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.

Changing Education

Did you have a chance to look at the Learning and Violence project interactive multi-media tools yet?

For adult educators and learners, the issue of how people have experienced, or are experiencing, violence can be the elephant in the room. Learners feel that they cannot bring it up and, if they do, many educators feel out of their depth. Many of the mechanisms people develop to survive violence can work as barriers when they want to learn something new and sometimes these mechanisms result in behaviours that look to educators like learning disabilities, lack of motivation or resistance.

The Changing Education multi-media tools are designed to help us name the elephant and open up the conversation.

Jenny Horsman, a community researcher and educator who coordinated the project and whose long-term work on the issue of how experiences with violence impact learning informed the research, says, "It is important it is to come to learning whole and full of hope. When we feel stupid, there is nowhere to go. But when we try a whole new conversation, we can try a whole new set of approaches.”

The tools will soon be available on DVD for those who do not have access to the internet. The project is looking for new partners in Canada and internationally to develop tools for learning in workplaces, schools, corrections and homes. Visit http://www.learningandviolence.net/changing.htm

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.

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.

sweet sweet math

At SugarStacks.com

"We've used regular sugar cubes (4 grams of sugar each) to show how the sugars in your favorite foods literally stack up, gram for gram. Compare foods, find out where sugar is hiding, and see how much of the sweet stuff you're really eating."

Apple
1 large apple (3.25"/223g - 10% waste)
Sugars, total: 23g
Calories, total: 132
Calories from sugar: 92

1 cup slices (109g)
Sugars, total: 11g
Calories, total: 57
Calories from sugar: 44

Mott's Applesauce (Sweetened)
1 cup (113g)
Sugars, total: 22g
Calories, total: 100
Calories from sugar: 88

Mott's Applesauce (Organic Unsweetened)
1 cup (113g)
Sugars, total: 211g
Calories, total: 50
Calories from sugar: 44

how search engines work

A short video designed to help you get more out of your web searches by Commoncraft.
Here is the transcript:

The Web may seem like a vast ocean when it comes to finding something you need. Thankfully, search engines can help turn oceans of information into small pools that make finding information easier.

This is Web Search Strategies in Plain English.

Before we dive in, let’s talk a bit about how search works on the Web. Search engines go out and try to account for every word on every webpage. All this information is then organized for easy reference.

When you search for a word, the search engine finds all the pages where the word appears, and displays them in the search results. Usually the pages that appear highest in the search results have lots of other web pages linking to them. Each link acts a vote to say, “This may be a good resource.”

The problem is that there are often too many results. You need a way to reduce the number of results so you can find what you need. Let’s look at how this works.

Say you’re looking for a specific kind of fish, and these represent all the websites on the Web. Searching for FISH doesn’t help much. There are way too many results. You need to be more specific.

Try to imagine the exact fish and describe it in the search box. You’ll see that each word you use gets you closer to what you need. You can do this for any website by imagining the website that has your answer. What’s the title of the page? What words appear on it? If you put those words in the search box, you’ll get closer to finding answers.

But to be a smart searcher, you should know some basic shortcuts. Let’s say you’re looking for words that appear together, like a phrase or a quote. An example is a search for information on sand sharks. If you search for it like this, the search engine looks for pages with SAND and SHARKS. To get better results, put quotes around the words like this. It limits the results to the exact phrase.

Here’s another shortcut. Words often have multiple meanings. Consider the word MULLET which is both a fish and a hairstyle. A search for MULLET may give you a number of results about the hairstyle, but fewer about the fish.

To remove the results about hair, place a hyphen or minus sign just before the word you want to exclude, which means “show me the pages about mullet, but take away results relating to hair.” By being specific, and using words and symbols that remove useless information, you can find exactly what you need, and keep the Web from swallowing you whole.

I’m Lee LeFever and this has been Web Search Strategies in Plain English.

google docs and searches

Re-posted from Free Tech for Teachers*:

Three "Getting Started Guides" for Google Docs

This morning Google announced the completion and publication of three new "getting started" guides for the Google Docs suite of tools. These new guides are designed to help new Google Docs users get started with spreadsheets, presentations, and documents.

These new Google Docs guides could be useful when introducing students and or colleagues to the benefits of cloud computing.

Here are some related resources that may be of interest to you:
Teaching Internet Search Strategies
The World Wide Web in Plain English
Google Earth and Google Maps Help

*Ryan teaches kids in Conneticut. His blog is a wealth of fantastic resources - many can be used with adult learners or are good resources for adult educators.

science online

Scitable is "A free science library and personal learning tool brought to you by Nature Publishing Group, the world's leading publisher of science."

This is high level stuff and the focus is on genetics but this site might be worth noting as a resource.

Workplace: Change

Part 1

Go to the Learning Edge, Issue 5. Then click on the box called “The changing face of work.”

