Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 130 breakout session of the Open Simulator Community Conference 2013. As a reminder to our in-world and web audiences, you can view the full conference schedule on our website at conference.opensimulator.org, and you can post your questions in local chat, on the U-Stream chat, or tweet your comments using the hashtag OSCC13. This hour, we are happy to introduce Gil Hilde, Mycel Eghart, who will be presenting Language Quest and Data Analytics in Secondary School. Your Hilde, Mycel Eghart is a freelancer in the field of educational technology and co-founder of talkademy.org, a not-for-profit organization that engages in using and creating virtual environments and learning for learning purposes. Talkademy.org serves universities, companies, and individuals with learning events using Second Life and Open Sim as a frequent partner in European projects. Avalon, Talk With Me, Nexthel, Euroversity, EEA Inspiration. Before starting, Talkademy.org, Gil Hilde received a degree in computer science from the Technical University of Vienna and gathered about 10 years of professional experience in software engineering, project management, quality management, and training. Welcome, Gil Hilde. Gil Hilde. Well, thank you very much, Joe, for this long introduction. I hope everybody can hear me well. Well, welcome to my talk. Hello, everybody. I hope that everybody found me because this is rather something belonging to the educational track, and not that much here. But yes, as I said, hopefully you'll find me. This conference is so well organized, so it should be possible. What I basically want to do tonight is to give you a short report about some interesting aspects of school projects that we had run as a part of the Nexthel project during the last couple of years. And as far as I know, there's very little going on, at least in Europe, in secondary schools. And this is really a pity because everybody who tries to bring this kind of technology to schools sees how much students love it, how they get engaged, how much they can learn with this kind of technology. But as well, everybody who has already worked with schools, and I know some of you had, knows why there is so little going on in schools, because schools are really a different partner to work with. They are running on their own tracks somehow. So one interesting question is how can we approach them? What kind of activities can we offer them to get their attention and to make it fit into their normal schedule? And I think one very nice activity that is actually interesting for schools are language quests. And this will be pretty much the longer part of my talk. What I want to share with you is some experience about language quests that we developed and give you some examples, two examples. And of course, you are more than welcome to reuse this kind of quest in your own classrooms or for your own research and help us develop it with us. There are some European projects going on that try to engage teachers. Nick Svart has already introduced the Teela project to you, I guess. And there was this Avatar project before, which also tried to engage teachers. And we from Tokademi as part of the next step project, we did quite a lot of workshops for teachers in Austria. But the response, well, the interest is there, but actually making this step into the classroom is a much tougher way. So hopefully what I tell you today will help a little bit to get this technology one step further into the classroom. Basically, there are three aspects in my talk, as I said before. There is this quest design topic, including two examples. There is the aspect of data analytics, which is pretty much the field of research of the next step project. We know that in virtual worlds, we can actually collect a lot of data. We can track everything our students are doing. We know what they do, where they click, where they go, who they chat with, what they chat. So there's a lot of data to collect. And the interesting question, of course, is what to do with this data? And what does this data tell us? How can we use this data to come to conclusions about students' skills and learning progress? And finally, the third aspect of my talk is working with schools. As I said before, there are quite some challenges in working with schools. But the good news is that there are also some ways how we can handle it. Our special thanks goes to 3DLES and Nikits Ward, who allowed us to use his beautiful village of Cheperdale for the school trials. And of course, to the European Commission for the support, for the funding, this kind of research, via the next step project and the university network. I want to give you a quick overview of the next step project, just the basic ideas, because this explains why we were invited into this project. The next step project basically is about tracking what students are doing online, which kind of learning activities, analyzing what they're doing, visualizing what they're doing and feeding it back to the teacher to give the teacher a tool for planning further activities. And the next step project has quite a broad approach in terms of technology. So they are not only focused on virtual worlds, but all kinds of learning applications, like Moodle or of course mobile applications and Web 2.0 and whatever. But the important part always is to be able to collect this data. And there, of course, virtual worlds fit in perfectly. And this is our part in here. As I told before, Quest Design is something I want to focus here, because this is really something that makes a difference to the students and of course to the teachers when you try to convince the teacher that this kind of activity is beneficial for the students. The first question when designing a Quest, of course, is the topic, the kind of stories that are appealing to the target group. And when we started this, the target group were 13-year-old kids. So the first ideas was something to do with some mysteries, some vampire stories, adventure stories, something with crime, whatever. But then finally, one idea came from the students themselves because when they first entered Chatterday, they asked, where are all the people? Because when being in a city, normally you expect that there are other people there. And as we all know, unless we invite people into our virtual spaces, normally they are quite empty. And this gave a nice starting point for this Quest to let them explore what happened to the population of Chatterday. Some more details about this later. Then of course the second question is how can we achieve a maximum of activity? How can we really make the kids work? How can we ensure that there's enough interaction with each other and with the environment? Something I forgot to tell the beginning was that this school trial was a cooperative project between a school in Austria and in Norway. And of course this is a very interesting setup for the kids because they have to use English as their common language. So one point is to ensure