My TV Station

Video minutes of CPCUG Robotics SIG Meeting, July 2005

2005-08-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

These QuickTime video clips uploaded for free to the Internet Archive are the "video minutes" of the July, 2005, Capital PC User Group Robotics Special Interest Group. This meeting was centered on the annual FIRST robotics competion and what it offers to youth across the country.

The meeting has been divided up into different video segments so that people can mention a particular segment to friends or colleagues. Each segment is about 7 minutes long.

To view any of these clips, click on the word QuickTime in the left column of the screen when you reach the Internet Archive screen for that clip. Depending on the speed of your internet connection, you might need to wait a minute or two before the video clip starts playing. You may want to wait for the entire clip to transfer before you start watching it.

Segment 1

Segment 2

Segment 3

Segment 4

Segment 5

Segment 6

Segment 7

Segment 8

digital storytelling at the maryland apple corps meeting

2004-11-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

i'll be presenting on digital storytelling at the maryland apple corps meeting this evening.

here is a link to the pdf handout for the presentation.

teaching generalized computer skills

2004-11-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

yesterday i stopped by to visit deb roepke, the founder of Computer C.O.R.E. in alexandria, virginia. in giving me a tour of her community technology center, she explained to me Computer C.O.R.E.'s philosphy of teaching students specific computer skills as well as general skills of how to use any computer program.

i've heard others speak highly of Computer C.O.R.E., but it was quite another thing to see this organization up close myself. i'm convinced that Computer C.O.R.E's model is a very effective teaching model. i wish that i were introduced to computers in this way.

here's a brief quicktime with deb explaining her organization's approach.

i used the appleworks draw module, a digital camera and quicktime pro to create this. the audio was recorded with a camcorder and a lavalier microphone.

you could create something similar on windows using powerbullet presenter.

digital bicycle blog

2004-10-28T22:46:00.000-07:00

i stay informed about important things via the digital bicycle blog.

j.d. lasica's work

2004-10-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

j.d. lasica is doing inspiring work with grassroots community media.

documentary - It's Just Me

2004-10-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

In coming years it's going to become much more common for documentary producers to have their films seen over the internet. There are thousands of compelling, informative and inspiring documentaries that will soon have new audiences.

Here in the Washington DC-area there are a number of talented documentary producers whose work has not been side widely. In the coming months this web site will be featuring some of these works, along with audio interviews from their producers.

Here is a fascinating documentary, "It's Just Me," produced by John Stulhdreher, in the Arlington Public Schools. This hour-long documentary chronicles the effort to integrate the Arlington Public Schools in the late 1950's. John has granted permission for this documentary to be distributed over the internet. He can be reached at aetvjohn @ erols. com

This documentary was created with the support and encouragement of the Arlington Public Schools. John Stuhldreher works full-time as a video producer in the Arlington Public Schools.

I've chopped the film into two 30-minute pieces. These QuickTime files are best viewed with Firefox or Safari web browsers. Microsoft Internet Explorer sometimes makes you wait for a QuickTime to finish transferring before you can start viewing it.

John explained to me that it took a year or two to shoot and edit the documentary. Most of it was done on his own time evenings and weekends. Kudos to him for doing such a great job. It's interesting to note that Elizabeth Campbell, one of the leaders of the integration movement, is also the founder of WETA, the first public television station in the nation.

She did two good things in her life. That's a good goal for anyone to set. Do two good things in your life.

It's Just Me (first half) (657 megabytes)

It's Just Me (second half) (607 megabytes)

Note - In 2005 this same documentary will be presented here on this web site with a larger pixel dimension size, using Apple's QuickTime 7, which will be released in 2005.

I'm hoping to have a "making of" audio interview with John Stuhldreher added to this blog entry sometime within the next 2 weeks.

- phil

btw, if there's any individual, organization or other entity interested in also hosting this documentary on their webserver space, thanks for letting me know. I'll include alternate downloading links underneath the links shown above. That will help distribute the load.

pshapiro @ his.com

washington apple pi ilife group

2004-10-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

the washington apple pi ilife special interest group meets monthly in the washington dc area. you can meet the current leaders of the group in this short quicktime. the people in this photo, from left to right, are phil shapiro (me), paige counts and steve lemon.

this quicktime was created using quicktime pro, which apple computer sells for $30. after payment, apple sends you a registration key via email which you enter into quicktime on your macintosh or windows computer. is it too much to hope for a linux version of quicktime sometime soon? please, apple, that would be such a nice christmas present.

james cabrera at the oct., 2004, vmug meeting

2004-10-05T05:38:00.000-07:00

james cabrera likes the high speed wireless internet at the meetings of the virginia macintosh users group. this meeting covered digital storytelling techniques using quicktime pro.

