Ocoee “Gotta Keep Reading” Video on e-School News

After reaching the heights of being featured on the Oprah Winfrey show one might think that getting featured on the e-School News blog would be “meh,” that is unless your a teacher-type. Check out the e-School News story, it’s the most in-depth story so far (with a very big audience). (BTW: The video has over 250,000 views as of 3/20/2010)

Sources:
Student video ‘Gotta Keep Reading’ inspires nation by Meris Stansbury/e-School News. http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/03/18/gotta-keep-reading-video-inspires-nation/ retrieved on 3/19/2010
YouTube video: Gotta Keep Reading – Ocoee Middle School. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6D9jiEYxzs retrieved on 3/20/2010
Thanks Dr. Deason for the e-School News heads up

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In Bad Faith, Part 4: The Evil Media

A few months ago I saw this comment on my Twitter feed: “RT @vavroom: Sometimes, small minded Christianity really saddens me. (via @kubke @snowded @annemcx @euan )” – Christine Morris (@CMoz). And attached was a link to a story from the Telegraph in the UK about how a film about Charles Darwin was having difficulty finding a distributor in the US because the film’s subject, Evolution, is too controversial. The Telegraph story was written in September (2009) when the film opened at the Toronto Film Festival. What the story failed to mention was that this was one of those years when a large number of films were having difficulty finding distributors. The theory of distribution presented in the story came from the film’s producer. So, perhaps, it was economics and not the small mindedness of US Christians that was making finding a distributor difficult. As someone with a degree in Journalism and Biblical Studies I tire from hearing the Christians complain how Godless (liberal) the Press is and from the Atheists and Secularists how Christian (provincial/conservative) the Press is.

In Bad Faith, Part 4: The Evil Media

What both the Left and Right seem to forget is that the Media, especially in the form of the movie industry, is a form of banking, and it will do whatever it thinks will make money for it’s investors. Period. It rarely leads and often plays both sides of the issues because it needs to draw attention to itself, not to change things but to make money. The Media is not a perfect reflection of our culture, remember it’s first responsibility is not to reflect Reality, but to make money. And this “bottom line” mentality is not limited to the movie industry but, sadly, has become a big part of the News Industry too. Journalism has felt the pressure to sell it’s wares. We may think of Journalism as a service, but it’s a business. This is not to say that Journalism has abandoned the principles of Objectivity, but it’s more of an ideal, like how Americans try to live up to our Constitution, Bill of Rights and Pledge of Allegiance. Journalism believes in Objectivity, in part, because it’s business model requires a certain level of trust. No trust, no sales. So, at it’s core the News & Media industries are neither Left or Right. They can’t afford to be. They will follow the interests of their audiences, Left or Right, but the commitment isn’t to the politics but to the business of making money. The Media decision-makers are not pushing any position except the one that keeps them viable and better yet, more than viable.

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The King of Kong & the Ongoing Myth of Objective Documentary Films

This past summer I saw the critically acclaimed documentary, “King of Kong” at the inaugural meeting of a Full Sail documentary film club. Great film. When one of my fellow film viewers confessed that he wanted to punch the antagonist, Billy Mitchell, in the mouth and everyone in the room agree; it was clear that the documentary makers had achieved their goal. I remembered reading comments before watching the film that some critics felt that the film’s editors “crafted” the footage to make Mitchell look a bit worse than he actually was. I didn’t say anything about this at the meeting because everyone else was ready to lynch Mitchell for being such a self-important asshole. In fact, one person was amazed at how well the filmmakers let Mitchell show what a jerk he was. Maybe, or maybe it was just really good editing.

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November 4th, 2008

As much as I’ve wanted to, I just haven’t had the time to sit down and do any serious blogging. Thus, I’ve had to resort to recording my feelings on this important day via the 140 character repository of wisdom and subtlety known to most as Twitter… Here’s my feed from this amazing day:

