If you have an hour to spare, enjoy the thoughtful and entertaining perspectives of Sir Ken as he talks about his new book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, among other things.

The NFB offers some really cool two-hour workshops at the CineRobotheque downtown - including video production, animation and claymation!  Some are for ages 7+, some are for 9+ or 13+, and the cost is only $6.50 per person!

They will create a workshop just for homeschoolers if we have at least 20 people attending.

Here is a 10 minute movie of the commuter race, which took place at Sept 5th's not-back-to-school picnic.  Starring: Rich the biker, Doug the driver, Hanna and Cleus the commuters, and other homeschoolers at the picnic : )

 

Untitled from Sonya Olthof on Vimeo.

"Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?"

Sophie sent me this short video of a visit to a recycling plant. It makes a nice review of our March activity, and there are a few new things to be learned as well. Thanks Sophie!

From TED Talks, here is a video from Gever Tulley in which he argues that kids learn valuable lessons by being given the freedom to explore potentially dangerous things.

In preparation for our visit to the St-Michel Environmental Complex at the end of this month, here is the introduction to a short movie called "The Story of Stuff", where Annie Leonard examines where the stuff we buy comes from, and where it goes when we throw it out. The full 20-minute version is available here.

The National Film Board's Citizenshift program is still accepting contributions to the dossier "Unschooling the Next Generation".

Unschooling families are encouraged to contribute films, pictures, audio, articles, and links relating to the questions: "What is "unschooling"? Does our new generation benefit from this form of learning? Is it a more natural learning process? What do the students have to say about learning this way?"

Here is a sample film contributed by Colleen Ayoup:

 

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If you have 20 minutes to spare, check out this clever and entertaining speech by Sir Ken Robinson. He makes the case for an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says.



If you like this, there are a lot of amazing talks available from the TED conferences.

John Taylor Gatto talking about state-controlled consciousness...

Testing embedded YouTube videos.