Check out thewhalehunt.org – another jonathan harris goodie.
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glenstorey
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glenstorey
Today is Monday, and yesterday I had the soil of both islands on my feet. I headed down to Christchurch with some teachers from my school, Sue, Ange and Aime-lee for a conference called uLearn.
It was a pretty inspiring conference – learning about the power of ICT to create powerful learning environments. Kids have been learning since before the computer (personally, I remember the first time I saw a video disk. Wow) – but now, more than ever, they need to learn how to learn. Apparently the amount of information created in the last four years is greater than the amount of information created in the last one hundred. Teaching kids how to use Microsoft Word 2004 isn’t really going to cut it – but giving them experiences that empower them to learn, be information literate and communicate in the modern world will.
Needless to say, probably more than ever before I’m inspired to be an awesome teacher. We’ll see where that leads.
A few of the really good points of uLearn:
- free coffee – like real, extra nice coffee. On the first day I think I downed eight or nine cups.
- great food. Never before have I seen gluten free food done so well. I am now heavier then before I left.
- legend workshops.
- good keynotes – I’ve never noticed this before, but the standard of verbal communication (talking head to large group of people) in mosaic (mount and l.a.) is way higher than par. The keynotes at uLearn had great content, but mosaic is pretty blessed to have some awesome world class communicators in its community.
- cool teachers. I’m especially stoked that I got to spend time with Ange, Aime-lee and Sue. They’re tops.
- helpful workshops in CSI, Umajin, Movie Editing (TV Station styles), wikis, podcasting, animation, the internet, blogging, the future and gifted kids.
- The number of pens I scored on the trade floor.
- Did I mention the free coffee?
Thursday night was a shared dinner, for 1600 delegates at the Westpac Stadium. To be honest, it was a bit like the biggest dinner you’ve ever had, on steroids.
At the end of my trip I stayed with my friends Gerry and Nomes and their son, Micah. I got to check out Christchurch (beautiful city) and snowboard on Mount Hutt (man, Ruapehu is so, so, huge, but we’ve got nothing on the mainland’s mountain ranges…
It’s really easy to get busy. Kinda like, when you’re on a hydroslide – it’s really easy to get wet. Or concust. As I write this I am at my Grandmother’s home helping out. She has cancer and it’s fairly serious. She is an amazing lady, who is an incredible grandmother and role model. Halfway between thinking about the new macs I’m setting up at school, dreams and schemes for next year, the flash opening page I’m building for partybands (and why the buttons don’t work like they should yet), planning a new website, expanding business operations and what I’m supposed to do with my mortgage – you can come to a grinding halt when you realise that these things are not important. I listened to a podcast on ted.com about how three things are needed, in equal measure, for a healthy life – work (mission – something to live for), play (no explanation necessary) and love. I’m pretty sure the first two are just to give perspective to the later (the greatest of these is love).
Busyness pales in comparison to family, both in value and in return. If only we could remember that at all times, not just amidst the dawn of crisis.
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glenstorey
Well, it’s been a big day, and night at ulearn. Been quite inspired by both the educational and ICT components of the conference, it makes me want to be a teacher all over again! Teachers, for all their qwircks, really do have a lot of potential to make the world a better place. Some dull (political) bits but pretty good on the whole. I’ve never been to a conference of this magnitude before, only church conferences which are a bit smaller and not so glamorous. Lots of Coffee, wine, great (gluten free- no this is not an oxymoron) food.
We went to a great Greek reaturant tonight called santorini….Great food and music.I have scored two sweet pens so far from the floor, our goal is to get a whole classroom set!
Photos an more info to follow if you’re interested.
I’m using Monique’s iPod to post so please forgive any errors.
Hey I just listened to a new podcast from mosaic l.a., really challenging one on fear: http://www.mosaic.org/podcast
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glenstorey
Still at ulearn, had the obligitary massage the person in front of you and dance around break out (despite this it was one of my favourites! It was about creativity). Food incredible, best of all… Free all you can drink coffee. Hmm, can’t go wrong with that. In a breakout now, about new technologies.
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glenstorey
I’m at the ulearn conference in chch for school. All about how the Internet is changing the world. Which is true, it is. Check this out: twentyfivedays.wordpress.com
More info later if the keynotes are boring!
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glenstorey
So, I came back early from teens’ camp because I wanted to get some work done at school today, before flying off to Christchurch tmrw for Ulearn. Had to pop in to the bank (they lost a $1400 cheque – maybe more about that later), and as I was driving into the carpark I saw Jono’s car in the library.
