hi marian and others -

      to explore the possibilities for free portable learning, a friend and i
recently created a 25-minute talking-head video about the life of the wright
brothers.

       we shot this in about four 6 minute segments. i basically summarized some
of the most intereresting facts from an excellent biography i read about the
wright brothers.

        this video can be viewed on the ipod with video -- or on mac or windows
computers with quicktime 6.x.

          you can download the video from
http://www.writersforliteracy.org/wrightbrothers112005.mp4.zip

          it's a fairly large file. (about 220 megs.)  feel free to redistribute
for any purpose.

          my hope is that this video will act as a spark for someone to sign out
a biography about the wright brothers from their local public library.

          also, if you reach the right person at the right time in their life
with the right idea, then the idea itself can take flight, soaring ever higher.

            phil shapiro
            washington dc

it feels a little unusual offering a "lecture" of this sort to a camcorder on a
tripod. as a teacher, you just have to imagine in your mind the unseen students
who may be watching the video in 3 weeks, 3 years and maybe even 30 years from
the time the video was made.