I'm trying to find the names of some folks who do CIPA audits so I can schedule them for a webinar with the goal being to INFORM the schools. Why is this so hard to do? If the goal is something which is supposed to be GOOD for kids, then why are they so hard to find and to  talk to?


GRRRRR!

I'm a former music teacher who still has a deep passion for beautiful music. I've often tweeted about listening to Beibl's "Ave Maria" sung by the Turtle Creek Chorale when it comes on my itunes. And, I've posted about Bobby McFarren and about Perpetuum Jazille singing "Africa" that's just VERY cool. And, I've posted about the Youtube Symphony orchestra (and here)  and PS22 fifth graders, and the youth orchestra on TED and even a vegetable orchestra. I love beautiful music.

So, when I first heard these two pieces I first LOVED the idea of a virtual chorus - singers from 12 countries contributing virtually to a performance. Now THAT is a VERY cool idea. Then I started to watch the video responses to that video and I found myself completely blown away.

Here is the first video performance. It's Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir - 'Lux Aurumque'
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Now watch this single performance by Melody Myers (appropriate first name, eh?)



Watch some of the other responses, as well. Share this with your favorite music teacher.

Dr Scott Mcleod at the TEDxASB conference.
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I just sat in on a webinar in which the PA Department of Education (PDE), the Public Broadcasting system (PBS), and Penn State's PBS station (WPSU) announced that the Digital Learning Library will be made available through PA's Standards Aligned System (SAS) portal. All the videos will be tightly aligned to the standards so that teachers will be able to search by a standard and locate the videos that match. That alone will help to make the PA SAS portal a very powerful resource for teachers,

Something else that was mentioned was that PBS is making these available (perhaps not all, but certainly MOST) with the Open Content "rights." That means that students and teachers can download the titles and even remix them. Now THAT is EXCELLENT!

Pennsylvania is making great strides in Education and is quickly becoming the state to watch for how it implements and supports its standards system. Governor Rendell and Dr Gerry Zahorchak can both be quite proud of the enormous progress they've enabled in this state.

Maybe this is the first step towards getting a version of Youtube available in the schools. First we have to figure out how to set it as a default for all users. Then.. oh boy... this could be a GIANT step for making the videos available. Of course, it'll still take years to get some folks to allow it, but still. This is a wonderful bit  of news, as far as I'm concerned.

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