A History of Film Making in Canada (NFB Education)

An interactive history. Here is a new addition to the National Film Board Education website. It is an amazing collection of historical documentaries showing how the National Film Board provided a place for film to expand.

Evelyn Lambart, the early film maker who worked with Norman McLaren was especially interesting to me. She did this with a severe hearing impairment. Fascinating.

For anyone wanting to know more about how Norman McLaren did so much great work in developing the world of film, then this is also a rich resource for you. Many who were influenced by Norman are featured in this history (e.g., Grant Munroe). 

When I look at these many documentaries it helps me to better create film for today's classrooms. The imagery is stunning and the history is astounding. Check it out. Click here.

This is highly suitable for classroom work.

7 Digital Deadly Sins - Explore the Interactive Film

The National Film Board and The Guardian have collaborated on an interactive film. This type of film is interactive and positively genuine in response to the participant viewer.

7 Digital Deadly Sins is an interactive film. Click here.

You might worry about this film as content for your classes since this film has not necessarily been made with classrooms in mind even though it is associated with the education website of NFB. We all know that some digital issues are taboo in schools. Educators who are digitally naive may need to be more aware of these issues.

Your classroom context may be one that reacts differently to these issues. You need to know that context is everything and that rules for content are different for your classroom. Be sensitive to that or you fall into the digital deadly sins categories. Be aware of school policy and school district policies for classroom content and interactions.

The film is an example of multiple literacies working explicitly together.

Speed Reading and Changing the Concept through Apps

For the past three years, Spritz has been working on software apps that allow people to read text like speed readers, only naturally. That is, the text itself shifts in front of your central focus instead of your eyes having to seccade from side to side of the text.

I had imagined this software, myself, several years ago but it was difficult (no impossible) convincing others to join the team to create this type of software.  I tried to pull together a team to create this type of software. Many whom I approached had determined that speed reading was not "real" reading and others were convinced that we should not allow the machine to do the "work" of reading, or even assist in this way. Truth is, nearly all the people that try speed reading eventually give it up.

It is not what I had envisioned but now someone else has made this type of software. Try it yourself. See http://www.spritzinc.com/the-science/
Other types will emerge, I am sure. There are problems reimagining the texts that go with this type of reading. As with any type of speed reading done in the past, there are those that will resist the speed of it all but I do believe that in the next 5 years we will see a total change in the way we think of text, and the human speed of reading will shift.

                                                                                                
Spritz is an "out there" experiment in changing reading. As more and more ideas enter the reading sphere through apps, there is bound to be something that ubiquitously changes what we do. Further to viewing these new experiments it is equally important to read the critiques. Here is a valuable critique of Spritz http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/19/comment-spritz-and-other-speed-reading-apps-prose-and-cons

Another wonderful software for speed reading is Spreeder. Try it at http://www.spreeder.com/ and find yourself improving over time. Consider the difficulty of the material as you read because unfamiliar words may cause you to stop and think. This is not a bad thing but just a part of the processes involved in reading. Why read slowly when you can read more easily and comprehend better as you read quickly? That is the basic lesson I learned from this software.