Day without Weblogs “Each December 1, World AIDS Day, the creative community observes A Day With(out) Art, in memory of all those the AIDS pandemic has taken from us, and in recognition of the many artists, actors, writers, dancers and others who continue to create and live with HIV and AIDS. […] Last year, more than 50 webloggers observed the first Day Without Weblogs. Since then, the personal web publishing community – weblogs, journals, diaries, personal websites of every kind – has grown significantly. Once again, I invite everyone who produces personal content on the web to participate in this global observance.”

I’m going to participate – how about you?

The US election

Heh. It’s great fun to see how humorous some reactions to the elections are. Duncan Smeed posts this email on his blog: Notice of Revocation of Independence, and also points to a response.

“To the citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new prime minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections.”

The weekend is here!

Phew! Finally, the weekend.

This afternoon, I spent four hours teaching fifth graders how to use the internet. Some of them already had been playing around with it, but they mostly knew fun sites. Some of the kids didn’t like the ‘useful’ sites I showed to them, but some actually spent a lot of time learning how humans digest food. “… ‘and then the food reaches the small intestine, which is over five metres long.’ – Whoa! We’ve got five metres of intestine inside us? I’m not even two metres tall!”

It was fun, but a bit exhausting as well. Have you ever tried to watch eight ten-year-old kids on five computers at the same time?!

Antarctica

The Bancroft Arnesen Expedition:”Historic Expedition: Join Ann Bancroft (USA) and Liv Arnesen (Norway) in their quest to be the first women to ski and sail across Antarctica – 2400 miles, 100 days, 250 pound sleds, 30 degrees below zero.”

They have an online journal, too.

Danke für den Link, Imke!

A four dimensional maze

I found the four dimensional maze over at the Curmudgeon. What a fascinating idea! I’m still working on it…

Teaching

Smartclass.com:

“… let’s have textbooks written, researched, documented, packaged and published by students. Let’s have whole courses in high school and college and professional schools and training where students write the textbooks.

That’s what they do. That’s all they do. For the whole course. Get together. Research everything they can find. Organize it. Present it. Publish it. Get together online or onsite, whenever they need to, with whomever. Use the web to help gather information, connect experts, resources.

As a student, writing your own textbook, given the access you need, the tools, the support, the expertise – you feel smart. You feel yourself getting smarter.”

Interesting idea.

Link via Serious Instructional Technology.