Video about Music, Art & Technology at Lewis Elementary

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This spring Emily Chapman talked with Lewis Elementary music/technology teacher Tony Jamesbarry about technology and art instruction at Lewis Elementary. The video provides an overview of our program and demonstrates some of the projects that students have been working on. Emily, a Media Studies graduate of the University of San Francisco, is an old family friend. She is working on two other videos about Lewis and I'll post those when they are finished.


Lewis Elementary School from timlauer on Vimeo.

Dan Meyer : the next-gen lecturer

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Dan Meyer has produced another great video, this time documenting his experience using a data projector and video to help his students understand algebra. In the process he discusses his teaching process and how it has changed because of these tools. I plan to share this with my staff when we come back in August.


dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

[From dy/dan » Blog Archive » dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer]

And The Band Honked On...

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Today The New York Times has an article about a program called the Academy that offers fellowships to graduates of leading music schools to receive high-level coaching and lessons in a two-year program. In return they commit to teach music one and a half days in New York public schools.

It was early in the school year. A young professional French horn player named Alana Vegter, a thoroughbred musician trained by elite teachers, took a handful of trumpet and trombone players into an equipment supply room. Speaking in the flat tones of the Chicago suburb where she grew up, Ms. Vegter tried to coax notes out of each player. A tall sixth-grade trumpeter named Kenny Ocean, his pants sagging around his hips, played too high, then too low. A smile spread across his face when he hit it right.

[From Music - In a Year at a Brooklyn School, a Professional French Hornist Encounters Music at Its Most Basic - NYTimes.com]

Stanza: ebook reading and export tool for Mac OS

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Stanza, currently in beta, is an electronic book reading application for Mac OS which also allows you to export content for use on a variety of portable devices. It features the ability to customize the display of text in multiple column layouts or in full screen mode. Scrolling can be set to advance automatically, like a teleprompter, based on your reading speed, or manually. You can import content from a variety of sources including directly from the Project Gutenberg site. It also provides for the ability to export content to mobile devices such as the iPhone and the Amazon Kindle.

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I spent some time this morning playing with Stanza and went to the Project Gutenberg site and found the listing for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. I copied the url for the full text version and used the Open Location feature in Stanza to download and display the book. Stanza went out and got the file and displayed the book in the default view. I then used the export feature to create versions for my iPhone and for my Kindle.

The export to the iPhone is accomplished by converting the content to a .plist file (bookmarklet file) and then importing the bookmarklet into Safari. Once imported the content is transfered to your phone on your next sync. Once it is on your iPhone you can customize the reading experience including the ability to auto-scroll the text at various rates of speed based on your reading speed. As noted in their FAQ, very large books, or documents can slow down your the iPhone browser when initially opening the document.

I tried to use the open location feature to display a print friendly article from the New York Times, but ran into an issue with authenticating on the Times site. I worked around this by displaying the print friendly version of the article and then selecting and copying the text of the article. Stanza has an import form clipboard command that then imported and displayed the article.

Stanza is an interesting way to display and read text on your Mac. It's ability to export in various mobile formats makes it a great tool for getting content on your mobile devices.

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links for 2008-06-01

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Lewis BBQ...

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PTA Picnic

On Friday the Lewis Elementary PTA sponsored a BBQ and picnic on the school playground. Musical entertainment was provided by our own Boomin' Beats students and also a local Marimba Band which featured Lewis alum, Wilson Alness. In addition a local band lead by Lewis parent Chris Hawking also performed to a very appreciative crowd. It was a great event on a perfect spring evening and we had a great turnout.

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