There’s a lot more to do, but at least I finally got some of our “Messy” work archived on our Learning is Messy web site. I have a backlog of video work to add as yet – 4 more geology videos – several Community Service / Public Service announcements and some recent projects, and I hope to get most of it up in the next week or so (maybe sooner!).

We used to have an award winning web site we designed for a local animal sanctuary/zoo called Animal Ark, but it was more than showing its age so we took it down 3 weeks ago. It had 21 student made web pages about each of the animals made with a free web based software called Filamentality. Its a fill-in-the-blank and make your own web page format. They even house your page for you which is very exciting for many students and teachers that don’t have FTP knowledge or access – but you can also page source your page, capture the coding and house it on your own web site. Some of my students were asked to come testify in front of the Nevada State Assembly Education Committee about their experience.

The committee wanted to know how using technology had effected their education (this was in 1998). It was a hoot. We didn’t have internet access in the chamber, so I downloaded several of the pages on a friend’s laptop and we projected them up on a blank wall. My 2 students explained the process they went through and all the writing and editing and research they had done – and showed their pages. They got several questions and they handled them fantastically. The highlight was when they explained that they had done this all on their own, “Mr. Crosby wouldn’t help us at all… we had to figure out everything ourselves!” Which brought the house down … from the mouths of babes! : )

Check out the videos and come back when we’ve put more up. We are working on several videos now and a few other projects between now and the end of the school year.

Learning is messy!