I was just having a discussion with my colleague Joan about whether or not the upcoming Transform: Shanghai event is a conference or a workshop. Joan is one of the founders of the event when it was started in Beijing four years ago. Since then it has moved to Shanghai, and I'm proud to be helping out on the organizing committee. I assumed we were calling it a conference because it contains multiple workshops, talks, and excursions, but Joan said it was conceived a a workshop because its a place for people to get together to learn new skills and approaches. Since she is a founder of the event, I deferred to her categorization; however, we then agreed that it was actually somewhere in between. Sort of a Confshop, or Workfrence.


Either way, if you're reading this from your art room anywhere in Asia, what are you waiting for? We got great presenters, great art detours in the city, and great company. Register!

On another note entirely, I thought that this was an insightful and humorous look at merit pay.

One of my first class icebreaker games is "Two Truths and a Lie". Students have to come up with two interesting facts about themselves, and one fact that is a total, utter, not-even-close to reality lie. This was the conversation that I had with one of the students who was presenting his "facts (or lie)".

Joe: I'm a little bit psychic.
Me: Really?
Joe: Yes.
Me: What am I thinking?
Joe: That I'm not a little bit psychic.
Me: Wow!

That ended up being one of his 'truths'. Nice!

Although today isn't marked by any notably arbitrary position of the earth around the sun, it is a new year for us here at SAS, marked by the first day of school. Its notable here for us in the art department, because we have a great new space- dedicated art areas, and an amazing new fourth teacher (who also happens to be my wife). I'll post some pictures of our great new space shortly.

I have to say that I'm particularly proud of my IB Film class who is moving into their second year. Many of them did their own independent work over the summer, and two brought in some pretty fantastic videos, which I'll share with you here.

Gabe and his friends organized a mini 24 hour film challenge for themselves- two groups going toe to toe in an epic film battle - here is his team's entry:



Every year our school sends a number of students to work at the Jacaranda School for AIDS orphans in Malawi. My friend and colleague Robert Burke has done an amazing job over the years raising money and organizing trips to benefit this school. This year, Melissa took a camera and made this beautiful wordless video about her experience there:



We're looking forward to a great year, and I wish all of you great school years as well.

• Best Film Editing Sequences

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.