Earthcast Presentation on Classroom 2.0

This past Saturday I co-presented live to the Classroom 2.0 community on the concept of the Earthcast 2010 webcastathon, which will be taking place live beginning at 0 GMT on April 22nd, 2010 (Earth Day). It was great to have the chance to share this project along with my fellow Earthbridges/Earthcast colleagues Sheila Adams, Darrell Garrison, Jose Rodriguez and Mary Ziller.

A special shout out is in order to Kim Caise, Lorna Costantini, Peggy George and Steve Hargadon for giving us the chance to share with the 40 + live listeners who tuned in on Saturday.

If you didn't get the chance to tune in live, no worries. The entire presentation is embedded below and you may also pop on over to the Classroom 2.0 archives for all of the links, show notes, etc.

Interested in participating in the Earthcast 2010 24 Hour Webcastathon this year?? Leave a comment here or send the Earthbridges community an email at earthbridges at gmail dot com. We're looking for people from ever region of the world to participate and we're hopeful we'll be able to once again have live broadcasts in several different languages.

If you are uncertain of what the Earthcast is all about, check out this Voicethread with audio clips from Earthcast 2008 and Earthcast 2009.

Paperless??

Those of you who read this blog and know of some of the work I've done online are quite aware that I'm a self proclaimed "eco-geek." I ride my bike/walk to work as much as possible, we compost here at our house, and I do many other things to try to minimize my environmental footprint. But I wonder if motivating people in schools to go paperless for environmental and cost savings reasons is the right way to foster change. The more I think about this, it isn't. Going paperless (or near paperless) simply makes for good learning. Imagine asking students to publish their writing to a class blog for other class members to see and comment upon. How might this positively change the learning landscape compared to what we traditionally do when we ask students to print out their writing and turn it into the teacher for one set of eyes to interact with?

Not convinced that a paperless (or near paperless) classroom can work? Check out how educator Jason Neiffer of Helena Montana has created a paperless classroom that is empowering students and positively impacting learning in his school.

Now, hop on over to this form created by educator Steve Katz from Costa Rica and make the pledge to go paperless on Earth Day 2010!

Earthcast09 - Have your voice heard!

Please leave an audio comment in the Voicethread below...chance are that we'll play it during the Earthcast09 24 hour webcastathon which is taking place on Earth Day, 2009 (Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009). We'd love to have voices of all ages from all over the globe in this Voicethread.

Please spread the word!

Earthcast 2009 24 Hour Webcastathon!

Well, Earthcast/Earthbridges team member Jason Robertshaw has done it again. View the brief promo/teaser video that he created for this year's Earthcast09 24 Hour Webcastathon at the end of this post.  The Earthcast09 24 Hour Webcast will take place on Wednesday, April 22nd (we're observing the day as it moves through Greenwich, England, so it actually begins on Tuesday, April 21st at 5:00 pm here in the Bay Area). While we have many hours of the day covered, we still have several openings for participation and could really appreciate your help.  If you'd like to participate (even for just a few minutes,  drop us an email at earthbridges (at) gmail dot com or leave a comment on this blog.  We could really use some help from our friends in the Asiatic region of the globe as we have several uncovered hours from 5-9 GMT.  See the schedule as it exists so far at our plannning wiki to see what hours are still available.

Earthcast09 is essentially a 24 hour long live Internet broadcast about all things relating to the environment. Topics will include green energy, green technology, college campus sustainability efforts, an update from environmental law professor Jason Czarnezki, students from schools around the world sharing what they're doing to improve the planet, and live call-in segments where listeners share their thoughts and ideas about environmental issues. We have several hours of the day where elementary, middle, high school, and university students will be leading the conversations.

We'll be streaming this broadcast live over at Earthbridges.net for 24 hours straight, so please support our efforts by tuning in as much as possible throughout the day. And please spread the word about this project. 

Thanks again to Jason Robertshaw for this fantastic promo video!!

