Elections and the web

I am enjoying watching the way election candidates in both America and here at home are utilising the internet as part of their campaign strategies. Locally I have been invited to be a friend of Helen Clark's on facebook and receive regular updates on what she's up to. I've also taken to reading David Farrar's kiwiblog which provides some interesting commentary, despite my different political position to Farrar himself. Also, the website pundit has added an extra level of interest with its online election quiz, if you haven't taken it already check it out at their website, it makes for an interesting exercise. Likewise their poll watch on their homepage provides combinations of poll results which may provide a more accurate picture of the state of the nations thinking than some of the small sampled poll results we are hearing about. National radios media watch program this morning (Nov 2) gave a great coverage of some of this and is worth listening to when the get the podcast up online. With respect to the American campaign I was impressed with the Alt-Country band Wilco's desire for change. They have emailed all their fans allowing a free download to their new song provided people commit to voting in the election. This was part of their email, check the link for more details...

Speaking of "I Shall be Released", the version recorded this summer with the Fleet Foxes is still available for download at the cost of a mere pledge to vote in the US elections next Tuesday (4 Nov.). We should add that if you are not a US citizen or for other reasons ineligible to vote, we'll settle for a good deed of your choosing (how about, for instance, giving someone who CAN vote a reminder phone call or a ride to the polls?). Click here for the download and more info.

Carrying on with NZ's campaign, I have enjoyed the NZCTU's You Tube clips, obviously wearing their political affiliations on their sleeve these clips deal savagely to right wing policies, but all with good humour (although I suppose that depends on your political position). Check out part 1 here...

A new direction...

So here we go, time to take a totally new direction with this blog. I have been blogging all these great gigs for a while now but time to shift this little blog into something more. Having just returned from ULearn08 I am inspired to particularly work on developing my network of educators, both here and abroad. It seems to me social networking of this sort is one of the keys to the future of education and is one of the best examples of social constructivism I can think of. We all love the rhetoric around social constructivism, but really as teachers, how often do we model it and participate in it - to be honest transmission is all to easily the default position. Anyway, off we go into a new direction.

My particular highlight of ULearn was Suzie Vesper's preconference workshop on blogs and wikis. Not only did we learn tricks to smart-up our blogs using things like slideshows from Flikr , like this little one I made here at The Botanic Gardens in ChCh...




But also did nifty remote audio clips using Utterli. She has a link to her wiki which is filled with great ideas.