Friday, May 25, 2007

Expo 67

The June/July issue of The Beaver features a story about Expo 67. I've been searching around on the internet for resources for teachers.

It's interesting on the 40th anniversary of expo to see how new technology and old technology are combining to commemorate the event. Suddenly home movies, photo albums, and primary documents are available to the public. That album or shoe box full of home movies and pictures is now a great source.

Check out this great family album of classic Expo 67 pictures on Flickr, apprently found from a stray photo album. Another great album from Jason Yoder. Suddenly you can also relive the Expo 67 Construction as well with a new and very cool photo image feature.

YouTube has also gotten into the act with home movies galore - from the Welshman, the Family video, and by Boat. It's interesting because Expo is one of the first events where people had wide access to personal camcorders and camera's. It's this amazing historical resource that is just beginning to get started.

Check out the Expo Lounge Blog as well, a great online site/exhibit to the wonders of Expo. All of these cool sources have me very excited about working on some projects of my own over the summer and putting together my digital teachers guide for the new year in September. All these sources are available to create online digital exhibits, and the primary sources are often sitting in our own homes.

All of these sources and a few more will be included in the June/July issue of BITE: Beaver Information for Teachers and Educators.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Banned from Blogging

I've been working with Linda Marynuk, an Aboriginal Education Support Teacher with the Winnipeg School division, on starting a blog for with several teachers. Linda has been terrific and has really taken up the project. It is the first chance I've had to help integrate blogs into the everyday use for classrooms. Unfortunately teachers face added hurdles when starting a blog.

Linda, like most teachers, has been banned from blogger.com and other blogging sites. School boards no doubt want their teachers to focus on teaching, but in the process have taken a valuable tool out of the hands of teachers.

We are working on some solutions to the problem as it stands and I will keep you up to date on the process. For now we are working from home to get around the safeguards put in place, and hopefully the blog will be up to full steam very soon!

Re-Launch of the Digital History Blog

Well it has taken a while but we are officially re-launching the digital history blog. Somewhere in the hustle and bustle of every day life the Blog got lost a bit and it is about time it returned so keep an eye out for more recent updates in the world of digital history and educational practice.