Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising has been released for free viewing. If you are in the US or Canada you can get a free copy here.

Here are the rules for usage:

“I’m giving you my blanket permission to not only download it, but also to email it, burn it, and share it with anyone and everyone (in the U.S. and Canada only). I want you to use ‘Slacker Uprising’ in any way you see fit to help with the election or to do the work that you do in your community. You can show my film in your local theater, your high school classroom, your college auditorium, your church, union hall or community center. You can have your friends and neighbors over to the house for a viewing. You can broadcast it on TV, on cable access, on regular channels or on the web. It’s completely free — I don’t want to see a dime from this. And if you want, you can charge admission or ask for a donation if it’s to raise money for a candidate, a voter drive, or for any non-profit or educational purpose. In other words — it’s yours!” (emphasis mine)

- Michael Moore

As you can see, Mr. Moore is looking to see more folks getting out to the polls this year. Let’s see if we can’t help him make that wish come true!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

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For most of us it’s almost four weeks before the local public schools are back in session, but those “back to school” sales are starting up already. Even if you homeschool or afterschool year round, this is a good time to stock up on supplies. We’re also in the middle of conference season, and I for one have been trying to catch some of the workshops at the Heart of the Matter virtual conference.

After two days of computer issues & other difficulties, today I was able to “sit in” on several interesting workshops. I learned more than I ever thought anyone could know about using time lines in teaching history, and was both entertained and informed on the subject of gender differences in education. I missed a bunch of other conferences, but will listen to them when the MP3’s become available, later on. Now that’s convenience!

I believe you can still get tickets for the conference, if there’s anyone who hasn’t yet had the chance. There’s a wonderful, huge grab bag of freebies that comes with the ticket, and remember there will be the opportunity to listen to any workshops you missed, so you’re getting the full value of your ticket even now that the conference is in full swing. Just click on the banner at left.

I also wanted to say that CurrClick is having yet another fabulous promotion: it’s the 3rd Annual Back to Homeschool Sale. I think there might be a more official announcement coming, but this is what’s up at the web site now:

Kick-off your school year with great savings on hundreds of titles! For the entire month of August, get 10-70% OFF of hundreds of curriculum choices from your favorite publishers. With our huge title selection, you can be sure to find something to please any learning style in your home. Here’s to great savings and a fun new school year!

Check out the great savings on homeschool curricula, textbooks, unit studies and more! There are several new publishers offering great products at CurrClick now, and so many really wonderful ideas to help you plan your homeschool year or just round out your lessons with a few special items geared to your family’s interests. You’re bound to find something, so take some time over the next month to take a good look at what’s on special. The list of discounted items is here.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

In Memoriam: Randy Pausch, Innovative Computer Scientist at Carnegie Mellon,
Launched Education Initiatives, Gained Worldwide Acclaim for Last Lecture
PITTSBURGH—Randy Pausch, renowned computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, died July 25 of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47.

Celebrated in his field for co-founding the pioneering Entertainment Technology Center and for creating the innovative educational software tool known as “Alice,” Pausch earned his greatest worldwide fame for his inspirational “Last Lecture.”

That life-affirming lecture, a call to his students and colleagues to go on without him and do great things, was delivered at Carnegie Mellon on Sept. 18, 2007, a few weeks after Pausch learned he had just months to live. Titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” the humorous and heartfelt talk was videotaped, and unexpectedly spread around the world via the Internet. Tens of millions of people have since viewed video footage of it.

Pausch, who had regularly won awards in the field of computer science, spent the final months of his life being lauded in arenas far beyond his specialty. ABC News declared him one of its three “Persons of the Year” for 2007. TIME magazine named him to its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. On thousands of Web sites, people wrote essays about what they had learned from him. His book based on the lecture became a #1 bestseller internationally, translated into 30 languages.”

Read more…

For more on Mr Pausch you can visit his web page. There are several videos to see, and you might want to look as well at the one posted here below.

Those interested in Alice, his innovative program for teaching kids to write computer programs, will be delighted to discover that Carnegie Mellon offers the software for free download here.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

This is just a very quick post to let you know that today I discovered another wonderful science resource for classroom teachers or homeschoolers who want to incorporate some hands-on work to their curriculum. The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) offers a good range of projects for students in K-12, and many of them are collaborative ventures that involve students sending in their own data to be published. This kind of involvement in a scientific study gives kids a connection to something beyond their community, by visiting places in their own backyards.

Many of the projects I looked at would be an excellent addition to a Charlotte Mason style nature study, in that they encourage children to visit a place in nature, observe, listen, make sketches. If you have a child who is resistant to nature study, you may find that becoming the scientist is a motivator - and if not, try a project that involves looking for “gross stuff” like worms and macroinvertebrates! Many a young boy who turns his nose up at bird watching and sketching trees or cuddly, furry animals will easily spend hours digging around a pond trying to find tadpoles to catch! Many of these projects take advantage of that interest.

Most of the projects I looked at are now closed for spring registration, but suggest that folks return in August for their fall run. So if you are planning your next academic year as I am, you might want to write yourself a reminder for late summer, and try to pencil in one of these fun projects for next year. Enjoy!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

Has your “unlimited” internet plan all of a sudden become limited? Jenny Sparrow lives in Millet, Alberta. She had a subscription to Bell Mobility’s high speed internet, with an unlimited plan. Until she received this letter from Bell saying she was using too much bandwidth and she was in breach of contract.

Bell has begun to throttle bandwidth, and recently began to force that same throttling on its white label internet re-sellers. People who question this decision are told that the 5% of people who are using peer-to-peer (P2P) applications are to blame. Bell also defends its actions by saying its service agreement gives it the right to impose limits - even on unlimited plan users.

Canary’s Bill St. Arnaud says the problem isn’t that people shouldn’t be using P2P applications like BitTorrent or Vonage. Rather, he feels that companies like Bell haven’t been investing in the infrastructure, particularly what is sometimes known as “The Last Mile” - the wiring that comes from a local switching station and fans out in the neighbourhood, to each home.

As promised earlier this week, the full interview with Bell Canada’s Mirko Bibic is now available at the CBC Spark web site. You can access the entire Spark episode including all the extras at the web site as well.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Graphic courtesy of CBC Spark. Thanks!