So I rang him. Jono was donating blood.
Well, I thought, I have a few minutes free, it only takes half an hour and I haven’t done it for ages – I’ll go give blood. Sorted out the bank, went to the Papamoa Library, and signed it, did the test (I got 165 on the iron test – woot) and ended up on the blood donation bed.
For the record, the NZ blood service is really good and they were super nice and looked after me.
Things were going well, until I started to feel a little nauseous (this was while the blood was going into the little bag), so I said to the lady “I’m feeling a little sick”.
Then I was in my car.
Honestly. I was in my car driving somewhere. But I couldn’t see where I was going, and something was holding me down. I couldn’t find the accelerator or the brake so I couldn’t stop. Someone was in the car with me but they couldn’t help. So I yelled, screamed, at the top of my lungs SH*TTTT!!!!!!!! then, after a brief pause, SH&T!!!!!!!!!.
I’ll break here for a moment – the interesting thing was that when you scream, and you’re unconscious, you actually do get that echoy kinda effect where it sounds like you’re in a glass jar.
Where was I? Screaming. All of a sudden everything went white, and I wasn’t in my car anymore, but in a blood service bed, being held down by eight nurses. Eight.I was a little horrified, a) I felt like death warmed up (my pulse was 52), b) I realised that I’d swore, at the top of my lungs, in the Papamoa library in the middle of the day. c) I felt bad that the nurses had to hold me down. The thing where you put your arm was covered in blood, and I had a red bandage on, apparently my lips were purple and my face gray.
Two or so hours later, after lots of praying (a lot of the prayers sounded like this: dear God I don’t want to spew again), they *reluctantly* let me go home – Jono, my flatmate, who it turns out couldn’t give blood anyway because he had a coldsore, came and picked me up and took me home. Several hours later, I feel mostly fine after heaps of rad people (Jono, Donnah – my other flatmate and Monique) looked after me.
It turns out that I had a severe reaction to loss of blood (the last time I did it was 2004) – probably because I’d only eaten breakfast (maybe 3 or 4 hours earlier) and had a coffee that day. I’m not allowed to give blood again because it could get worse and I could die, apparently. They were pretty serious – like I said my pulse went pretty low (they measured it at 52 half an hour after I fainted), and I had open eyes whilst unconcious (freaky!).
The nurses were awesome. They looked after me really well, and were really caring and helpful – which was cool.
LESSON: Don’t rush. Eat and drink before giving blood. Life is fragile.
Gross photos follow…
If you’re conscious leave a comment.
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glenstorey
I talked about acting in a short film a few weeks ago for the red bull competition.
Well, here it is. WATCH AND VOTE FOR US!
Anonymous short film, directed by Karen Trebilco.
Once you’re done, leave a comment if you’d like.
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glenstorey
So, I’m at a teens’ camp in Matamata at Totara Springs – speaking to a bunch, of, well, teenagers.
It’s 11pm.
And I find this website:
Officially the strangest thing ever.
Have a look – listen for *at least* a minute and let’s know what you think.
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glenstorey
Evil
I listened to a really interesting podcast about what evil is, by a guy named phil zimbardo. He’s the guy that got some uni students to take part in an experiment where uni students pretended to be cops, or criminals in a prison. The experiment was shut down after 36 hours because the students pretending to be the cops were absuing and destroying the ‘criminals’. Real interesting – a little twisted, but an insight into the human soul.
How did he define evil? Mindless following of authority. His advice – to be a hero you need to be divergent. Herorism only works when you rebel against the norm. Conformity, apparently, is the antithesis of heroism.
Happy Places
Happy People
Joshie’s 21st
Snowboarding – Greg, Glen
Nico, Monique
Monique
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glenstorey
I really have nothing great to blog about. Don’t read that the wrong way, life’s interesting – new and exciting things are happening – but because it’s so exciting I don’t really have the emotional energy to collate it into something meaningful or interesting. Lots of things I want to tell you about: short film I was lucky enough to be a part of, 21sts, my birthday, the warriors winning, Auckland, good friends.
But.
No.
For today, I’ll just tell you about a rad website I found, that I have on my google homepage.
It’s called artist a day – and it has a different artist, a day. It might be a blob, something surreal, impressionistic. Always pretty interesting.
Anywho. Sorry I’m being a poor blogger. Might try and focus on quality not quantity (I’m not sure what this one is.)
