[school-discuss] letting the end result drive technology learning for students : more on books

[mike eschman <meschman@etc-edu.com>]

etc ... book requests from 2002.<p>

During the year, we installed a facility to allow users to request books,
 then e-mail them back as attachments.  Well, the return service did not
 offer the economy looked for in a free service, but we collected the
 requests all year long.  Books requested in 2002 will be offered throughout
 the first two quarters of 2003, as downloadable CD images.  A number of
 requests were made for the Complete Collection over the year (the most
 frequent request), and a complete collection has been available for down
 load as a tar file and / or a bootable CD based book reader for at least
 five months.<p>

In 2003, our major priorities include :<p>

1 - best possible quality completions of The Odyssey and The Lion, Witch and
the Wardrobe.<p>

2 - new productions of Balzac's Droll Stories, Thomas Hardy's Wessex Tales,
The War of the Worlds and at least 6 other works from the Gutenberg
archives.<p>

3 - Regular broadcasts of essays from NASA's Earth Observatory.<p>

4 - Original radio sagas based on the official transcripts of NASA X-1,
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo,
and Space Shuttle missions.<p>

5 - The History of Drainage Management in the Mississippi Valley.<p>

6 - Availability of collaborative correction for audio works.<p>

7 - Integration of slide shows and animation into audio presentations.<p>

In addition, we plan to rework the Captain Nemo books by Jules Verne, 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island.  20,000 Leagues is our target
for the first animated feature.
<p>
Here's the unfulfilled book request list from 2002 : <p>

Famous Pirate Stories. <br>
Robin Hood. <br>
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare. <br>
Discovery of America by Vikings. <br>
The Wizard of Oz. <br>
The Prince & the Pauper. <br>
All's Well that End's Well. <br>
A Boy's Will by Robert Frost. <br>
The Haunted House by Dickens. <br>
CIA Factbook 2000. <br>
Complete Notebooks of DaVinci. <br>
A Tale of Two Cities. <br>
Canterbury Tales. <br>
Plato's Republic. <br>
At the Earth's Core. <br>
Mars and it's Inhabitants. <br>
Famous People of the Middle Ages. <br>
Life of Helen Keller. <br>
Fighter Planes in 1900. <br>
History of the Internet. <br>
I have a Dream. <br>
The Lock & Key Library. <br>
The Old Curiosity Shop. <br>
John Bunyan. <br>
Crime and Punishment. <br>
Treasure Island. <br>
Moby Dick. <br>
The Iliad. <br>
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. <br>
Kidnapped. <br>
The Art of War by Sun Tzu. <br>
Complete Rudyard Kipling. <br>

<p>

Naturally, targets of opportunity (such as Sheckley's Bad Medicine, The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the live performance by Blue Moon Radio
Troupe of Jack London's House of Mapuhi) are going to pop up in 2003.  I hope
some of those are teachers requesting scripts for live production, and return
mail of same from the performing groups, so we can broadcast them :-)<p>

I would love to see a school group in the East (China, India ... not New
York!) take on a classic SciFi masterpiece, or a Balzac pot-boiler from the
Droll Stories.  Such Drama!
<p>
Assert your independence! Sure, Shakespeare is a GREAT writer, but NO-ONE
wrote better than Hardy, NO-ONE!!!  And the French get short shrift all the
time.  Balzac is as original and inventive a writer as ever lived, and
nothing you see on TV and Movies today escaped his brilliant narrative
imagination.  Like Berlioz, possibly the most original and inventive artistic
mind of his generation, he gets put in the shadow of the English (as Berlioz
is in a German shadow). <p>
For the U.S., well everyone gets snotty about Citizen Kane, but The
Magnificent Amersons is Orson Well's best work, Booth Tarkington wrote that
one.  That sort of theme, sure it's one Hardy established, but in Tarington's
Time it had urgency on this continent.  The Tarkington works are all in the
Gutenberg archives.<p>
Tom Poe has more than a little interest in this venue.  Those guys can hook
 up additional musicians.  Nothing brings a book to life like a bit of
 music!<p>

All hail imagination!<p>

Have a good 2003.<p>

mike eschman, etc ...<br>
http://www.etc-edu.com<br>
"Not just an afterthought ...<p>