mrmayo.org

As You Like It ACT I.

One of my students, John, created a full-length, 100 percent original, Hip-Hop album this year. He worked on his album everyday during lunch, and many, many days after school over the last six months. We finished it up today, on the last day of school! We burned 50 CD’s, and also posted the entire album online for FREE!

Here are a few album reviews from students on Youth Twitter:
http://aaroncebaff.tumblr.com/
http://winstond.tumblr.com/
Dereck at EBAFF, Bronx, NY

LISTEN & DOWNLOAD & SHARE!
Just Another Day
2 Sides of Life
Put Ya Trust in Me
Betta Count Ya Blessin’s
Ashes 2 Ashes, and Dust 2 Dust
Do You?
Sunday School Song
Real Talk
The Monster Remix
Street Dreamz
My Life (official)
When Will I Die

I’ve enlisted a few of my students to participate in the Horizon Project. The Horizon Project is a large-scale global collaboration project involving students from around the world. The Project was inspired by Thomas Friedman’s influential book, The World is Flat, published in 2005. It’s cool that a few of my students have the chance to participate in such a large project.

Our job is to be a Sounding Board for one of the 80 or so wiki’s being created. We’ve enlisted the help of our friends from the Youth Twitter Network to help us give feedback. The wiki is called Connecting People via the Network: Education. (Thanks for your help Nelson!)

The second issue of our new digital literary magazine, Space, is officially out. Huge props to PABLO for designing the site and creating all the page logos! In our second issue, we have students from Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Utah, Georgia, New York City, Massachusetts, Maryland, and even a student from South Korea. (Thanks Soojin!)

We’ve used the new Youth Twitter Network to promote Space. Youth Twitter is a new site that allows students and teachers to communicate with one another about what they’re up to in the classroom. Students “submit” their digital creations by posting url’s to their work on Youth Twitter. We then take all the url’s and put them into Space.

Be on the lookout for more Space in the future!

A few months ago, I wrote this post about our global collaborative story my students and I started titled, @manyvoices, using Twitter.com. Over 100 students in six different countries contributed to our project. Students from the USA, Canada, England, Qatar, China, and Thailand helped us with this project.

The story is now available as a little book (46 pages) on lulu.com. You can buy the @manyvoices book for $5.45 (exact cost of publishing). Or, you can download the pdf file of the book for free.

Thanks to everyone who helped us with this project! Happy Spring Break!

Related Links:

• twitter.com/manyvoices
• manyvoices.wikispaces.com
• Buy the @manyvoices book on lulu.com

My students and I started a new digital literary magazine called space. In our first issue, we’ve collected digital art, animation, music, poetry, prose and short stories from middle school students in Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts.

To submit, students posted their digital creations (with urls) on the new Youth Twitter Network. We created the first issue using a simple Google docs page. Pablo, one of my students, created the space logo. All content on space is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

We plan to publish several editions of space throughout the rest of this school year. We also will experiment with different formats for space. We may use Google Page Creator for the next issue.

Be on the look-out for more space in the future.

It’s still hard to believe that 677 students from around the world took part in our Many Voices for Darfur project. My students and I started the project a month ago with Wendy Drexler’s 3rd graders in Florida to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide taking place in Darfur. The project was a huge success. 677 k-12 students visited the Many Voices for Darfur blog in two days and left respectful, thoughtful, well-written comments. Students from different locations also created a variety of Darfur multi-media projects leading up to the event. (special thanks to The Blurb!)

This is a great example of showing students the power of using the web for social action. It also was a good opportunity to talk about commenting online on an important issue with the appropriate tone and language. Students expressed a wide variety of opinions. However, they are all respectful, even when disagreeing with one another. Wendy Drexler and I moderated every comment before it was posted online. We didn’t have to reject a single comment. I think that is remarkable, and clearly shows that teachers can trust students to publish online responsibly.

Last week, we printed all 677 comments for a Darfur hallway exhibit outside my classroom. The comments and large Darfur signs we created will be a constant reminder to us for the rest of the year that although our project is over, the genocide is not.

Project Links:

• Many Voices for Darfur Weblog
• Many Voices for Darfur Wiki (check out all the video’s & other student produced multi-media)

Related Links:

• Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast (featuring Claire, Rose, Ian, Pablo, and Rafi)
• WOW podcast on EdTechTalk about the Many Voices for Darfur Project
• Many Voices for Darfur on technorati.com (over 130 weblog posts about our project)

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel

In a way, we decided to take sides when we launched Many Voices for Darfur, a global collaboration project. Wendy Drexler and I asked our students an unsettling question: What is our responsibility to help end the genocide in Darfur? The answer we came up we with: spreading awareness.

So for 48 hours, starting at midnight EST on March 6th, many student voices will be collected in the name of those suffering in Darfur. We are asking k-12 students around the world to visit our Many Voices for Darfur blog and leave thoughtful, well-written comments. It is our hope that hundreds or even thousands of students will come together to help raise awareness about the first genocide of the 21st century.

Want to get involved? It’s incredibly easy to participate. Students simply visit the Many Voices for Darfur blog during the 48 hours and leave comments addressing one of the prompts listed on the homepage. For more detailed instructions, visit our Many Voices for Darfur Wiki. To learn more about Darfur, check out our Resources Wiki Page.

Mr. Moses, a teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, made a short YouTube video describing the project for his students. He makes a request for multi-media projects that students could share and link to starting on March 6th.

Read what what others are writing about our project. For more information please contact me. [click]