Media and Occupy Toronto

In the last post we looked at a City TV report from Occupy Toronto. What other news reports have you seen or heard? Have you read any newspaper articles?

Here are a couple of places to find some television coverage:

CBC: Occupy Toronto takes to the streets again

CTV: 4 protests, a priest and a proposal: Top 'Occupy' moments

Global: Occupy Canada continues

Can you tell when reporters are telling you facts and when they are giving their opinion?

Here is an example from Sun TV as reported by the Canadian Journalism Project: Ezra Levant reports on Occupy Toronto; protestors release unedited video

Ezra Isaac Levant (born 1972) is a Canadian lawyer, conservative political activist and media figure. He is the founder and former publisher of the Western Standard, hosts The Source daily on Sun News Network, and has written several books on politics.



Go to the site and watch the first video.
What do you think about the report that Ezra Levant aired on SunTV?  What is your opinion about Occupy Toronto after you watch this video?

Then watch the second video.
What do you think about the video made by the people in the park? What is your opinion about Occupy Toronto after you watch this video?

Do these videos tell different stories?
Do you think these stories are fact or opinion?

What do you think about the stories? If you only watched one, what would your opinion of Occupy Toronto be?

What is a good way to find out facts about a story? When is it good to listen to opinions about a story?

Democracy at the Occupations

"The antiglobalization movement was the first step on the road. Back then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people."

— Raimundo Viejo, Pompeu Fabra University

Barcelona, Spain

Adbusters used this quote to start the Occupy Wall Street campaign.

What does it mean?

One thing it means is that there is no leader or committee that makes decisions for the group.

Every day at noon and 6 p.m., Occupy Toronto holds a General Assembly. People can make proposals at the General Assembly. Decisions are made by consensus. The General Assembly in Toronto uses hand signals to vote:

• Agreement – raise both hands above head, wiggle fingers
• Semi-agreement, further consideration – raise arms straight out in front, small wiggle
• Strong Disagreement, not to be used lightly – arms raised in block, ‘x’ over the head
• Request for further discussion – hands in triangle above head
• Wrap it up please – roll arms over each other

Here is how it looks:

You can see them using the People's Mic. This means that people repeat what the speakers say so that the people at the back can hear.

Some reporters are saying that the movement is disorganized and the demands are not clear.

Here are the minutes from the first General Assembly: Occupy Toronto General Assembly October 15th, 2011 minutes.

What do you think? Are they disorganized? Are they unclear?

If you want to ask the people at  St. James Park questions, go to the livestream and put your question into the chat.

Occupy Toronto

What do you think about the Occupy Wall Street movement? It started like this. Adbusters put out a call for people to Occupy Wall Street to

"demand that Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington. It's time for DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORATOCRACY, we're doomed without it."

Occupy Wall Street has been going for 38 days. The movement started to spread all over the world.

Now we have Occupy Toronto Market Exchange at St. James Park on the corner of King Street and Jarvis Street. Saturday was Occupy Toronto's one-week anniversary. Have you been down to visit? Have you joined any of the marches?

Have you heard them say "We are the 99%!" What does this mean?
In 2006, there was a documentary called The One Percent about the growing wealth-gap between America's wealthy elite compared to the overall citizenry. The film's title means that in the United States in 2001, 1% of Americans control 38% of the nation's wealth.

Here is a blog where people from the other 99% are posting their stories: We Are the 99 Percent

What about in Canada? Is it the same here?

Here is what Jim Stanford, an Economist in the Research Department of the Canadian Auto Workers, tweeted the other day:

 

What do you think? Do you think that wealthy people and corporations control the government in Canada? Do wealthy people and corporations have too much influence? Do wealthy people and corporations get too many benefits like tax breaks and subsidies from the government in Canada?

Where can you find out the answers to these questions? If you find a good place, let us know in the comments.

Multimedia tools for learning about violence and learning

The Learning and Violence project would love show you the interactive multi-media tools they have created to support learning and teaching in a context of violence.

Join them at George Brown College, 200 Front Street East (Front and Jarvis) in the Front Lobby on Friday October the 14th.

10:00 to 4:00 check out the new tools yourself – and chat to the creators, instructors and students who have used them.

12:00 to 1:00 Listen to what people have to say about them.

If you can't get to the launch, check out the resources on the website.

