Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Boost: A private look into the lives of high school students at risk

I came across this interesting site at http://www.boostup.org that showcases the stories of several high school students at risk of dropping out. The mission of the Boost project is “to create an identity, support and encouragement for those whom might be at risk of dropping out.” The most interesting part of the website to me is the 10 video projects made by high school seniors. They are pretty raw in production and they do a great job of communicating to the viewer the personal challenges that each student faces in grade 12. Most of the students are in large urban centers such as Los Angeles, Miami and Brooklyn and some of their videos demonstrate that their environment is a significant detractor to their goals to be successful in school. If you’re an educator at any level, take the time to watch these short videos. They can really bring a dose of reality to your work. Note that you must have Flash Player installed to view the videos.

Friday, March 17, 2006

The Canadian Public Domain Registry is conceived!

Access Copyright, formerly known as CanCopy, is the Canadian copyright licensing agency. In a collaboration with Creative Commons Canada and with the assistance of the makers of Wikipedia, they announced on March 3rd the development of a Canadian public domain registry. This project will create an online, searchable catalogue of published works that are in the Canadian public domain. In their press release, Access Copyright does not provide a target release date... so keeep your eyes peeled for the registry's arrival in the future! This registry will an invaluable resource to instructional designers and educators in Canada.