Word on the Street

http://www.sesameworkshop.org/podcasts/sesamestreet/rss.xml

So for now I can't embed these, but here are the amazing "Word on the Street" podcasts which are part of Sesame Workshops literacy campaign. Check out Jon Stewart's take on the word "practice"

Exhilaration....and frustration

This whole blogging experience has been very exhilarating and somewhat frustrating.

It's been exhilarating because I have learned so much so quickly and now know how to embed video from Youtube into my blog! Yay ! (The Chris Brown/Elmo video on my first post is what I am most proud of. Making it work was very empowering!)

It's frustrating because there is so much more I want to do now, and I am having trouble uploading podcasts from itunes and some other types of media that I want to include. I just need to be patient...but I'm on a roll!

This experience has already taught me so much about my learning brain. I honestly do so much better learning through a multi-media approach. I always thought of myself as a "visual" learner and, while there is still much truth to that, I am now thinking about "listening" in a whole new way.

I realized after 22 years of "straight-forward" schooling, the podcast lectures that HGSE offers are the tool that helps me learn best. I really benefit from re-listening and watching the lecturer speak and the power point slides as I listen. Straight reading is a bit taxing and overwhelming, even though I do not have a "reading disability".

I am really starting to appreciate what UDL has to offer...and hopefully I can use it to offer empowerment to the students I teach.

Face Processing

More to come on the cool role of the Fusiform gyrus in face processing (one of the many parts of the brain activated during this complex process) and some differences detected in the recognition networks of people with autism (fusiform gyrus is NOT activated when looking at faces). This has great implications for UDL.

Musicophilia

Oliver Sacks is a very interesting and brilliant Psychologist, researcher, clinician and speaker. His newest book Musicophilia really ties in well to Monday's lecture on how we process music and sound. Here is an excerpt from his website http://www.musicophilia.com about the book:

You can listen to an audio clip from the book at the bottom of the page.

"Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does--humans are a musical species.

Oliver Sacks's compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own brains, and of the human experience. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people--from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome who are hypermusical from birth; from people with "amusia," to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans, to a man whose memory spans only seven seconds--for everything but music.

Our exquisite sensitivity to music can sometimes go wrong: Sacks explores how catchy tunes can subject us to hours of mental replay, and how a surprising number of people acquire nonstop musical hallucinations that assault them night and day. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson's disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people whose memories are ravaged by Alzheimer's or amnesia.

Music is irresistible, haunting, and unforgettable, and in Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks tells us why."

I really like Sesame Workshop

As a child, I adored Sesame Street. Now, as an educator and researcher, I appreciate it even more because of it's unique "CTW" model that combines content, production, and research. Sesame Workshop focuses on the whole child and addresses cognitive learning, health & physical well-being, and social and emotional learning. It is truly an amazing organization undertaking many different projects. For more information about Sesame Workshop and it's latest endeavors -- from healthy habits of eating to helping kids cope with parents returning from war -- check out: www.sesameworkshop.com

As the world of media changes, Sesame is up to the challenge. Watch this cool "Word on the Street" podcast which was the #1 downloaded podcast last year!