Thanks..

Update: Doesn’t work as of yet. Sorry.

Back in the Spring of 2009 the administration came to me and asked me if I would be willing to take on a class of students and teach them about media production, emerging technology and so on. You might recall I asked for your help in determining what I should teach them.

First and foremost, our goal has been to produce a morning news show, which they named Cougar KidKast.

As we finished up production of the eight episodes for which this class was responsible we found ourselves with a few extra class periods. The kids asked if we could make a movie.

I set them to start talking about it. Together, they determined that they wanted to make a video that would have a positive impact. As we talked further, my kids began to reveal to me the unpleasant underbelly of school culture. My kids feel pressured to conform to societal norms in a manner that seems to me different from when I was a student. Perhaps it is pure distance (having not say where they sit in 20 years) or my own ignorance, I was unaware that the social pressures are as tough as they are.

They wanted to flip the script.

I asked them to talk further about who would play what role and what shape this would take. During our time together, we have explored different types of video. We’ve talked about documentaries, interviews, B roll, and more. My kids decided out of all of them, they wanted to create a performance piece.

As they began the storyboarding process, I noticed that one student had misspelled the genre. Instead of performance piece, he had written:

Performance Peace

An accidental misspelling turned out to be the cornerstone of their idea. As they began to allow the title to dance in their minds, ideas turned into action. One student in particular took a keen interest in writing lyrics for the piece.  Shy-Kyra’s lyrics are posted below. I should note that they are unedited. I have made no changes to them and they remain in their original, pure form.

I am thoroughly impressed with my students. I am impressed not only with their effort, but their hearts. Please remember these students are 11 and 12 years old. I feel the work they have created is far beyond their ages.

They ask only that you consider sharing their work. Enjoy.

Here is the video. Click through to see it or click here to watch it in HD on YouTube. Lyrics follow the video.

Lyrics by Shy-Kyra:

PERFORMANCE PEACE

popularity comes and destroys our mind …
sometimes we can’t find that trend, that friend, that life
in life we can always lose our confidence or self-esteem because of what people tend to say behind your back
then our come back is violence or the old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”
when the words hurt as much as the sticks and stones;
deep down this world has lost its mind with the trend of the year or should we say week
the schools has lost its mind with the trend setters or popularity we have started a DEMOCRACY and we
fought this war for months
played this game for years

IT’S TIME TO FLIP THE SCRIPT!!!

this is my life, my turn,
you’re not in my clothes
you don’t know my story
you haven’t taken the time to look me in my eyes
taken the time to see my pain
you’re not going to throw me around anymore
i’m going to stand on my two feet i’m going to hit a homerun
IT’S TIME TO MAKE A CHANGE ……
I’M GOING TO PAINT MY LIFE COLORFUL

BY: SHY-KYRA

Recently, I’ve been getting an error that says “There are no Lightscribe devices found on this system”. The error seems to be without cause, but prevented my software program from detecting the drive.

The solution? I updated the Lightscribe System Software, which you can download here.

I updated, didn’t even have to reboot, and it works fine. Here’s hoping that if you are having the same trouble this fix will work for you.

The vocal talent is Jesse Fisher.

But that’s not the point of this post. This post is about how I got his video to show a few folks where Vimeo is blocked.

On the Vimeo page for the video above, Jesse points folks back to Kadence.tv to download the video. However, it is not there. So I began to research how to download videos from Vimeo.

On a side note, I seriously heart Vimeo.I love how they welcome me home when I stop by.

I think Vimeo has the most polished video sharing site without much of the drivel found at other sites. And yes, I know that it is possible to make a video available for download. Ethical discussions aside, here’s how I saved this video for offline viewing. Of course, I wouldn’t sell it or make a profit in any way, I simply wanted to view it offline.

Enter Vimeo Downloader script.

Through a quick search on the Google I found this script, which allows one to download Vimeo videos. I am not certain if this is the easiest way, but I tried Zamzar to no avail, and this worked. Here are the steps for making this work on Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I am not sure how well it works on Windows.

1. Download the script to the Desktop.

2. Open a terminal window and enter this command: chmod u+x ~/Desktop/vimeo_downloader.sh

3. Run the following command: ~/Desktop/vimeo_downloader.sh VIDEOID

(Replace VIDEOID with the numeric code from a video URL. For example if the URL is http://www.vimeo.com/6674062 you would replace VIDEOID with 6674062).

4. Look for the downloaded video to be named VIDEOID.flv on your Desktop.

UPDATE: The author of the original post mentions this in the comments that I thought worth mentioning here:

For an easier method, try the Free Youtube user script, which places a Download link under each video (supports YouTube, Vimeo, blip.tv, and more):

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/34765

To use it with Firefox, first install the Greasemonkey extension:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

The trouble is that user script totally changes how flash videos function in your browser. So yes, it does work to allow one to download a video, but it makes the user experience quite different. I will leave the script installed, but disabled. I’ll enable it as needed.

Interestingly, when I downloaded the file from Vimeo using the shell script, it downloaded as an .flv whereas using this Greasemonkey script it downloads as .mp4.

I responded by trying to find the answer myself. Having recently returned from the Google Teacher Academy in Washington, D.C. I sort of fancied myself a Google whiz.

I was wrong.

I simply could not find a ranking based on just our state. When I searched for various combinations (i.e. “economic impact” +industries +”south carolina”) I got all sorts of results, but no real way to rank them.

I tweeted back that Mandie should consider contacting a reference librarian.

Backstory

Here in Irmo, SC we have a little branch of the Richland County Public Library called The Link. It’s tiny, about the size of a small store. It has some comfy chairs, a bunch of books, and a few computers for use.

They do not, however, regularly staff a reference librarian. To overcome this, they have a video conference system set up and mounted on the wall. It’s a bit like a video phone, where you pick up the receiver and it connects you with the reference desk at the main branch down town. A few months ago while I was in the Link I joked with the ladies who worked there that I didn’t need a reference librarian, I had Google. They tried to convince me I should try it out but I just couldn’t come up with a question that Google couldn’t handle.

Until today.

So, I decided to try out the reference librarian. I hit up the Ask a Librarian page and fired off an email asking the question. I would have tried the IM, but whatever service they use was blocked at school. I wondered whether it would result in anything, and went about my day. A few short hours later, to my pleasant surprise, I received an email with not only the information, detailed instructions as to how s/he found it. It turns out the librarian used the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the US Dept of Commerce. With no further effort on my part, I had the answer to the question, with an entire table copied to me.

I was floored.

It’s not that I don’t have faith in librarians. In fact, this is the second time that the RCPL reference desk librarians have come to the rescue.

The truth is, I’m surrounded by wonderful librarians who are a credit to the profession. And this goes to show me that libraries are still as crucial as ever.

So thank you, RCPL reference desk, for showing me that there is still a need for information experts.