on Twitter, but it quickly became apparent that more organization was going to be needed. Will and I have had several conversations on the topic and have decided to create EdStreamTV.

What is EdStreamTV? It’s a television channel created by Mogulus that we will use to be the live video home for streaming video at NECC. Think of it as NECC TV, complete with live coverage, repeats of presentations, and an on demand library of content available to be watched at any time.

We recognize that different people are going to use different sites to broadcast at NECC. Mogulus will let us pull them all in together. It can handle live feeds, even from multiple cameras and mobile devices. It can import in videos of many different formats. It can import in YouTube videos, videos from uStream, and many other sites as well. It can be embedded, has built in chat, and even has a slick little ticker along the bottom that will pull in blog posts about NECC!

We want you to participate! This could be a fantastic way to share the conference virtually, as well as benefit from it long after the conference doors have closed. There are several aspects to the project, and many ways to contribute.

Prior to the conference: You can create a short (30-60 seconds) video promo for the things you’ll be doing at NECC. Presenting? Hosting a workshop? Live blogging? Conducting interviews? Let the world know what you’re going to be up to. Create a short video and tag it with neccstream08 and we’ll add it to EdStreamTV. You can upload it to YouTube and tag it there. You can record it in uStream and tag it there. You can host it on your own blog and tag it there. Create it and tag it, and we’ll be sure to include it in the channel. You can find more details about this here.

At NECC
Streaming Live on your own site: If you’re going to be streaming out a presentation, let the world know what you’ll be sharing, when it is and where they can catch it. You can log what you’ll be streaming live on this page of the wiki so that people can plan accordingly. If you see somebody else already streaming the same session you were planning to, please be considerate of bandwidth and refrain from doubling up. Or contact them directly and coordinate your efforts.

Streaming Live on EdStreamTV: If you’d like to stream out a session live on EdStreamTV, simply contact email@edstream.tv and we’ll register you as a camera person for the channel and coordinate the timing. You will to stream it live via Mogulus though, as we can’t display live feeds from other sites in real time.

Sharing archives, videos, interviews and more: If you have streamed a session and want to include it in the EdStreamTV channel, simply post it on your own site with the tag neccstream08 OR email us at email@edstream.tv with all the details. You can find instructions for several of the more common sites here. Once you submit your videos, it will go into the EdStreamTV loop and repeated regularly throughout the day and will also be available in the On Demand library.

Bloggers Cafe: We will be using the Bloggers Cafe as sort of a home base for the channel. Expect to see live interviews, impromptu events and broadcasts of various happenings throughout the conference. Stop by if you’d like to join in!

We hope that this becomes an integral part of the conference experience, both live and virtual. We look forward to having you join us in this groundbreaking experience!

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