• happy voting day USA twitterverse 10:45 AM Nov 4th from TwitBin
• @sarahlane sounds like a perfect way to spend election day. That’s my girl!!! 12:41 PM Nov 4th from TwitBin in reply to sarahlane: “Know why it’s good to be jobless? I’m going to sit in front of the TV watching crappy election coverage all damn day. DRINKING BEER. NAKED” 12:39 PM November 04, 2008 from web
• watching election results on CNN (sound usually off) & live stream from twitlive.tv election 08 w/ leo laporte, & upgrading mbp HD 8:52 PM Nov 4th from TwitBin
• cnn projects obama victory w/ closing of the west coast voting 11:10 PM Nov 4th from TwitBin
• don’t wanna go 2 sleep thinking obama won only 2 wake up like I did in 2000 & 2004 to see the hope stolen from me. Don’t want that… 11:17 PM Nov 4th from TwitBin
• good concession speech, sen. mccain. time for a second beer… 11:38 PM Nov 4th from TwitBin
• @drkiki we resemble that remark.”all the nuts roll south,” but even we can seize the moment to act beyond everyone’s expectations. Cheers! 12:23 AM Nov 5th from web in reply to drkiki: It had to be a great campaign to make Florida go blue.12:05 AM November 05, 2008 from Election 2008
• This one’s for you, USA (see below), a percentage of u are gonna want something stronger 12:23 AM Nov 5th from Twinkle

(should I be concerned that this is my 2nd beer reference in as many blog entries?)

Cnet’s news.com ran an excellent article titled: 10 election tweets worth remembering. I found #4 and #1 absolutely wonderful:

4. As voting lines reached record lengths around the country, CrunchGear blogger Peter Ha told everyone via Twitter to calm down: If you can wait three+ days to buy a damned iPhone then you can wait (in) line to vote, a**hats.

1. And our official “best election tweet” award goes to Twitter user JHix, who wrote about his voting experience: Officially just played the worst video game ever. You mark people with an “x” and then wait almost forever to find out who won.

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Now the Campaign Really Begins

I love political cartoons. I have a book of cartoons from from famed LA Times political cartoonist Paul Conrad. The Jib-Jab team takes it to a new level (I especially like the good-looking voter at the end of the video).

Following the Republican convention my brother sent me a COMMENTS vs. THE FACTS article by Associated Press writer, Jim Kuhnhenn. My brother gave the article the title: “Republicans Should Not Wear Flammable Pants.” Indeed, as the both parties head for November we’ll watch grown men speak out of both sides of their months with the fingers crossed behind their backs. For example…

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Don’t Piss Off the IT Guy

sfgate.com broke the story last week that a San Francisco network admin, Terry Childs, had been arrested and was charged with four counts of computer tampering for giving himself exclusive access to a city computer network that handles 60-percent of all city government data and for locking everyone else out. After the hearing Child’s defense lawyer said that the case against his client was completely overblown and that the 5-Million dollar bail is “crazy.” By the end of the week PC World ran a story calling into question the picture of a rogue admin that was being reported by local media.

PC World put their story together using information gathered from an anonymous source, who knew Childs and the atmosphere around the implementation of the FiberWAN network. The source said that Childs wasn’t so much the rogue as much he became convinced that he was surrounded by idiots and the only way to protect the network (and his work) was to lock all of the idiots out. The fact that Childs, who was not the “head architect,” was allowed to work with none of his superiors knowing what he was doing and the fact that the network has operated perfectly since his arrest lends some credence to the “locking the idiots out” version of the story.

I have worked with my fair share of administrators who were probably pretty good at the job they did before they were promoted. Even then I saw their incompetency as an opportunity to take advantage of the situation and take on a greater responsibility for my own job growth and experiment where a “better” boss would have restricted my access. Of course I knew that when my tenure was up and I’d moved beyond what my boss understood as “useful” that it was time for me to let go and move on. It would seem that Childs lost his perspective and chose a different strategy. jbb

Music/Podcast: Buzz Out Loud 771: A Monster episode of Iron butt proportions from the album “Buzz Out Loud from CNET” by CNET.com

Technorati Tags: california, journalism, media, networkadmin, sanfrancisco, thesystem, work

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KTLA Report Owned for Stupid Question During iPhone Coverage

It’s probably not a good sign when a reporter starts his report on “iPhone Mania” by saying that he doesn’t understand why these people are lining up for a phone. “It’s just a phone,” he whines just before approaching the first “subject.” Credit to the guy in line for calling the KTLA Reporter, Eric Spillman, a jackass for asking such stupid questions. Such is another example of how far local TV Journalism has fallen from a “search for the truth” to looking for a funny soundbite at the expense of those being “reported on.”

