Just Tripping Along The Freakazoid

Phew - finished training staff for the summer bridging program - showed them the Drive animated video features Dan Pink's talk on motivation (I highly recommend that video) - the training seemed to go well. The third unit is forensics so I will have another neat crossover between work and the writing and other fun stuff I love to do. Summoned for Jury duty for sept 27 - I served not too long ago and that I during school so seeing if it can be deferred. Trying to get the online Oceanography course set - we switched to a new learning management system called Desire 2 Learn and have to do a complete conversion. I use wikis and blogs heavily in my course and they are having major issues with that. The moodle server at my high school I having issues so we have to reset and redo And need to start creating the Blackboard course for my Earth science and GIS classes at the one community college and the physical science and environmental class at the other community college. I will be usi...

I am asking everybody I know to go check out this project - www.kickstarter.com/projects/PhilHolbrook/tilt-an-independent-thriller-from-brainerd-mn It has a great transmedia/crowdfunding/just awesome piece to it in the concept of TILT Town and being able to become "part" of the story The idea of having a "character" in TILT Town is awesome along with the concept of the story - They have to meet their goal by August 6th or else everything is refunded (That is the way Kickstarter works). So hurry and go and support - then we all can "live" in Tilt Town : ) Check this link for more - tiltthemovie.wordpress.com/tilt-the-town/ I'll copy a bit from the website's summary - "all started with a nightmare - my nightmare. And now I'm turning it into a feature length thriller that explores the question: WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR YOUR FAMILY? THE STORY: Paul hasn't connected with his daughter for over 10 years, but when their world is turned u...

I watched something very interesting yesterday. Something I have seen in a few other places and disguises; something I wonder if I shall see more of. I jumped in on the Flynn Lives – Tron legacy ARG yesterday as a page on the Flynn Lives site was counting down to zero. I was sooooo excited and in high anticipation. When it reached zero – a couple of things happened – an "access'"gate appeared (not what I want to talk about) and the twitter stream/facebook wall for the operationtron – Flynn Lives ARG began transmitting. I was like ohhhh cool – this is real time interaction. That right there was the first rub – what about all the people sleeping, or working, or not at a digital device? Eh, ah well, their loss, right? On facebook, people were starting to comment and get excited. Then, as the event unfolded, the mood of the group changed. It turns out instructions were tweeted for people to go to certain locations in San Diego and photograph themselves with different ...

Here is a link to the curriculum I wrote for a class that uses transmedia delivery and project-based learning as a major part of the classroom structure. It is an exciting course and I can not wait for the new school year. If you are interested, or have ideas, or would like the materials/resources and other items I have for the course, please give a holler. I want to make this course the best it can be for the students as well as using the concepts of transmedia in the classroom. Here is the link and also trying below to see if it embeds - issuu.com/docwho2100/docs/environ_lite_and_transmedia_edu I am also playing with Issuu - an online publishing tool - let me know what you think about Issuu as well!!!! Open publication - Free publishing - More transmedia

Whew – trying to jump back on the work horse after being away for three week is not easy – especially when, as with any large family, there were many ups and downs during the family visit. On the work front – I am working on figuring out how to use these portable Nova devices we have to integrate into the environmental science / transmedia course as well as learning Moodle to use as the learning management system (LMS) for the course delivery/content. My dream is using something more like an iPad (anyone know of any grants I just want one classroom set, nothing tooooo big ;) I will not have a print textbook, rather a set of digital materials as well as the approach that students will be finding much of the information and bringing it to the class rather than I am just spoon feeding them. This is, IMO, a very important piece of some "transmedia-like" systems. The content comes from multiple places, and is generated as much by the user as the guide/puppetmaster/teacher/creator,...