One of my old Apple contacts, Steve Borsch, had his website listed as the Minnesota Blog of the Day on City Pages this week. Looks like he’s having a good time in my favorite city in the world, London…DK

Along we most of the free world, we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest last night. I liked it a lot, although I thought it dragged a little in the middle (two and a half hours in total). My wife loves Johnny and I love Keira, so we were both happy (although this is definitely a Jack Sparrow movie). I think my favorite character, though, was Ragetti, played by actor Mackenzie Crook (Gareth in the original BBC series The Office). The visual effects and stunts are incredible and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many names listed during the credits to a movie (I can’t imagine what the break-even amount must be). Great ending, too.

I practically grew up with the original Pirates attraction at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. The version in Disneyland Paris is really good too. When I read they were going to add Jack Sparrow Audio-Animatronics figures to the rides, I was a little disappointed. After seeing some videos online of the additions and watching the new movie, I’ve changed my mind. Disney has taken a great ride and created a great movie series worthy of the name…DK

The past two days at HSRA were spent kicking off our summer staff development. While I abhor meetings as a general principle, I think we achieved a lot during the sessions.

Thanks to the coordination of a semi-outsider as facilitator, the sessions were kept on pace and on target. We started with a review of the mission statement of High School for Recording Arts:

The mission of HSRA is to provide youth the opportunity to achieve a high school diploma through the exploration and operation of the music business and other creative endeavors.

From there, we formed four summer committees: technology, studio, education and administration. I was assigned the lead on the technology committee and we set about identifying what we are good at and where we need to improve.

Here are the respective lists:

Good Things:

• Student Network Accounts
• Online Validations
• High-End Studio & Video Technology Tools
• Contributed to Safe Environment (Security Cams)
• Provide Student Internet Access for Research
• Decreased Student-to-Computer Ratio
• New Graphics Lab
• Added Student Email
• Student Information System (Project Excellence)

Need Improvement:

• Enhance Student Usage of Technology
• Reduce Junk Mail
• Reduce Online Student Distractions
• Increase Student Interaction with Excellence
• Online Planners
• Digital Portfolios
• Project Tracking
• Course Catalog
• Maintain & Monitor Network Storage Capacity
• Research & Enhance Computer-Based Curriculum
• Staff/Student Blogs & Podcasts
• Automation of All Access Pass
• Research NWEA Alternatives
• Online Registration
• Library Technology
• Attendance/Lunch Solutions

The second list will form the basis of our summer development work for 2006. Personally, I’m very excited for the future of the program and am glad we had the opportunity to evaluate where we are, where we want to be and to get valuable feedback from the other three groups…DK