mySF Project blog

The twentieth podcast for teachers of secondary students studying Science Fiction, discussing the film version of ‘The Children of Men’.

This podcast relates to the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing.

The podcast is an interview with a doctoral student at the Australian National University, Viv, who published a thesis in late 2007 on the film version of “The Children of Men”, directed by Alfonso Cuaron.

Viv recommends “The Children of Men” as a major new text for Science Fiction studies and comes up with some compelling arguments to support her case. She will be speaking on her research at a conference in New Zealand in November.

“The Children of Men” DVD fits very neatly into the theme area of Visions of the Future within the mySF Project. It has great discussion points for middle and upper secondary students including an oppressive dystopia of the near future, the forever war against terror, the treatment of immigrants, the end of capitalism … and many more.

The purpose of the podcast is to join other educators to collaborate on the construction of great SF teaching resources. The podcast is 22M in size, in mp3 format, running for about twenty-five minutes.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

mySF Project podcast, number 20
Direct download: mysf_020_2008_10_14.mp3
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The nineteenth podcast for teachers of secondary students studying Science Fiction, discussing the ‘Year’s Best Science Fiction’, 22nd Annual Collection anthology.

This podcast relates to the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing!

This blog and podcast is the fifth and final part of a discussion of the Year’s Best Science Fiction, 22nd Annual Collection anthology, edited by Gardner Dozois, as a valuable, one-volume text for teaching modern SF.

Seven stories from the anthology are discussed in Part 5, including stories by Robert Reed, James L Cambias, Eleanor Arnason, Peter F Hamilton, Paul Di Fillipio and Walter John Williams, in relation to the five themes of SF studied at the secondary level .

If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

You can also find major sections of the script on the mySF Project Piki

The good music in the podcast comes from the SlowAlan site and the annoying theremin sounds are from michaels.

The purpose of the podcast is to join other educators to collaborate on the construction of great SF teaching resources. The podcast is 23M in size, in mp3 format, running for thirty-three minutes anmd including a last overview of the whole anthology as a teaching text.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

mySF Project podcast, number 19
Direct download: mysf_019_2008_07_17.mp3
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The eighteenth podcast for teachers of secondary students studying Science Fiction, discussing the ‘Year’s Best Science Fiction’, 22nd Annual Collection anthology.

This podcast relates to the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing!

This blog and podcast is the fourth part of a discussion of the Year’s Best Science Fiction, 22nd Annual Collection anthology, edited by Gardner Dozois, as a valuable, one-volume text for teaching modern SF.

Five stories from the anthology are discussed in Part 4, including stories by Colin P Davies, Stephen Baxter, Caitlin R Kiernan and Brendan Du Bois, in relation to the five themes of SF studied at the secondary level . If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

You can also find major sections of the script on the mySF Project Piki

The good music in the podcast comes from the slowalan site and the annoying theremin sounds are from michaels.

The purpose of the podcast is to join other educators to collaborate on the construction of great SF teaching resources. The podcast is 14M in size, in mp3 format.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

mySF Project podcast, number 18
Direct download: mysf_018_2008_07_16.mp3
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The seventeenth podcast for teachers of secondary students studying Science Fiction, discussing the ‘Year’s Best Science Fiction’, 22nd Annual Collection anthology.

This podcast relates to the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing!

This blog and podcast is the third part of a discussion of the Year’s Best Science Fiction, 22nd Annual Collection anthology, edited by Gardner Dozois, as a valuable, one-volume text for teaching modern SF.

Five stories from the anthology are discussed in Part 3, including stories by Vernor Vinge, Mary Rosenbaum, Vandana Singh, Albert E Cowdrey, William Sanders and Daniel Abraham, in relation to the five themes of SF studied at the secondary level .

If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

You can also find major sections of the script on the mySF Project Piki

The good music in the podcast comes from the SlowAlan site and the annoying theremin sounds are from michaels.

The purpose of the podcast is to join other educators to collaborate on the construction of great SF teaching resources. The podcast is 20M in size, in mp3 format.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

mySF Project podcast, number 17
Direct download: mysf_017_2008_07_15.mp3
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The sixteenth podcast for teachers of secondary students studying Science Fiction, discussing the ‘Year’s Best Science Fiction’, 22nd Annual Collection anthology.

This podcast relates to the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing!

This blog and podcast is the second part of a discussion of the Year’s Best Science Fiction, 22nd Annual Collection anthology, edited by Gardner Dozois, as a valuable, one-volume text for teaching modern SF.

Five stories from the anthology are discussed in Part 2, including stories by Michael F Flynn, M John Harrison, Terry Bisson, James Patrick Kelly and Kage Baker, in relation to the five themes of SF studied at the secondary level .

If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

You can also find major sections of the script on the mySF Project Piki

The good music in the podcast comes from the slowalan site and the annoying theremin sounds are from michaels.

