Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Stalin vs. Martians


Big Download blog just reported what may be the bleeping stranges idea for a video game since someone decided to make a game out of Dante's Inferno. It's Stalin vs. Martians. Yes, Stalin vs. Martians. In case the premise is confusing to you, it pits Stalin vs. Martians. The release date? April 20 -- Hitler's birthday.

Here's a video preview of the excitement that awaits you:



And for those of you wondering what Dante's Inferno will look like as a game, here's a taste.

I'm Confusing Even Myself

My school's in the midst of a ton of interesting initiatives surrounding diversity, global education, tech, pedagogy, professional development, curriculum, etc. It's all really exciting stuff. I was trying to explain what we're doing to a colleague from another school this afternoon, however, and I found it difficult to give him any "elevator speech" that ties everything together. And what we're doing is tied together pretty tightly around a few very clear conceptual pillars. I really need to put everything down into one place and construct a coherent narrative that explains everything simply and clearly. I worry that we could lose ourselves in the details as we make so much progress on so many fronts.

Having read Made to Stick a while back, I'm acutely sensitive to issues surrounding messages and their reception. I want to avoid all the "21st century skills" boilerplate and get toward something that's a bit less grounded in trendiness and more set in sound reasoning and logical construction with a healthy dose of clarity thrown in for good measure.

Sorry if this blog post reads more like an inner dialogue than it does an actual posting, but I'm trying to publicly commit myself to the task in as public a manner as possible. Not that I've got an audience for this blog, but still...

Monday, April 6, 2009

Kansas 7th Graders' KKK Project Draws Flack


Some kid in Kansas did a project which involved a Klan-inspired board game. It was highlighted at a parent open-house and people were upset. Go figure...

World's Largest Model Railroad

I used to take my kids to Northlandz when I live in New Jersey. I thought it was a pretty big place. This video makes me realize that maybe it wasn't all that big after all...