Two days in.

The first day was the hottest September 25th on record here in Stratford, and if it wasn't it should have been. Closing the blinds to watch the movie meant that the air in the room was stifling, but despite this, the movie was worth watching if only for the historical perspective. It was called "The Roots of the Revolution: Understanding the Internet", and would have been completely mind-blowing in 1994, when it was produced. Viewing it from a distance of 12 years shows just how much things have changed. Those huge hard drives! Text-only newsgroups! Young women with no makeup and frumpy dresses being described as young and hip! And everyone so idealistic, full of awe and wonder at what this new "internet" might achieve. World peace, one even went so far as to say. Yeah, we're definitely at the interweb teen stage by now.

A little history is always useful. I'm reminded of all those past-and-future quotes, like George Orwell's "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." We watched the Web 2.0 clip I posted down there at the end of the last entry. Then (since it was on and it was hot and it was close to the end of the last class of the day), I showed a couple of my favourite YouTube clips as well ... David Elsewhere, who landed a job as one of those ipod commercial dancers because this video of him got noticed on YouTube; and Lisa Nova doing Lindsay Lohan. Now she's on MAD TV and gets paid per click for her YouTube sketches. Who exactly is the mass media again?

Today my lesson was 'don't try to accomplish anything in the computer lab for the first time when there are only 30 minutes left in class'. We'll try the evaluating websites activity again tomorrow, when I'll post the excellent site we'll be examining. It's a goodie.

I also got a couple of great emails from students. A large thanks to Hayley for her YouTube suggestions. I've got Lucy's very cool map of the internet on an overhead too, I keep neglecting to put it up. Saving it for a good time, maybe. If by any strange chance you're a student reading this, click "comment" down there and leave a note!