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National Film Board interactive film, Bear 71, blurs lines between wild and wired
The Vancouver Sun
BY Katherine Monk, Postmedia News, JANUARY 23, 2012
PARK CITY, Utah — There are many bizarre sights parading before the viewfinder of a Sundance Film Festival visitor, but the indoor tree imported from Banff and the bear cage outside the library are two of the more cryptic signs of unfettered creativity sprawling around Park City.
Part of a National Film Board interactive film project called Bear 71, the cage and the tree are more than publicity props; they’re symbols of a larger work that aims to jolt the viewer into a different state of awareness about the natural environment, and our relationship to it.
“In our modern age, it’s hard to know where the wired world ends and the wild one begins,” says co-creator Leanne Allison, half the filmmaking team behind the Gemini-winning Being Caribou.
“This whole thing started with a huge collection of trail photographs gathered in Banff National Park. These were images that were not framed by people. They were sort of nature uninterrupted.”
Essentially low-resolution stills gathered from motion-activated cameras in the wild, the images showed a variety of animals simply doing what they do, from crows and eagles to foxes and bears.
The bear was the central motivator for Allison, because she and her husband, Karsten Heuer, a park ranger in Banff, had been following her moves for years.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Checkout the National Film Board’s Interactive Website here.
UBC LIbrary Catalogue NFB Screening Room access here.
Apple unveils digital textbook service iBooks 2
The Vancouver Sun
BY YINKA ADEGOKE, REUTERS JANUARY 19, 2012
NEW YORK – Apple Inc unveiled a new digital textbook service called iBooks 2 on Thursday, aiming to revitalize the U.S. education market and quicken the adoption of its market-leading iPad in that sector.
The consumer electronics giant has been working on digital textbooks with publishers Pearson PLC, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a trio responsible for 90 per cent of textbooks sold in the United States.
The move pits the makers of the iPod and iPhone against Amazon.com Inc and other content and device makers that have made inroads into the estimated $8 US billion market with their electronic textbook offerings.
At an event at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller introduced tools to craft digital textbooks and demonstrated how authors and even teachers can create books for students.
The “value of the app is directly proportional to students having iPads,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with industry research firm Gartner. “But this will lead to more schools adopting as a requirement.”
REINVENTING THE TEXTBOOK
Schiller said it was time to reinvent the textbook, adding that 1.5 million iPads are in use now in education.
THIS JUST IN: New Book at Education Library
Information Literacy and Information Skills Instruction: Applying Research to Practice in the 21st Century School Library, Third Edition
This book provides a comprehensive review of the current research relating to the teaching of library and information literacy skills as part of effective school library media center programming.
What are the current best practices for information literacy instruction? How should one design information literacy lessons to motivate and instruct today’s tech-savvy students? What are the best ways to foster critical thinking tasks and build searching skills? Academic research provides great insights for answering these pressing questions.
Teachers want 15% wage hike in three-year deal
The Vancouver Sun
January 17, 2012. 1:52 pm • Section: Report Card
Finally the B.C. Teachers’ Federation has revealed what sort of salary increase it wants in a new collective agreement: 15 per cent over three years.
That would include a three-per cent wage hike each year to cover cost-of-living increases and a three-per-cent market adjustment in the second and third year to bring B.C. salaries more in line with those offered in Alberta and Ontario.
The total cost of the wage increase plus proposed improvements in benefits and prep time would be about $300 million in the first year, BCTF president Susan Lambert told a news conference Tuesday before tabling the proposal at the bargaining table. That’s far less than the $2 billion cost cited earlier by the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, she added.
There would be an additional $130 million cost in years two and three.
By Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun
jsteffenhagen@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
BCTF News Release here.
Staffroom Confidential Blog here.
Black Wednesday: In Protest of SOPA, Darken the Web
The Huffington Post
Posted: 1/17/12 10:57 AM ET
Some of the Internet’s leading websites, including Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, WordPress, and BoingBoing, will go dark tomorrow to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The U.S. bills have generated massive public protest over proposed provisions that could cause enormous harm to the Internet and freedom of speech. My blog will join the protest by going dark tomorrow. While there is little that Canadians can do to influence U.S. legislation, there are many reasons why I think it is important for Canadians to participate.