Project Reboot Tour

2004-09-28T01:15:00.000-07:00

Project Reboot, a noncommercial computer recycling project run by volunteers in the Capital PC Users Group has been doing a wonderful of good for people, organizations and schools in the Washington DC area and elsewhere. Learn more about Project Reboot in this 2002 video tour of the house in downtown Rockville, Maryland, where the computer refurbishing takes place. This video is in QuickTime format, is about 120 megabytes in file size and about 17 minutes in duration. Grateful thanks are to Endale Getahum, the video producer who shot and edited this video in Final Cut Pro.

interview with august trometer of indianapolis

2004-09-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

i've posted on the web an audio interview with august trometer, of indianpolis. august trometer is the creater of the no-cost dotmac.info web service that allows users of apple's .Mac service to share their creations with one another (and with the public at large.)

rich jaeggi is looking for new challenges in the dc-area

2004-09-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

my colleague rich jaeggi is looking for new challenges in the youth technology field here in the dc-area. not only does he know a ton about computers of all sorts (windows/macs), but he has a great way with youth.

here's a short quicktime where you can meet him.

you can also meet him in this quicktime, when rich was helping me teach ichat videoconferencing to members of the washington apple pi computer club.

you can also learn a thing or two about him in this description of the annual, very successful Techno Rodeo event that he co-founded with shireen mitchell, founder and director of Digital Sisters.

rich jaeggi is reachable at rjaeggi@bigacorn.net

he lives physically with his family in silver spring. his soul lives with the youth of our city.

how far do you want to fly?

2004-09-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

the issue of youth obesity in the united states (and elsewhere) needs to be addressed by bold new thinking.

perhaps the challenge made to youth ought to be "how far do you want to fly?" --- in a human-powered plane.
such a plane could be powered by the combination of stored energy from stationary bicycles, step machines, rowing machines, etc. -- in combination with real-time energy of the pilot.

one goal for youth might be to fly such a human-powered plane across a river, such as the charles river, in cambridge, or the potomac river in washington dc. (the hudson river is a bit wide down by new york city, but is more do-able about 40 miles upstream, near bear mountain.)

here's a short quicktime file (one megabyte in file size) that brings together some ideas about human-powered flight and how it might be used as a physical exercise goal for youth.

some youth might choose a goal of flying one mile using only human power. while that might be a difficult goal for a single youth to perform on their own, it may be a feasible goal if several youth pooled their stored energy and chose one of their peers as a pilot.

admittedly there are some dangers involved in human-powered flight. these dangers can be minimized, though. (such as flying human-powered planes in the early morning or at dusk, when the wind tends to be the lighest.)

what's it like to fly a plane under your own power? i don't know. maybe we need to try imagining it more.

next steps? some engineering schools or inventors need to design lightweight energy storage devices (analogous to a spring) which can store energy from exercise equipment. exercise equipment manufacturers need to be brought on board. folks need to write articles on this topic and create multimedia of various kinds to help people imagine this happening.

i'll be linking to related materials here in this message on this blog.

if you think it's not possible to invent a whole new way to exercise, ask james naismith. he invented basketball.

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interesting fact - The economic cost of obesity in the United States was about $117 billion in 2000.

maria mejia tells me i should check out joy of sports

siobhan champ-blackwell has an informative blog, Bringing Health Information to the Community, which has a wealth of information including links to public health mailing lists and to a wide variety of community health grant funders. one community health grant funder that caught my eye is Sound Partners for Community Health, a program of the benton foundation, funded by the robert wood johnson foundation.

juan williams on thurgood marshall

2004-07-11T04:47:00.000-07:00

ABC News commentator Juan Williams has written a spellbinding book about the life of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Hear the story of how this book was written in a 50-minute presentation given at the Takoma Branch Library, in DC, in 1999.

The above QuickTime video is best viewed using Mozilla or Safari web browsers. You probably want to wait a few minutes for the video to start transferring before watching it -- so that the video transfer is progressing ahead of your watching. The video is 500 megabytes in file size and is best viewed with a high-speed Internet connection.

This video was shot with a Sony 8mm analog camcorder, which some consider obsolete. No tool is ever obsolete if it is creatively put to beneficial use. There are currently 75 million analog camcorders in the United States which can be put to beneficial use.

The video is in MPEG-1 format, viewable by Macintosh, Windows and Linux computers. MPEG-1 video is also known as "video cd" format video. A background article about how video cd's can be used to bridge the digital divide can be found here.

Dial-up users can listen to the audio from this video.
(11 megabytes.)

Do you own an iPod or other MP3 player? An MP3 audio file from this video is available for download. This MP3 file was created using iTunes. (65 megabytes.)

If you'd like to assist in hosting the above video file as a "mirror" site, thanks for sending me an email at pshapiro gnat his.com

I'll be adding links to mirror sites near the top of this blog entry.

If you favor community media distributed over the Internet, thanks for linking to this site from your blog. If you don't yet have a blog, I'm a big fan of the no-cost blogging service called Blogger.com, which is owned by Google and will be around for a long time. Blogger is so easy to use, an adult could use it.

linda lyles - literacy essay grand prize winner

2004-05-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

in april, 2004, linda lyles was chosen as the grand prize winner of the annual essay competition from DC LEARNs, the coalition of literacy organizations in the washington dc area. i went over to linda's house to find out more about this remarkable woman and what she has been able to accomplish in her life.

note - this quicktime movie is about 25 minutes long and is 198 megabytes in file size. best viewed with a high speed internet connection (i.e. dsl or cable modem.) you might need to download quicktime 6.x

windows users can best view quicktime movies using netscape or mozilla. microsoft internet explorer makes you wait until a quicktime has finished transferring before you can start viewing it.

Television station born

2004-05-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

on may 10, 2004, this television station was born. creator and station are doing fine.