What do you think about what these people are saying about the changing face of work?

How did you feel about going back to school?

What were your reasons for going back to school?

How has the world of work changed for you?

Did your job change?

Part 2

At Job Futures we can learn where the government says jobs are now and where they will be in the future.

We can learn about whether we have the education we need for a certain job and if we will like the job.

To learn more about how to use this site, go to the Learning Edge, Issue 5.
Then click on the box called “Using the internet to find jobs.”

Listen to the recording and then click on the Job Futures button.
Listen to the information about the website and then go to the Job Futures website.

Look up a job that you are interested in. If you know what job you would like, look the job up by clicking on alphabet and finding the job in the list. Remember, they may use another word for your job. For example, sports is called Athletics.

If you do not know what job you would like, click on Interest and choose whether you would like to work with things, people or information and choose a job from the list.

If you do not care what job you do just so long as there are lots of jobs in that field and the pay is good, click on Work Prospects and find a job to research there.

One you have found a job to research, find out:

- the average pay

- what the outlook is (will there be many jobs in this field and how many people with these skills are employed)

- what you will do on this job

- what education you need

and important facts (like how many women work in this field)
Click on comments and tell us what you found out.

And tell us what you think about this website. Is it helpful? What is easy about using it? What is difficult? Did you learn anything new about work?

Workplace: Finding Work

We can use the Learning Edge to look at ways to find jobs.

Here are some questions to think about:
- What are the four traditional methods of looking for jobs?
- Are they successful? Why or why not?
- What is the difference between active and passive ways of looking for work?
- What are two ways of looking for work?

You can find the answers in the Learning Edge.
Go to the Learning Edge, Issue 5.
Then click on the box called “Networking.”
Listen to the recording for scene 1.
Then choose a way of looking for work that you would like to practice.

1. Networking

2. Cold calling

3. Using the Job Bank

If you choose Networking:
Listen to the recording for scenes 2 and 3.
What do you think of this method?
Does it seem good to you?
Does it seem easy or difficult?
--------------------
Make a networking plan.
How will you start?
How will you find new people to network with?
What will you say?
What will you do after?

If you choose Cold calling:
What do you think of this method?
Does it seem good to you?
Does it seem easy or difficult?
--------------------
Make a cold calling plan.
How will you decide where to call?
What will you say about your experience?
What will you say if they do not have any openings right now? What will you do after?

If you choose Using the Job Bank:
Listen to the information about the website and then go to the Job Bank website and try to find a job.

What do you think of this method?
Does it seem good to you?
Does it seem easy or difficult?
-------------------
Reply to this message. Tell us what you found out.
Are there any jobs for you in your region? What will you do next?
And tell us what you think about this website. Is it helpful? What is easy about using it? What is difficult? Would you use the “resume builder?”

Health: The Human Body

Click here to open The Virtual Body.

A new page will open up.
Choose English.

You will see pictures of the inside of your body.
The pictures will be cartoon like the ones on this page, not photographs.
Some people do not like looking at pictures like this.
If you do not like looking at pictures like this, choose another activity.

Click on The Human Skeleton.
Click on Bones Narrated and listen to the information.
You can read along.
When you have heard the information, try the Build a Skeleton game.

Click on Comments.
Write a message and tell us:

• which activity you did
• what you liked about it
• what you did not like about it
• 3 things you learned
• which activity you are going to try next at the Virtual Body
  

Health: Nutrition

Think about a question you have about your body and how to keep it healthy.

Which story do you think will answer your question?

Pick a story that looks interesting.

If your question is about eating in a healthy way, these stories might help:
1. Ingredient labels
2. Less meat more beans
3. Nutrition facts
4. Men don’t eat enough vegetables

Write a review of the story you read.
Write your review as a paragraph.
Do not write it as a list of answers to the questions.
Make it interesting for other students to read.

Then read some of the reviews by other students. Which story will you read next?

Some questions to think about for your review:

Did the story answer your question?
Was the story easy or difficult to read and understand?
Was the story interesting or boring?
Would you recommend this story to other students?
How many stars (from 1 to 5) would you give this story?

Health: Taking Care

Think about a question you have about your body and how to keep it healthy.

Which story do you think will answer your question?

Pick a story that looks interesting.

1. Active living - Ken's story
2. Preparing for a doctor’s appointment – vocabulary and comprehension
3. Feeling the blues – vocabulary and comprehension
4. Menopause

Write a review of the story you read.
Write your review as a paragraph.
Do not write it as a list of answers to the questions.
Make it interesting for other students to read.

Then read some of the reviews by other students. Which story will you read next?

Some questions to think about for your review:

Did the story answer your question?
Was the story easy or difficult to read and understand?
Was the story interesting or boring?
Would you recommend this story to other students?
How many stars (from 1 to 5) would you give this story?