Earthcast09 24 Hour Webcastathon

The Earthbridges Community 24 Hour Webcastathon is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009. At this point the community is in the very early project planning phase and more details will follow soon, but at this point we'll pretty much follow the successful recipe that we used last year. If you'll remember, we followed the 24 hour day as it passed through Greenwich, England with folks from around the world taking turns moderating hour long blocks.

If you think you might be interested in participating in Earthcast 09, please go here and fill out this brief online form. My goal is to get the Earthbridges Community together for our first planning session at some point in January. Please note: This is relevant to ANYONE who has an interest in this topic...you don't have to be affiliated with a K12/K20 organization to be involved in this project.

Please pass this along to anyone who you think might be interested.

Below is the YouTube video created by Jason Robertshaw that we used to help promote Earthcast 08. Click here to listen to some of the recorded audio from last year's Earthcast webcastathon.

We Can Solve It

Consider joining and participating in the "We Can Solve It" climate change action campaign. Great video below...consider embedding this video in your blog, myspace, etc in order to help spread awareness about We Can Solve It:

Earthcast08 - My Personal Timeline

I write this personal timelime simply as a means for me to have a record of this incredibly powerful experience during the Earthcast08 24 Hour Webcastathon. Thanks again to all of the Earthcast08 Team Members and of course the many people that listened in throughout the world on Earth Day 2008. All times are in USA CDT. Cheers!

Monday, September 21st:
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm Opening hour of the Earthcast08 24 Hour Webcastathon (location-Whole Foods, Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA).

8:00 pm - 9:00 pm - It's Elementary with special guest, Mark Ahlness (my location-Whole Foods)

9:00 pm - 10:00 pm - Alice's Restaurant with Alice's husband as the guest (my location-Whole Foods)

10:00 pm -10:10 pm Walk home from Whole Foods

10:10 pm -11:00 pm Listen to Jose's broadcast in spanish (location - my home in Milwaukee)

11:00 pm -11:10 pm Derrall and I make a mess of the situation while we try to grab the stream (location-home)

11:10 pm -Midnight...Derrall and I get our act together and we pull in Cindy Zautcke, a member of the Parents as Partners webcasting team, into the call to talk about issues of sustainability and conservation from a parental point of view. (location-home. Cindy's location-Madison, WI. Darrell's location-Northern California/Bay Area)

Tuesday, September 22nd:
Midnight-1:00 am Jose, Elderbob, and Doug begin their 3 hour marathon. I'm listening in from my home.

1:00 am - 2 am Jose, Elderbob, and Doug continue on...at 1:45 I consume 2 hardboiled eggs and a chocolate chip cookie which Derrall refers to as the breakfast of champions. Eating was a smart move, because I would only go on to eat a bowl of noodles during the entire balance of the 24 hour webcastathon!

2:00 am - 2:30 am Listening to Jose, Elderbob, and Doug keep it going.

2:30 am - 5:00 am Sleep time. Although I can't say that I slept very well

5:00 am - 6:00 am I wake up to Jose and the crew speaking with Cristina who has the stream and is passing along to Andreas...

6:00 am - 6:30 am Listening to Andreas and his university students broadcasting live from their university in Germany

6:30 am - 7:30 am Ride my bike to work and get ready as fast as possible at school.

7:30 am - 8:15 am Work with the production team for the "Wildcat Morning News" and post their project online for the Middle School to watch. The theme of the show, "Earth Day." While working with the students I listen to Pam Shoemaker's shift

8:15 am- 9:00 am - 5th grade student come in classroom--listening to Sheila Adams and her students

9:00 am - 9:30 am - 5th grade students in the iMac studio, listening to Pam talk to her guest from General Motors about green transportation.

9:30 am - 10:00 am - scrambling to get ready for our Middle School student assembly with Earth Day Keynote speaker, Jason Czarnezki.

10:00 am -10:25 am - I nervously grab the stream and Jason and I have a little informal conversation about all things Earth Day

10:25 am -11:00 am - Jason delivers Earth Day Keynote to the middle school students about a "Greener Manifest Destiny." His talk is also broadcast out via worldbridges, with listeners in Germany, the US, Canada, the UK, Portugal, amongst other locations. He handles questions from the students and we even pull a few out of the chat room (from the UK and Chicago area)

11:00 am -1:00 pm The torch is passed to Drew Buddie in the UK. I speak with a few of Drew's colleagues and a student of his, Jemma. At about 12:40 I stepped away and grabbed a bowl of noodles for lunch.

