This is will not be the comprehensive, reflective blog post it should be. More like a random stream of consciousness trying to get my head into that state of emptiness that David Allen calls a "mind like water". There are some things rolling around in my head so I want to do a brain dump to capture it someplace before time and failing brain cells reduce it to dim notions that exist in some set of neurons difficult to retrieve. And anyway I found myself brain dumping a lot of this to my lovely wife last night as we chilled by the pool debriefing on our time away from each other so she has had her fill. Time to bore you folks.
Despite the logistical nightmare that the venue caused there was enough here to have me think about coming back.
Why did I end up at the same sessions as lots of folks in my Twitter group? Does it mean that I am on the right track with so many impressive people gravitating to the same ideas, or was it the echo chamber?
On Friday morning I found myself in a session led by Clarence Fisher and Darren Kuropatwa and I realized that there were about 15 people that I Twitter follow/follow me. The session ended and people were going to the keynote but at one point I wanted to jump up, run over and lock the door and shout - "You are not going anywhere! Stay here! Let's talk about stuff, anything, don't go, you are my lifelines, you are my sustenance on line and you are here in front of me, nooo, don't go!"
If I had been successful I would have missed the challenging keynote presented by Pedro Noguera, that laid out school realities without flinching and directly challenged me to look at my"comfortable" practice and my district's practice. Nothing really wrong with what we are doing but looking at it from the perspective he presented makes you look deeper at what that really is. Are we educating everyone? Are we reaching outside of our comfort level to really make differences.
The other remarkable thing that happened on Friday was I got to stand in the doorway of a small room where Marco Torres was editing with a couple of his students. Just serendipity they were using the room to put together some stuff they shot. My learning? Video editing when done even by the best, looks a lot like what I do. It is just sweat equity to get a good product and you have to just work through it.
Marc Prensky was less than impressive. For all the things I had read and heard it was disappointing. I agree with some of the blog posts that have already been posted. He mailed it in. There were 3 sessions he presented back to back. He mixed up his presentation so he started session one w/ the session two slides and said - Well that's OK they all start the same. Didn't I feel special to be there? The use of annoying "wake up" sounds in the presentation was juvenile. It felt like he just delivered his canned presentations without a sense of the audience. It was the speech you give to a more general audience. Hope you cashed the check quickly Marc. And he was wrong on many points. There are quite a few who felt the same and are blogging and commenting. I can take opposite ideas, they are good for me. At most they change my mind, at least it makes me rethink what I think to be sure I am on right track. His style was just annoying.
Joyce Valenza is the most forward thinking librarian I have ever met (and a heck of a dancer). Pageflakes as an organizational tool for libraries RSS stuff, tons of great ideas.
Wait a minute. Maybe Peggy Sheehy is the most forward thinking librarian I have met with her work on Ramapo Island II. It was just amazing what they did with digital story telling this year.
I have to find it on the main grid.
I could listen to the mix of accents between Ewan McIntosh, Clarence Fischer, and John Davitt all day.
This conference was a good break for me. The end of the school year was a complete rush to the finish line I was feeling quite a bit burnt out and items from the school year were creeping into the summer. I was feeling resentful that the treadmill would not stop, even for a little bit. For some reason these 3 days have represented a break and have recharged my batteries. I am excited to recast my to do list and get school work done next week.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
My Audiobook Experiment - Update
Just a quick update on my audiobook experiment for this summer. I am enjoying the books so far with a mini-review of the audio experience.
I have read "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card a re-issue of a Sci-Fi Classic, which was exciting, moved well, and made me want to read more about the pre-story and other character. The ending did leave me a little flat.
I have read "The Forgotten 500" which did not translate well into audio. It sounded like a reading of a series of internal memos given before a Congressional Committee to explain the incident, which was probably how the book was researched and written. Tough listen and I did not finish it.
A good listen was "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz, the Pulitzer Prize winner. This was a good read about a culture that I am not often exposed to in my life. I enjoyed the readers movement into Spanish phrases and takes on life. It would be a good book in paper as well.
Another good listen was "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseni (author of the acclaimed Kite Runner). Another story set in war torn Afghanistan that ranges over years and the lifetimes of families. I especially enjoyed the female reader of the story. I think it made the telling more powerful, and I would not have gotten as much out of it without the female voice given the context. I especially enjoyed (perhaps not the best word here) the view into a war torn culture and as in Oscar Wao a view into a culture I am not accustomed to. I "know" about male dominated Islamic societies but to see it played out in the daily lives of the characters increased my appreciation of what that life is. The female reader heightened the experience beyond what I would have gotten by reading the paper.
Couple more books to go that I will report on later.
As to the overall experience, here are a couple of notes. Audiobooks are hard to read at night. If you have an older iPod there is not a "sleeps shut off" like on newer models. So, if you start listening and nod off you find the iPod going off hours after you are snoozing. At least with a paperbook your finger stays some where in the page! So, bedtime and beach time has not worked out so well for me as I sometimes have to backtrack to find my place.
Listening in the car has proven to be great. I have several long driving trips this summer and the audiobooks have been wonderful. Often you would get to where you were going and want to stay to listen. At night when tired, it would tend to make you sleepy just like reading in bed, except behind the wheel. Audiobooks were banned after dark in favor of rock and roll!
I have read "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card a re-issue of a Sci-Fi Classic, which was exciting, moved well, and made me want to read more about the pre-story and other character. The ending did leave me a little flat.
I have read "The Forgotten 500" which did not translate well into audio. It sounded like a reading of a series of internal memos given before a Congressional Committee to explain the incident, which was probably how the book was researched and written. Tough listen and I did not finish it.
A good listen was "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz, the Pulitzer Prize winner. This was a good read about a culture that I am not often exposed to in my life. I enjoyed the readers movement into Spanish phrases and takes on life. It would be a good book in paper as well.
Another good listen was "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseni (author of the acclaimed Kite Runner). Another story set in war torn Afghanistan that ranges over years and the lifetimes of families. I especially enjoyed the female reader of the story. I think it made the telling more powerful, and I would not have gotten as much out of it without the female voice given the context. I especially enjoyed (perhaps not the best word here) the view into a war torn culture and as in Oscar Wao a view into a culture I am not accustomed to. I "know" about male dominated Islamic societies but to see it played out in the daily lives of the characters increased my appreciation of what that life is. The female reader heightened the experience beyond what I would have gotten by reading the paper.
Couple more books to go that I will report on later.
As to the overall experience, here are a couple of notes. Audiobooks are hard to read at night. If you have an older iPod there is not a "sleeps shut off" like on newer models. So, if you start listening and nod off you find the iPod going off hours after you are snoozing. At least with a paperbook your finger stays some where in the page! So, bedtime and beach time has not worked out so well for me as I sometimes have to backtrack to find my place.
Listening in the car has proven to be great. I have several long driving trips this summer and the audiobooks have been wonderful. Often you would get to where you were going and want to stay to listen. At night when tired, it would tend to make you sleepy just like reading in bed, except behind the wheel. Audiobooks were banned after dark in favor of rock and roll!
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