"Violence shapes us. It can make us stronger as learners, teachers, and simply as people in the world. It can also make it hard to trust ourselves and others, and difficult to learn. Its impact on learning is not well recognized, but the resources and allies found here can help all of us – whatever our role or experience – to address this issue creatively. On this site you will find:

• practical ideas to make it easier to learn or teach when violence or hard times mark our lives and/or the lives of those we work with;
• people and organizations exploring violence and learning through research or practice."

Ontario Election 2011 Words

Welcome back! I hope that you all had a nice summer.

The big news in Ontario this fall is the provincial election. TV Ontario (TVO) has lots of good information about Ontario elections and voting here. (All links will open in a new window.)

Do you know who you are going to vote for? If you can't vote in THIS election, who would you vote for? Do you think it is important for people who live in Canada and cannot vote to think about this question?

Word clouds are a a way of analyzing a document. One way of making a word cloud is to paste the text into Wordle. Words that are used most often show up larger and brighter. It can give you an idea about the content of a document. Here is one I made from the lyrics of the song Summertime:

I couldn't get Wordle to work on my computer so I used TagCrowd. You can find other options here. Check out WordSift if you want to do word analysis as well. Very cool.

Here are the word clouds that Mark Brosens of TVO's The Agenda made from the election platforms of the 

Ontario Liberal Party,

Ontario New Democratic Party,

Ontario Progressive Conservative Party and the

Ontario Green Party.

Look at the 4 word clouds. Did you learn anything new about what each party thinks is best for Ontario? Do these word clouds help you decide which party best represents what you think?

What issues are most important to the people in your class? Type them out into a word document. If 5 people think that education funding is an important issue, type education funding 5 times. Copy and paste your document into Wordle. Post a link to your word cloud into the comments so we can see what is important to you.

Then check out what others in Ontario are thinking here: The Citizen's Agenda - Click on a polygon to see a video of the question and issue raised by people who attended the Agenda Camps around Ontario.

world water week

More than 2,600 humanitarians and policymakers meet in Stockholm next week to hash out ideas about how to tackle escalating problems surrounding water scarcity and access to sanitation, particularly in urban environments.

World Water Week delegates are seeking long-term sustainable solutions that will transform how water resources are managed. The goal is to try and improve the lives of almost 900 million people who lack access to safe water, and more than 2.7 billion who lack access to basic sanitation, according to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) statistics.

Stockholm meeting to stir global water crisis debate by Julie Mollins, AlertNet

Matt Damon on education vs training

Matt Damon talks to Piers Morgan about President Obama, audacity and the difference between training and education!

It seems to me that more and more we are choosing training instead of education for adult literacy learners. Is that true? Is it what adult literacy learners want?

Blending on International Women's Day

It is that time of year again. For the 100th time!

I was working at home last year for the Reuters International Women's Day live blog (see details below) and spent quite a bit of time over there reading and talking about where women are today. It was fascinating. If you are using computers with your class on March 8, this might be a fun thing to check out.

There are some good videos here: www.trust.org/trustlaw/womens-rights/womens-voices that you can watch to get ready for an International Women's Day discussions - either on the live blog below or in your class.

There is some excellent reading at the Trust Law blog: www.trust.org/trustlaw/blogs/100-years-of-international-womens-day

________________________________________________________

Call out to all bloggers and Tweeters for International Women’s Day – 8 March 2011

As part of the Women @ Thomson Reuters network’s focus on International Women's Day, Julie Mollins [my sister] has created a dedicated International Women’s Day web page on reuters.com.  Click here to view.  Not only does this page bring together great Reuters news content, we also have a fantastic dynamic live blog which will capture insights and perspectives from both staff and external contributors around the world throughout the day.

View our initial blog postings here.  We invite you to participate on that live blog.

We have begun to populate dedicated pages on reuters.com and Thomson Reuters Foundation’s site in advance of 8 March with some initial stories. Take a look at the blog posts on Reuters The Great Debate site - please feel free to start adding your own responses to these articles. In addition we also have special coverage on TrustLaw and AlertNet broadening the range of topics and angles for reflection.

This year will be the 100th anniversary of IWD, so perhaps you would like to join the live blog and discuss:

• What progress do you believe has been made, or ground lost, on the gender agenda over the past 100 years?
• What needs to be achieved over the next decade and into the future?  

Thomson Reuters Foundation also launched a new page titled TrustLaw Women this week.  View that page and blog your thoughts. 