It probably didn’t help that someone, either AT&T or Apple, screwed the pooch with the activation process changing the cheering that was last year’s wonderful experience to jeering as is chronicled in the following video by Mahalo Daily’s Leah D’Emilio:
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Winter Dance Pix… Blah

• just got the pix back from yesterday’s winter dance. yearbook photags took 13 pix. previous dance 500+ pics, firings to follow… argh #
• just talked w/ yearbook photags & the reason i only got 13 pix is because it was the 2nd memory card, they filled the 1st. jobs saved #
• not many pix on the 2nd memory card. yearbook photags ran out of space ’cause i forgot to empty the trash can when i threw out the last pix #
• @soniason i routinely give 500 pix to my yearbook students (7th/8th grd) to select 10 good pictures. slave labor at it’s best #

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Crusader News is on the “air”

The past two weeks a lot of my focus has been on getting a website up for my journalism class. This past week I finally unveiled it to my students and we are now in the process of putting content online. In the “Welcome” blurb I wrote:

“Crusader News is a brand new experimental online student newspaper put together by journalism students, invited student writers & staff from Cecil B. DeMille Midde School in beautiful Long Beach, California. It may take some time before news items begin to pop up here on the Front Page, but it’ll be a worthwhile wait.”

Then this past week, in my reporter’s notebook entry I wrote:

“Introduced the website to my journalism class. Most students got the concept but a few had the “puppy dog with the head tilted to the side” look. They’ll figure it out. First story is due next Wednesday, 11/21

“Went out after school to cover the boy’s track practice. I’m really looking forward to the story that reporters Ashley and Darvin will write from an impromtu interview of track coach, Ms. Del Rio. I haven’t had a chance to look at the pictures taken by yearbook photographers Angel and Adan, but I’m hoping that we’ll have something good to include in the yearbook and in Ashley and Darvin’s story. Onward and upward. Mr. Bustillos, Crusader News, Advisor and Publisher”

The website is running Joomla and I really need to put a yearbook ad where Joomla has it’s own ad. Argh. Please check it out at http://demilleknights.com. jbb

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Why Tech Journalists Don’t Get Negraponte’s OLPC (aka the $100 Laptop)

I’m pretty used to Fox or MSNBC or CNN getting Negroponte’s OLPC (One Laptop per Child) program wrong. But it amazes me when someone like Lee Felsenstien, one of the pioneering designers at the beginning of the PC revolution, gets it wrong. Then for those like Dvorak, the OLPC is little more than the punch-line to a joke about 3rd World Porn.

Cranky Geeks, Episode 75 (7/31/07)

They don’t get it the way “Baby-boomers” don’t get Rap Music, ’cause it was never meant for them. Hell, I didn’t get it or even care much about it until a bit over a year ago when I was at Negroponte’s keynote at an ISTE convention during which he explained that he had started down this road by taking generic PC laptops to a Cambodian village and immediately discovered how dependent these little devices are on easy access to a gigantic technology service industry that’s been growing in the Developed World for the past 30 plus years. Essentially they discovered that computer hardware without inexpensive retail support is virtually worthless. We are so used to having easy access to CompUSA… er, I mean, Fry’s and Best Buy that we tend to think about technology in terms of the individual little devices instead of seeing them as only part of a much larger technological eco-system. Simply put, generic PCs grew up in an economic environment of continual change and a commodity mentality toward hardware and software. They are designed to satisfy now and then to be easily replaced every three to five years. After the experiences in Cambodia Negroponte and his team set about to design a device not meant for Culver City but meant for places without all of this consumer-oriented “buy now” infrastructure. Little wonder, then, that the techno-pundits don’t get it. They can’t see the OLPC selling, except as a novelty, at the local Apple Store or Best Buy. But it was never meant to replace your Alienware or iMac.

The next place where the pundits miss the mark is that they seem to not understand that the goal of getting one laptop into the hands of every child on the planet is not to create an army of little Microsoft Office gurus. The roots of the OLPC go back to MIT’s Media Lab and Seymour Papert, where they discovered that if you teach children how to program they learn how to communicate, how to think, and how to problem-solve. MIT figured out that one does not replace the teacher with the tool but this tool, programming, can be an incredibly powerful catalyst toward real learning.

Click on “read the rest” link for an awesome OPLC video

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