The purpose of the podcast is to join other educators to collaborate on the construction of great SF teaching resources. The podcast is 15M in size, in mp3 format.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

mySF Project podcast, number 16
Direct download: mysf_016_2008_07_14.mp3
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The fifteenth podcast for teachers of secondary students studying Science Fiction, discussing the ‘Year’s Best Science Fiction’, 22nd Annual Collection anthology, edited by Gardner Dozois.

This podcast relates to the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing!

This blog and podcast is the first part of a discussion of the ‘Year’s Best Science Fiction’, 22nd Annual Collection anthology, edited by Gardner Dozois, as a valuable, one-volume text for teaching modern SF. Five stories from the anthology are discussed in Part 1, including stories by Pat Murphy, Benjamin Rosenbaum, David Moles, Nancy Kress and Paolo Bacugalupi, in relation to five themes SF studied at the secondary level .

If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

You can also find major sections of the script on the mySF Project Piki.

The purpose of the podcast is to join other educators to collaborate on the construction of great SF teaching resources. The podcast is 15M in size, in mp3 format. It runs for 22 minutes. Background and other music was created by michaels with a pet theramin and the much better bits by slowalan.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

mySF Project podcast, number 15
Direct download: mysf_015_2008_07_11.mp3
length=”16366866″ type=”audio/mpeg”

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mySF Project podcast, number 14: Nebula Awards Showcase 2006, Part 2

This podcast relates to the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing!

This blog and podcast is Part 2 of 2 discussing the Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 text as a valuable, one-volume text for teaching modern SF. The stories from the anthology and their commentaries are discussed, in relation to the five themes of SF studied at the secondary level .

If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

You can also find major sections of the script on the mySF Project Piki

The purpose of the podcast is to join other educators to collaborate on the construction of great SF teaching resources. The podcast is 25M in size, in mp3 format.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

mySF Project podcast, number 14
Direct download: mysf_014_2008_04_22.mp3

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mySF Project podcast, number 13: Nebula Awards Showcase 2006, Part 1

This podcast relates to the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing! This blog and podcast looks at the Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 text as a valuable, one-volume text for teaching modern SF. The stories from the anthology and their commentaries are discussed, in relation to the five themes of SF studied at the secondary level .

If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

You can also find major sections of the script on the mySF Project Piki

The purpose of the podcast is to join other educators to collaborate on the construction of great SF teaching resources. The podcast is a whopping 27M in size, in mp3 format.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

mySF Project podcast, number 13
Direct download: mysf_013_2008_04_22

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The twelfth podcast for students studying in one of the five, thematic units within the mySF Project is offered here.

This podcast is the second part of the support notes as podcasts of the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing! This blog attaches part one of the overview of the ‘Ghost in the Shell’ theme area. This is a major theme in the study of SF at the secondary level and originally it was aimed at students in a largish high school in Canberra, Australia. If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

The podcast draws together comments on the use of SF in modern society focusing on the theme area of Ghost in the Shell, a look at artificial intelligence narratives in SF, within the mySF Project. Its purpose is to excite, interest and involve students in Years 9 and 10 with the SF content they will be studying for ten learning episodes, equating flexibly to ten weeks for face-to-face students. The podcast is around 4.7M in size, in mp3 format.

This second part of the introduction looks at some of the short stories covered including by Vonnegut, Simak and Asimov as well as short glances to comic robots like Marvin and then everyone’s favourite - Bender.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The point of the podcast here is to share resources with other educators teaching SF to secondary students and to spark discussion, criticism and collaboration. Please use and respond, if you have time.

mySF Project podcast, number 12
Direct download: mysf_012_2008_02_24.mp3
length=”4055239″ type=”audio/mpeg” /

The eleventh podcast for students studying in one of the five, thematic units within the mySF Project is offered here.

This podcast is the first part of the support notes as podcasts of the mySF Project, created in 2005 and still growing! This blog attaches part one of the overview of the ‘Ghost in the Shell’ theme area. This is a major theme in the study of SF at the secondary level and originally it was aimed at students in a largish high school in Canberra, Australia. If you want to read more about the mySF Project you can find an overview at the Microsoft Education website.

The podcast draws together comments on the use of SF in modern society focusing on the theme area of Ghost in the Shell, a look at artificial intelligence narratives in SF, within the mySF Project. Its purpose is to excite, interest and involve students in Years 9 and 10 with the SF content they will be studying for ten learning episodes, equating flexibly to ten weeks for face-to-face students. The podcast is around 4.7M in size, in mp3 format.

This first part of the introduction glances at some SF critics and their interpretations of the great Metropolis, as well as introducing two, films for the first few learning episodes of the Ghost in the shell theme area, War Games and the wonderful 2001.

The mySF Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The point of the podcast here is to share resources with other educators teaching SF to secondary students and to spark discussion, criticism and collaboration. Please use and respond, if you have time.

mySF Project podcast, number 11
Direct download: mysf_011_2008_02_24.mp3
length=”4631186″ type=”audio/mpeg” /