Blog on this year’s IWD 2011 theme which is “Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women” 

Perhaps you could attend a local IWD march in your area and tweet back.  Check here for a list of activities around the world. 

Are you hosting an International Women’s Day event?  Celebrate by sharing your Tweets with us. Follow us on Twitter at @women_on_iwd.

We would love to have you contribute on 8^th March and welcome you to “dip in” and blog or tweet throughout the day.

Have a great International Women’s Day!

________________________________________________________ 

Video Collection at WatchKnow

WatchKnow is a website in beta testing. That means that right now it is a pilot project or test site. The official site will be launched when the test is over.

It is a non-profit, online community that encourages everyone to collect, create, and share free, innovative, educational videos. The site is aimed at children but you may find good materials there.

One note: It is a collection only. There is no review process that verifies the content of the videos. I watched a history video that posited some contested information as fact. You will need to use your own critical literacy skills to assess the videos.

The goals of WatchKnow are:

* To amass a huge collection of the best free, reusable, educational videos and other watchable media, from all across the Internet--and make all of it accessible from one spot online.
* To organize this content using a unique, collaboratively-edited directory (and search, of course).
* To encourage the creation of more great educational media. So we will be holding many contests with significant cash prizes.

Is it CRAAP?

Here is a nice, concise, easy to read guide to evaluating web pages from the College of Saint Benedict at Saint John's University in Minnesota: www.csbsju.edu/library/calc/eval.htm

They describe the CRAAP (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy and Purpose) test that researchers use to determine whether they can cite a source but some of these questions are a good guide for any surfer who wonders about the information they are getting online.

"The Web is great because so many different people can contribute information. Some of the information that is found is very useful for your research papers because it is accurate, current, objective. Other information that can be found on the web is based on the person who is maintaining the webpages opinion. You must be able to recognize the difference and sift out the useful material in order to have a more accurate research paper."

I am not sure if I would call things that do not pass the CRAAP test junk. That seems a little harsh. But I would cite such sources with caution... or a note to explain why I was using that source.

monday morning :P

This is my senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design. Where my idea comes from is that every time when I am busy, I feel that I am not fighting with my works, I am fighting with those post-it notes and deadline. I manipulating the post-it notes to do pixel-like stop motion and there are some interactions between real actor and post-its. Here is the making of : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArJYvaCCB3c

Directed by Bang-yao Liu
Music by Röyksopp (http://royksopp.com)
Sound design by Shaun Burdick

Workplace: Pay and Hours

Here is an activity for students interested in finding out about their rights in the workplace.

This week we will look at the WorkRights.ca website.

We will look for information about Pay and Hours of Work. You will see the topics in the bar on the left side.

There are 5 things to do:

1. Go to Getting Paid and click on Ont at the top of the page. (The short forms for each province are in the row of teeny, tiny white writing that is almost impossible to read.)

What is the general minimum wage in Ontario 2009?
What will it be next year?
Look at another province. Is the minimum wage the same or different?

2. Go to Work Time. Click on Weekly Hours and Overtime and click on Ont at the top of the page.

How many hours in standard work week?
Are you entitled to a break?
What about days off?
What can you do if you still have questions about the rules?

3. Look along the left sidebar of the WorkRights.ca website.
What other information can you find on this site?

4. Click on the comments link below and tell us what you think about this website. Is it easy to use? Is the information useful?

5. Here are some questions to think about. We will discuss these questions in class.

What do you think about Fair pay? Have you ever worked for minimum wage? Is it enough money? How much should people get paid? How can workers get fair wages

What do you think about Hours of work? How many hours should people work? Should it be the same for everybody? How can workers get fair hours?

Storytelling: Tales we Tell Children

Some people tell stories.
Some people sing stories.
Some people read stories.

Why are stories important for children?
What are the stories people tell children?
Why those stories?

Here are some stories:

# Christopher, Please Clean Up Your Room! (NFB Video)
# The Cat Came Back

# The Magic of Anansi (NFB Video)

# Roses Sing on New Snow (NFB Video)

# The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier (NFB Video)
# The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier (CBC Audio)

# The legend of Nanabozho (CBC Audio)
# Summer Legend (NFB Video)

Did you listen to any of the stories?
Which ones did you like best?

What stories did you like best when you were very young?
Why do you think you liked them so much?

What stories do you tell the children you know?
Why do you pick those stories?