Welcome to the News at Seven!

Quick one today (as I finish off an essay!)...

News at Seven is a neat way to present RSS news feeds audiovisually, which can also link to bloggers comments (in this example at least). This is a project from InfoLab, Northwestern University in the US.

And for learning? How about a student "newspaper" or student project updates, or learning activities in the workplace, as well as local community updates, beamed via internet and pulled down by users to their computers or mobile devices via RSS? Sounds pretty feasible to me! Could you see this audiovisual type of RSS applying to your teaching context?

This from the News at Seven project website:

News At Seven is a system that automatically generates a virtual news show. Totally autonomous, it collects, parses, edits and organizes news stories and then passes the formatted content to an artificial anchor for presentation. Using the resources present on the web, the system goes beyond the straight text of the news stories to also retrieve relevant images and blogs with commentary on the topics to be presented.

More videos can be found here.

[audiovisual],[newsfeeds], [InfoLab], [visual_RSS]

Freire Friday: Censorship, community, control and cat fights

One of the characteristics of oppressive cultural action which is almost never perceived by the dedicated but naive professionals who are involved is the emphasis on the focalized view of problems rather than on seeing them as dimensions of a totality.

-- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972, p.111).

It was reported in the news earlier this week that YouTube contained numerous recordings from mobile phones of school fights. Adolescence psychologist, Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, slammed the service for allowing this type of stuff to be made widely available, citing that children should be protected from this type of voilence on YouTube, to avoid "copycat" behaviours, and that the service should be shut down, or at least blocked to young people by their parents.

Hmmm, sounds similar to the not-so-recent turkey-slapping episode on Big Brother (Australia) which saw two male contestants being booted out of the house for their actions towards a female participant, and parliamentarians, including PM John Howard, calling for the axing of the show.

Leigh Blackall raised the phone recording of school fighting phenomenon in his recent talk at the Global Summit 06, with the point that we are so wrapped up in the pervasiveness of the technology that we aren't seeing the fact that our schools are becoming increasingly dangerous places for our children - and it's the children who are capturing this evidence on behalf of their parents, teachers, prinicipals, members of parliament, social workers, counsellors, police officers, and our many other community support and advocacy networks.

So, what are they doing about it? Daming YouTube and side-stepping the real problems alive in our schools! Where's the critical and considered discussion about what is actually being recorded on these services and shows?

We are accepting of what appears on our TV screens of an evening too - this little beauty was captured from the TV show NCIS - some parallel huh?! It's like saying a gun is a 44 Magnum, not a shotgun and then paying no attention to the consequences of a shooting!

As Carmel Egan reports in The Age, these "trends" illustrate similar issues that are apparent in our society - our TV shows, movies, news, documentaries, YouTubes, Google Videos, BlipTVs, Bloggers, WordPresses, Odeos, and so on... are all representations of Self and Society. We reflect in our everyday the everyday actions and beings we are.

So, if we don't like what we're seeing, don't shoot the messenger - seek out the heart of the problem and make a choice to do something about it!


[schooling], [censorship], [schoolchildren], [control], [YouTube], [BigBrother], [Freire]

Exploring the possibilities of weblogs

Gabcast! On the Move #2

This was an example phonecast to demonstrate both the capabilities of using weblogs with mobile devices and to illustrate the powerful sense of immediacy of the tools and the actions taken in using the tools.

Freire Fridays: leadership through dialogue

The correct method for a revolutionary leadership to employ in the task of liberation is, ... not 'libertarian propaganda'. Nor can leadership merely 'implant' in the oppressed a belief in freedom, thus thinking to win their trust. The correct method lies in dialogue.

- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1971, p.42

Even the tiniest revolution makes a difference. It's communicating them for the benefit of others that's the challenge, as I see it. You may have seen many leadership styles in your time, across a number of institutions. In today's climate of economic 'rationalisation', we have seen some forms of leadership being brought into question by a range of stakeholders, especially in our education systems.

What is a good leader to you? I favour the leader who supports her staff in the background, who practices humility in the face of myriad pressures, and who has a strong sense of self to back not only her team but her own ways of doing and being; all the while sustaining an ongoing conversation with those she meets. How is dialogue a key factor for good leadership then?

Just some loose thoughts on this summery Friday evening...! :o)

Image by chook poo

[leadership], [Freire], [dialogue], [communication]

WOW - art on your skin

WOW program
Originally uploaded by margoc.

I joined Lynsey for WOW, a spectacularly festive feast of fabric, faces, frenetic dancing feats and fancy facards! (Fffffhew!)

If you haven't yet travelled to New Zealand, Wellington especially, then this is the best excuse for a trip, if you ever needed one! I can't recommend this cultural event enough! :o)

We were even warmed up to the show by a WOW street parade and 12-foot-tall dancing butterflies!





This is a truly international event and a great cultural arts drawcard for NZ. Hats off to all involved, especially the amazingly talented designers - what vision!