Rob Ferrin's Page

In 2007 I set up a "Nursery Rhyme" Blog in the "Forest of Theme Blogs" series ... but was disappointed that I could not find any simple videos of someone just playing the music of well known nursery rhymes.
I approached a music teacher colleague and asked if he could help with this .... and as a result the series "Nursery Rhymes with Howard" was born ... designed and performed in the hope of providing a useful resource for the parents and for teachers of young children.
I've now posted the resulting videos on the Blog .... http://nurseryrhymevideos.blogspot.com
By the way .... Howard is the bear, who is assisted by John Barham on keyboards, x-Hong Kong (international school) teacher.

OMG ... what a day .... the February 2008 Shambles newsletter published and the official opening of the International Schools Island. in the 3D virtual world 'Second Life'
Check out the links to find further details ... now ... time to sleep

Putting a newsletter together can be time consuming ... what am I talking about ... it is time consuming ... and thank goodness Shambles it is only three times a year.
But the feedback I get always makes the effort worthwhile and I survive by starting the next one as soon as the last has been published ... I guess the secret is (as in life, for me) ... slowly slowly.
This term's newsletter went live yesterday at
www.shambles.net/newsletter/november2007

There is a Word version at
www.shambles.net/newsletter/november2007/shamblesnovember2007.doc

The big item for me at the moment ... not just in the newsletter but everwhere is building the International Schoools Island in Second Life which is being documented at
http://internationalschoolsisland.blogspot.com

REALLY exciting news .... what I did in the summer holidays .... took deliver of an island in Second Life (3D online virtual world).
The Island, called "International Schools Island" was delivered by Linden Labs on the 9th September 2007 (or the 10th depending on your time zone)
The mission, concept, purpose, functionality and the layout of the Island had been planned over the previous two months by the two owners .... Shamblesguru Voom (a.k.a. Chris) and Takeme Homewood (a.k.a. Jenny).
The Island is designed to support international schools in the 17 countries in S.E.Asia but we suspect that it will also be of specific help to public schools and those worldwide .... in fact all educators are most welcome to take advantage of what will be offered here.
We are keeping a Blog which is designed to document the whole process of setting up the island and community ... in the hope that it will become a case study for future developers. http://internationalschoolsisland.blogspot.com
There is also now a page on Shambles purely about Second Life .. with resources and links relevant to teaching and learning www.shambles.net/secondlife

I've been having a play with a web application called Snapshots.

What this does is ... when you put your pointer over a weblink on a web page then a small window pops up and shows you an image of that page you would go to.

I've set this up on three of the pages on Shambles:
1. List of All International Schools www.shambles.net/allschools
2. List of Singapore International Schools www.shambles.net/singapore
3. The main Science page www.shambles.net/science

This seems a good idea initially but I'm not sure if this is something I should be implementing throughtout the Shambles website ... something is holding me back and I'm not sure what.

I do have a button on the pages which allows visitors to switch this function on and off.

What I would really appreciate is if you could visit one of the 3 pages above
... and try it out and let me have some feedback.

The free application itself is is called 'snapshot' from Snap at www.snap.com and just requires you to put some code onto your page.