It's a Bird

Thought I had blogged about this piece of animation history but when I saw it recently on a Monsters and Rockets post I went looking for it and it was nowhere to be found. I must have shown it to my students and never linked to it online. I will correct that now. Wish I could fix my faulty memory as easily.

It's a Bird was an animated short done by Charles Bowers in 1930. He was one of the early pioneers in film animation and stop motion. From what I can find, the car used in the animation was an actual car, not a model. So, it had to be cut up piece by piece for the effects.

Interesting article/review on Charles Bowers at the DVDJournal. The DVD is called Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius out although it is currently out of print (stock). I did a short online search and couldn't find any vendors that had a copy in stock.



[Image captured from video]

Whole Earth Catalog Online

If you were a fan of the Whole Earth Catalog and it's sister publications than here is a welcome resource. Much of the collection (but not all) has been made available online.

These books and magazine articles helped to shape so much of what I am today. Take a look at what, for me ,was the pre-cursor of the internet. Useful information at my fingertips (in a huge honkin book).










I've mentioned the Whole Earth Catalog before in these posts:

• Whole Earth Catalog
• Howard Rheingold

[Image captured from http://www.wholeearth.com]

History of the Internet

I was looking for a simple, straight forward history of the internet I could use in my classroom. I haven't found the perfect video/article yet but this little film comes close. I liked it. I learned a few things.

My only concern is that I think it will lose a lot of my students. It may be just a tad too technical for some of my freshmen web students?

Take a look and see what you think.


History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

I'll give it a shot with a couple of my classes and see how they respond.

[via OpenCulture]


[Image: Captured from the video:History of the Internet]

Tombstone Rubbings

I did some tombstone rubbing with kids when I was a social studies teacher a long time ago. It was a great activity. The problem I had with them was what to do with the large rubbings of tombstones after the activity was over. Some kids took them home where I'm sure many a mother accidentally threw them away. I envision the middle schooler coming home and discovering his special tomb rubbing gone. He confronts his mother and she holds her pale hand in front of her mouth and says.

"I'm sorry honey. I thought it was trash. If it's that important , you and your father can go tombstone rubbing this summer."

Dad usually pipes in about then. "I ain't taking the kid to rub anything dead."

"Mommmmmm!"

"Don't worry honey. I'll talk to your father and I'm sure you will both be spending a lot of time with the dead this summer. If not, your father will wish he were with the dead." At which point she turns to her husband and says, "Now, I know you think your son is strange, but if he wants to spend time in the graveyard, wouldn't you rather he do that with you than with a bunch of dead people you don't even know?"

"Gloria, I don't want to spend no-time, in no-graveyard. No way. And he doesn't need to either. What in Sam Hill are they teaching these kids in that crazy zombie school of walking dead anyway?"

Or so I imagine the conversation going. I'm much more inclined these days to use a digital camera. But if you are inclined to go "old school" with the whole tombstone thing, then here is a site that describes the process. I saw several places that suggested cleaning the tombstones first to get a better image. I'd be reluctant to do this as so many of these stones are fragile. If I were to be that intrusive, I'd be sure to check with who ever maintains the graveyard. This article also recommends black crayon which has the advantage of not smearing. I liked the image I got from using a charcoal stick (used in art). You can get a setting spray from the same place you buy the charcoal stick that will keep the rubbing from smearing. It's more mess and bother and I would stick to crayons with younger kids.

I think with today's digital tools it also might be interesting to map out a graveyard. Maybe create a spreadsheet of birth dates and deaths. There are several trends that kids can usually see when they collect this kind of data. Epidemics. Wars. The number of children that died at birth or before their first birthday. Surnames can sometimes give clues to family origins. Just a thought.....I'm sure some history teacher out there has done something like this already.

[Image: "Skull and crossbones tombstone, part:I": Flickr: Uploaded on February 17, 2007 by tstadler:http://www.flickr.com/photos/tstadler/393482519/]

Video Scrapbook

I have a friend who every year made a scrapbook of the previous years events and presented it to her sweetheart for Christmas. She had a great time picking out the photos and graphics, making up clever titles and putting it all together. Over time the two of them had a series of scrapbooks that they both treasured.

An article in VideoMaker, The Craft of Family History Videos: Making Classics Out of Clutter, got me to thinking about my friends scrapbooks and how this kind of project doesn't have to be made out of only photos. It could be a video compilation, as described in the article. It could be a web page that had bits and pieces of different media.

This could be modified into a super lesson plan for a video class.

Last year, I had a young lady create a web site about a trip she had taken to Japan. Her family made the journey in the middle of the semester and when she came to talk to me about how she could make up the work for the web class, we came up with this idea . She took photos and kept a journal during her trip that became the core her site. It was one of my favorite projects from that semester.

[Image: Rawlings, Jeanne. "The Craft of Family History Videos: Making Classics Out of Clutter." VideoMaker. VideoMaker. 19 Oct 2007 .]