My First Foray Into Filmmaking
In 2004, I worked with three fellow grad students to create a documentary about a folk artist in Crawford, GA named Bennie Morrison. Bennie paints on a variety of objects including magnolia leaves, bricks, satellite dishes, fans, and more. His art depicts cotton fields, aliens, school buses, farms, outhouses, and any other scene he imagines.
The project was a blast to work on. We were able to spend time with Bennie and watch his process for making art. We learned how to operate cameras, capture audio with a boom mic, and edit video. My old band even provided the music.
It initially began as a class project, but we continued working on the film after the class ended and were accepted into the 2004 Athens Film Festival. That meant that we got to see our movie on the big screen at the Morton Theater.
So, I finally got around to posting part of the documentary on YouTube. Hopefully more people will learn about Bennie's work now that he's Internet-famous.
Watch My Dog
We're experimenting with allowing my dog to stay out of his kennel during the workday. The last time we tried this, he tore up every magazine, bill, or book he could reach.
This time, I'm asking for help from the Internet. While at work, watch my dog on this live streaming video feed and comment here if you see him acting up. If he does something bad, I'll reprimand him via the answering machine (which will probably be the most entertaining part of this whole venture).
Hurley’s Christmas Present
My sister mailed our Christmas presents to us this week and we decided to allow our dog, Hurley, to unwrap his own present. Video below:
Rapid E-learning Tools + Informal Learning
A few weeks ago, I attended the E-learning Guild's Annual Gathering in Boston, MA. One of the sessions I attended was the Rapid Elearning Tools panel, in which representatives from Articulate, Adobe Captivate, and Qarbon discussed their existing tools w/ Jay Cross. After the conference, I posted a comment on the Articulate "Word of Mouth" blog, but wanted to expand on my thoughts here.
It was interesting to have someone who is widely considered to be a guru on informal learning exchange ideas with rapid development folks. Wouldn't it be nice if these rapid development tools could integrate with services such as Blogger, PBWiki, MySpace, Facebook, EduSpaces, etc?
Anyone could give a 10 minute video presentation w/ accompanying visuals and post it to their blog w/ two clicks. Or post a software demo to a social networking profile with a snap. Or post a simulation to PBWiki. (and so on)
Rapid E-learning tools could really take off if they made the "I" in ADDIE so simple that anyone could do it.
UPDATE: After re-reading my post, I realize that I made it sound as if all there is to the "I" in ADDIE is posting content on the web. There's more to it than that... but a seamless integration between rapid development tools and web 2.0 services would simplify things, no?
Re-posted after abandoning my Eduspaces blog
