Michael Jackson concert footage

Sony Pictures is fighting lawyers for Michael Jackson's doctor over access to raw footage from the singer's posthumous concert film, This Is It.

Prosecutors plan to use clips from the film to show Jackson was in good health before he died; the defence believes rehearsal footage will show otherwise.

Jackson, who died on 25 June 2009 aged 50, had spent the previous four months rehearsing in LA for a run of 50 concerts which were to be held in London.

Released in cinemas initially for a limited two-week run, This Is It earned $20.1m (£12.5m) at global box offices in its first day.

After two weeks, producer Sony Pictures said the film had taken more than $200m (£124m) worldwide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13794219

Social crack

When that connection to facebook dissapears, the victim literally looks like their crack dealer has moved, left no forwarding address and the city has run dry of alternative suppliers. 

For the past couple months I've been a member of a private social network. Very small userbase, 6 or so. It has an interface I really like working in and although project based, I came to treat it in the same manner as the 'facebook heads'. It had a simple 'beep' when someone had updated their status.  http://blog.curry.com/stories/2011/06/14/socialCrack.html

Learning and teaching with technology

I guess it's not a workshop unless it has flipcharts, but that quirk aside, I think Tony Bates has the right idea in pushing academics to try to imagine learning beyond the current context. "Probably the most serious problem we have identified is the general lack of imagination about the possibilities of technology for meeting the needs of today's students," he writes. The response to this, he proposes, is a scenario-building exercise that compels academics to envision different possibilities. "The purpose of scenarios is to develop a way of identifying future possible academic goals and outcomes that are facilitated by or made possible through the use of technology." But it's not automatic. "Many faculty have been badly burned in the past when trying to innovate on an individual basis, so there is often a deep cynicism about such ‘blue sky' thinking and particularly the institution's capacity to support innovative ideas about teaching and learning. Institutional leadership and support for the process is absolutely critical, as is the input of learning technology and IT support staff."

http://www.tonybates.ca/latest/

Videos from the Digital Future of Higher Ed (Feb, 2011)

http://learningspaces.org/n/node/62

5 reasons students would rather play Xbox than use the LMS

http://deangroom.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/5-reasons-students-would-rather-play-xbox-that-use-your-lms/