Frontline Digital Nation Airs Tonight on AZ PBS!

Tonight is the night for the premier broadcast of Digital Nation! February 2, 9:00pm on Eight - Arizona PBS!

Within a single generation, the Web and digital media have remade nearly every aspect of modern culture, transforming work, learning and social interaction in ways that we are only beginning to understand. FRONTLINE producer Rachel Dretzin (“Growing Up Online”) teams up with one of the leading thinkers of the digital age, Douglas Rushkoff (“The Persuaders,” “Merchants of Cool”), to continue her exploration of life on the virtual frontier by focusing her lens on what it means to be human in an entirely new world — a digital world.

There's already lots of "buzz" about it on Twitter! Many educators have already viewed the full video found online here. If you want to follow the Twitter conversation or add your voice to it, use the hashtag #dig_nat Teachers are already making plans to share the video with their students this week!

Details about the broadcast are here.

We are so excited that AZ is participating in continuing the conversation about this very important message and hope that all of you are planning your videos NOW to submit to our video contest and tell our stories about the impact of technology in our lives! We invite and welcome your conversations about Digital Nation and using video with your students on our Ning network! Let us hear from you!!

Green Valentines?

I was sifting through my email junk today and found a gem! A welcome diversion that I wanted to share with you all! Have you ever heard of "The Sustainable Sun Devil"?

"The Sustainable Sun Devil" is created for ASU by Grist.org, the nation's leading online source of environmental news. Together with ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability, we will be bringing you sustainability updates from around your campus, your country, and your world.

Something timely in the content caught my eye - "how to be a greener Valentine." I clicked play. What did I have to lose? As I watched, as I hope you will in a few seconds, I thought about all the cool teachable moments embedded within - from discussions with kids about the impact of these valentines traditions on our climate to the ways we could make better use of our classroom time and energy spent on valentines. Why not think up some new spins on time-honors classroom traditions?



AND then, being the good PBS affiliate programming advocate that I am... I jumped to PBS Teachers. I did a quick search in the upper right hand corner for the key word "valentine" and look what I found! Frontline aired a story a year ago - Ecuador: Flower Power - Fair trade roses for Valentine's Day. Make sure to click on the EDUCATOR button on the menu bar toward the right. Aren't these great discussions and timely readings to share with students? Not only do they align with Science Standards but also Social Studies Standards. Explore the related links, stream the 10 minute video. Think about the flat world we live in and how this issue effects us globally, and locally.



Finally, make it really hit home and consider joining Generation Eight for the Generation Eight Goes Green Event - just one week after Valentines! Keep that love going long past the 14th - for the valentines in your life, and the environment that we live in!