1:00 pm -2:00 pm Drew and I pass the torch out to Derrall Garrison in Cupertino, CA

2:00 pm -3:00 pm Doug grabs stream and Mrs. Durff talks about earth day with her students. at 3:15 or so we do a skype out call to Sue Helleman in Surry, BC Canada

3:00 pm-4:00 pm - Doug takes the handle and talks with Emma and Kelly from USM. Doug then takes Peta White's session and plays 20 minutes of it...

4:00 pm-5:00 pm - Kip Jacobs, science teacher from University School of Milwaukee, and several students have a conversation about the greening of our school

5:00 pm-6:00 pm - We pass the baton down to Jason Robertshaw in Sarasota, FL for a conversation on ocean health

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm - The 24th and final hour of the Earthcast

7:00 pm-8:00 pm - World Bridges community assembly

8:00 pm-9:15 pm - Bike ride home...one of the most difficult bike rides home ever!

9:15 pm-9:45 pm - A little dinner

9:45 pm Time for bed...a great day for me has come to an end


Summary of the 24 Hours:

Hours of sleep......2.5 hours

Food consumed...2 hard boiled eggs, a chocolate chip cookie, and a bowl of noodles

Experience of working with an incredibly inspiring and talented group of people all around the world...PRICELESS

Earthcast08 Audio

I just wanted to do a quick post here with links to the raw audio for the Earthcast08 24 Hour Webcastathon that took place on Earth Day. To say that the event was a success would be an understatement. I've said it before and I'll say it again...this project, from start until the end, was the highlight of my school year. I have alot to say about this event and more reflection/thoughts to come later, but here are links to a few of the audio recordings from the day (I highlight the ones below only as a means to provide a simple way for our teachers at my school to quickly access a few of the recordings-ALL of the sessions throughout the day were interesting and I would encourage everyone to check them out). A special shout out goes to Jeff Lebow and the Worldbridges crew for their continuous recording of the stream and subsequent posting to the webcastacademy page.

-Jason Czarnezki, Professor of Environmental Law at Marquette Law School - "A Greener Manifest Destiny"
-Sheila Adams and her middle school students from Rye Junior HS in New Hampshire, USA
-Jason Robertshaw-Ocean Health and Conservation (Sarasota, FL)
-Kip Jacobs and the USM Middle School EAT Students-Student Voices on Earth Day
-Derrall Garrison and his science students giving their presentations on different topics related to conservation and the environment (Cupertino, CA)
-Emma and Kelly from USM talk with Doug Symington about the greening of USM-the last 20 minutes is a really neat audio clip recorded by a college professor in Regina, Canada.
-Drew Buddie, an educator from the UK, talks about sustainability in schools and even talks with a few USM 5th grade students from USM!
-Drew Buddie and his school in the UK discussing sustainability and service learning. Drew actually put me on the call to have a conversation with a few of his colleagues and with an incredibly eloquent young student, Jemma.

There were many, many more hours of interesting content. To listen to all of the audio, please click here. At some point over the next few weeks some industrious souls from the Earthcast08 team will be editing these files down into more coherent audio sections. Until then, enjoy the raw audio!

Photo Caption: Professor Jason Czarnezki, professor of environmental law from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI USA, talks to the Middle School Students at USM on Earth Day 2008 about a "Greener Manifest Destiny."

Earthcast08 - Only 2 days away!

One of our Earthcast08 team members, Jason Robertshaw, put together this wonderful audio promotion for our 24 Hour Earth Day Webcastathon. Many of the voices that you hear in Jason's audio clip were submitted by Earthcast08 team members over the past few weeks (many team members recorded their students saying "Earthcast, Earthday," and other sound bytes). This is licensed under Creative Commons, so you're free to remix the piece as you would like.


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Original Audio Source (for downloading and remixing)