Parking Lot Reflections

Bringing you a couple more YouTube videos from the same director ( Michael Wesch) and his students who brought the immensely popular The Machine Is Us/ing Us awhile back.

A Vision of Students Today has been making the rounds of some of the blogs I follow…a series of statements from a college class put together to give you a picture of the “average” college student. The statement that jumped out at me…”I will read 8 books this year” followed by “I will read 2300 web pages” and “128 Facebook profiles.” Some commentors at the site find the statistics depressing (or worse, stupid)…I find them intriguing and perfect evidence in understanding why the way we teach,and present info to assist students in learning MUST change!
Yes, I know the video is unavailable at school, but do yourself a favor and check it out away from school or let me give you the downloaded file! Read about the statistic details and background.

Another Michael Wesch video that I came across while looking at the one above is Information Revolution…another presentation on how information storage and retrieval has changed. Makes the “cataloger” side of my brain a tad nervous in some respects, because I don’t totally agree with the theme that information no longer needs to “organized”! I simply think the organization format has changed!
Anyway, it is worth a look if you are still struggling with understanding the Web 2.0 changes or are having trouble convincing others of the value of the changes.
[Personal note: I loved the cataloged card marked up with black marker! Brought back wonderful memories! --ha, bet I have hooked a couple of you into looking for this little detail.]

In doing my blog reading this week, one of best statements I have come across since I started this adventure was featured by David Warlick at 2¢ Worth...he got it from one of the participants at the K-12 Online Conference.

Over the last couple of weeks I have come across several web cam experiences while doing a little research and watching the boob tube. I tend to forget about web cam sites…there are hundreds now.

Thought you might like to see the ones that came up on my radar screen recently. They can sure be a help with animal studies, weather, and geography…and I know you can come up with all kinds of reasons to check them out and use them with your students and your own viewing pleasure!

This morning CBS Sunday Morning did a feature on The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. Female elephants are brought here to live out their lives in groups, with “best friends,” and plenty of acreage. They have both Asian and African elephants who were circus performers and zoo residents. Thoe oweners set up the cameras so that we could watch the animals, but not disturb them in this comfortable habitat. There is a series of lessons that you can use along with video footage.

The National Park Service has a series of web cams throughout its parks for a variety of reasons. The ones noted on this map also record weather statistics. Included is information on how to use the information in lessons about air pollution, acid rain, and ozone issues.

Additional web cams (without air quality info) include Yellowstone, Glacier, and Yosemite.

Around ten years ago, I discovered the africam series of web cams and they helped turn me into the internet junkie I can be at times. most of the cams are trained on water holes where you can watch a virtual parade of animals pass by.

On the same site are a couple cams in North America…the Bald Eagle cam and the Osprey cam.

Also included at this site is a cam of the pyramids in Egypt…not the most exciting cam site unless you are into sunsets, BUT they have some things helpful to students and one is a visual comparion chart of how large things are in relation to the pyramids…fun way to present point of view, big and little, or compare and contrast.

And take a look at this…a mashup of web cam photos and YouTube video technology! What a fun way to talk about Africa and its animals! There are more videos…check the blog here.