Lobby display

Testing out our library tri-panel displayer in the lobby; keeping an eye on traffic flow, etc. Looks pretty good out there.

On the banner of our school site

"Student watches his design being created on the Library's 3D printer.'

The digital maker

The continuing effort to model "makerness." Posted a bulletin board of photo collages I've been making.

By the way, what's school about?

Found poem

 Impressions on black paper from my 3-D projects display

So the sun goes down on another day

and you wonder if you have left your mark.

You have.

It persists - in memory and in fact.

So make a good impression.

It is your introduction to tomorrow.

Opening the ACS Archives

I have been posting images, files, and videos to the Archives section of our library pages. Included are ACS sports videos, library projects, early school board minutes, 19th century Regents exams, and some Mr. D. videos. Topping the selection is our continuing crowdsourcing project to tag Afton Historic Minutes from the Tri-Town News.

Art & Science

This neat exhibit at the New York State Museum features the landscape watercolors of Charles Burchfield. Burchfield lived along Lake Erie and was as infatuated with the weather as he was with painting; making detailed recordings of the weather in both paint and journal. The NYS Museum has included the "weather shorthand" of his observations along with each painting. Cool!

Take the Afton World Tour

What do the following places have in common with Afton?

Coia, Spain
Campdevanol, Spain
Villacidaler, Spain
Riumors, Spain
Lido di Tarquinia, Italy
Collemaggiore, Italy
Borgata Marina, Italy
Mertur, Montenegro
Kiten, Bulgaria
Didi Jikhjaishi, Georgia
Mukhaylovka, Kazakhstan
Akterek, Kyrgyzstan
Gobi Desert, Mongolia
Nanjin, North Korea
Klamath Falls, Oregon
Hornick, Iowa
Towers Lake, Illinois
Comber, Ontario, Canada
They are all within a few thousand yards of sharing the same latitude as Afton, NY.

I used Google Earth to follow our latitude around the world (Follow the tour yourself.). I cherry-picked these locations for their range of terrains, climates, and politics. I thought it would be a meaningful project for students to research and even contact students at these locations to compare the differences within this single similarity, but I have no takers here at 42°13'48" yet.

May have to go exploring on my own. Should I pack a parka, Bermuda shorts, a kaftan, a uniform, jeans?

ACS Board of Education Notes: 1888-1917

Digging those 20th Century British Poets

That's a photo of my home poetry shelf as well as a print-out of my LibraryThing poetry books.

Kudos

Want to make this shout out to Mr. Cox for inviting me to collaborate on his his Intro to WWII lesson. Today his students embraced the opportunity to analyze newspapers, magazines, and scrapbook items from that era; hands on.

No news like old news (in its original packaging!) to get the wheels turning.

ID that dignitary

Have some fun testing your political IQ by visiting this NY Times interactive photo of the Inaugural "bleachers." Toggle the names on or off. Can you match up senators to states or party, cabinet officials to their department? What might the seating arrangement illustrate?

More lessons from MLK Day

Many thanks to the good people at ASIDE for this video link. The video is a wonderful synthesis of rhetoric, language, civics, and visualization. It illustrates King's skill at employing repetition, metaphor, historic references, and the poetry of language to communicate with his audience; lessons that we work hard at teaching our young writers.

On a roll

The February issue of FamilyFun magazine concurs with this library's long tradition of using tape to inexpensively and creatively illustrate concepts for pennies a yard. If you find a great tool, stick with it!

Roll on, roll over, roll around...

Partial view of Sheet 7.

The January 2013 issue of Smithsonian magazine features a breath-taking reprint of Sheet 11 from Harold N. Fisk's 1946 maps of the meandering Mississippi River. High resolution PDF are available at this LSU site (choose from the 15 sheets under Plate 22). Displayed in their complexity on a SmartBoard, I foresee them as as rich resources for discussion about transportation, climate, erosion, weather, agriculture, land values; maybe even actuarial table & flood insurance!

Island of Hope, Island of Tears

Found this award winning documentary about Ellis Island at the Internet Archive. It was produced by the National Park Service. Good stuff. Great images.

FormItable indeed

FormIt. Going to get me this Autodesk app as soon as I get home!

City sites

A graph of Metro Area Population Rank over time in the U.S. (from PeakBagger). What a great well for questions in a review of U.S. History with students. Here are some I had:


A desktop-filming of a Jing-recorded screen capture that would not "run" from Screeencast.com. I win!

Another fine cities graphic at thingsmadethinkable: an animated map of the top ten most populous cities in the world over time.

I sought out both of these sites as I am reading The City by Joel Kotkin (a Modern Library Chronicles Book from our ACS Library). In 160 pages Kotkin sweeps us through the common and unique stories and forces that have framed the rise and fall of cities in the world. His overview really unites or at least reveals how many global isms and events relate to each other; all within the context of these engines we know as cities. I am ripe with facts and new insights!

Nicely done

Like geometry itself, this Math Open Reference site is simple and straight forward. I was looking to figure out how to make a 30-degree angle so that we might construct a 12-spoke wagon wheel for class. Can do.

"The Way We Were" continues

This past week, Charles Decker, ACS Class of '43, published his 1000th "Historical Minute" in our weekly paper, the TriTown News. The achievement is a testament to his scholarship, his discipline, and his unceasing interest in the world.

I happened to be reading the Diary of Samuel Pepys (see the post before this one) at the same time as Charles' milestone arrived and they share the same passion for events, history, detail, people, and the times. That Charles began writing these essays upon becoming a senior citizen adds significance to his achievement.

The occasion of his 1000th has inspired me to finally digitize our collection of his works. This collection, clippings of nearly 20 years worth of articles, was carefully kept by Marion McKee Cook, ACS Class of '35; a cousin to Charles.

Today I scanned nearly 400 articles (some samples). I hope to complete the ones I have by tomorrow. Once scanned, we intend to make them available to the Afton community so that we/they might read and "tag" each article, enabling this life's work to be a searchable resource.

Are you with me?