Manaia Kindergarten Presentation

We at Manaia Kindergarten, are working towards a keynote presentation for CORE Eds ULearnO8 Conference. We are sharing the platform with other like minded professionals across the education sector. Our aim is to share with others what we are doing at Manaia Kindergarten, and hopefully inspire others in their ICT journey.

So what are we doing at Manaia Kindergarten? Well check out our blog for starters. Our aim was to build community - check out our Kindergarten blog and see if you agree that this tool is achieving this aim. At Ulearn we have 15mins to capture the excitement that is happening in our community... If you want to know more, at this stage , come along to ULearn. Just 15 mins - that's a challenge!

And then I came across this today in my professional reading - The Machine is Us by Dr. Michael Wesch. It is not altogether new (2yrs old is old on the web) - but I find it interesting as it succinctly (in 4mins) tells the story of what is happening with as a result of digital text. It is powerful! It makes you think. It sketches an inspiring exciting future. And it is succinct! Succinct is good. Succinct is powerful. It also encourages me to believe that the task ahead of us is possible, as much as the research we began (2yrs ago) has been powerful -it has been possible with the use of powerful tools... digital text.

Explore more of Michael Wesch's ideas here on the ICT ECE blog.

TED Talk - J. Harris: The Web's secret stories

Feeling a little under the weather, I thought I would rest, watch the sun play in the harbour from my bed, and catch up on a little ICT professional listening (prefer that to the readings!). Have you seen TED yet? TED talks, such as Ken Robinson's talk posted earlier this term on ICTECE, are mostly thought provoking, well executed and cutting edge. Check out the "Jaw Dropping" category. It was whilst browsing through this that I discovered Jonathan Harris and his amazing universe.

Who is Jonathan Harris?
Instead of re-inventing the wheel I shall quote Jonathan's profile on the TED pages.

"Artist and computer scientist Jonathan Harris makes online art that captures the world's expression -- and gives us a glimpse of the soul of the Internet."

And

"Jonathan Harris [is] a New York artist and storyteller working primarily on the Internet. His work involves the exploration and understanding of humans, on a global scale, through the artifacts they leave behind on the Web." Edge.org

And here Jonathan Harris tell's the secret stories of the web. (see a selection of responses to the video below).

Beverly Kaye – August 28 2008
"At Manaia Kindergarten, we are encouraging children to tell and share their stories, to express themselves and their world. They share these openly on their public blog. It is great to see Jonathan's amazingly creative approach to gathering such stories, and devising an art-form that allows us all to celebrate the importance of humanity's feelings, thoughts, and emotions, Amazing."

Allison Thagard – August 29 2007
"I love how Jonathan says that we leave our foot prints with the blogs that people write. All the technology in the world helps anyone to be able to leave pieces of ourselves to others, in the future."

samantha frost – February 23 2008
"I thought he gave a very well rounded and interesting presentation of what seems to be some great anthropological work. Look forward to viewing the websites!"

Clifton Burriss – June 10 2008
"Mr. Harris, how do you make a project like "We feel fine" and not spend an eternity reading all of that, let alone creating "Universe" which will truly be even more impossible to unravel every article? Man, I thought I couldn't get out of the chair with Youtube, Facebook, and Google, and then this fellow invents couple more info-distribution boards. Wow..."

NOW check out the UNIVERSE
And have a play...