that there's interaction going on between the Austrian and Norwegian kids and of course between them and the environment. And there are several ideas how this maximum of activity can be achieved. One is certainly to foster asymmetric roles within a team. So, for example, kids would have different parts of information and need to combine it. Or not all of the kids have the same task to do. So they have slightly different assignments. Then of course there's the possibility to interact with the environment, to read hints, etc. But as well to interact with actors which we have to organize somehow. Preferably native speakers of the language they should learn. And then of course there's the possibility for interaction with the greater community that they look for information where the internet and textbooks. So a combination with web quests would be possible. I'll show you later when I talk about the examples which strategy we used for our examples. The third point is the question of immersion. And we think that immersion is really a very important topic because this makes the difference whether students just feel themselves being spectators or being right in there. And here we took some inspiration from a live role plays which we, well I have already tried out at the birthday parties of my own kids and they always worked very well. For example once we had a party with the topic become a private investigator. And while the kids were doing some training sessions like analyzing fingerprints for example, a neighbor rang the door and told it some well-earned truth in the stone. And now suddenly the theory met practice and the kids were right there on the first job. And this is how we tried to drag the kids into this story and we used this as inspiration for this virtual quest as well. So there as well we tried to drag the kids in. And I'll explain later how we did this. Of course one important issue is the potential chaos how to minimize that because having 20 kids in the same room with headsets and voice going on and everything has a huge potential of chaos and one possibility how to address this is certainly to build teams somehow to make sure that each student know exactly where his team is that we use names or groups so they know where their own team is and of course they know very well what their exactly task is. And this is something the teacher has to ensure before. There are, well this is one slide where I talk a lot but no more. You should see the slide quest design. Can you see it? The slide one quest design. I think you might need to reset the display, okay? How do I reset the display? How do I do that? Maybe click the home button. There should be I think a red X at the bottom of it. Okay. So you don't, you still see my very first slide? Now wait a minute, hit the home button first, try that. Okay. The home button now. Okay, go to the beginning. I believe that got it now. Okay, so now you see my first slide? That's the first. Thanks, Nick. Yeah, I think you'll need to do that then try to find the catch up with the slides and you should be okay, maybe. Okay, so you can see this one. Okay, doesn't matter. Not that important to see this one. So this is the one I was just talking about. Okay. So the potential chaos, this is a big issue, something we could talk hours and hours and hours. And finally, of course, the organizational context is a very important part of each quest design. We need to know before how this whole quest fits into the lesson, into the session, into the curriculum. If it's something that runs over several days, weeks, or the whole school year, we once had the idea to support a whole year of A1 English learning with activities in Chatterdale, which would make one long story in many chapters. But this is still just an idea. So maybe somebody wants to help us with this. And this brings me already to the first example. The first example, and I have a quick, a short video here, and I was told that I should just paste the link to local chat so you can watch it in your private browsers and wouldn't have to watch it here. So I hope that you can all open this link and watch the video and then I'll go on talking in two minutes. Does this work? Really? We apologize for the delay here. We're trying to see if we can get the slide system working again for our viewing audience. Just hang in there for a few minutes or a few seconds, I hope. Gerhilda, is somebody there helping you? Here comes Nebonon to the rescue. So I hope you've all seen this wonderful video which Nick compiled. Try to keep it slow. So shall I try to... Okay, then I guess I'll sit down again and put my slides there again. Should I delete them before? Yes, I think this video is really great. We have shown it so many times and people always love it. So now I have dragged my slides again over there. Can you see them now? Does it work now? Stand up again. Can I try one more? Alright, Gerhilda, I think we've got a problem with our slides. So maybe we should continue the session. Can you do it without it? Okay, without slides. Well, they are not that great anyway. But maybe the next one would be interesting. Can you send me them, please? Well, if the primes are wrong, send me the text. Okay. How can I send them to you? How can I send the slides to you? Can I just drag them into chat? Now I can. I think the properties are fine. Drag them on me. Okay, where are you? Then I stand up first. Oh, here you are. Now they are completely gone. No. I think there is some some permission issue because I cannot give them to you. No, I can't give them to you. Did you receive it now? Okay. Can I give you all of them at the same time? Why not them all at once? We've got one. I think I can only give you one at a time. Well, I'll just go on.  I think it's not fixed. Okay. Should I turn the page? Wait a second. Thanks, Alfonso, for the feedback. But the permissions was the permission problem. Next one. This is where it almost stops. First one. Yeah, it stopped again. Yeah. Okay, I'll just go on if there were no color. So, which is the right one? You can zoom in on that. Okay. So, now you have seen this wonderful video about the Chateau Del Mystery. And I'll tell you just quickly what this story is about and then you can you can judge on your own if you think this would be interesting for a 30-year-old kid or not. The story basically is that some thousand years ago aliens have distributed energy dispensers all over the universe and one of those is the place that's today known as Chateau Del. And they chose the place because of the near cave because their skin is very sensitive to ultraviolet radiation. And when they ran out of energy they came to Chateau Del and were quite surprised to see how the area had changed and that those strange people were playing football with this energy dispenser. And however, the aliens were fascinated by this huge variety of things that those people have had there and they started collecting them during the night and collected those things to the cave. And then the aliens' council decided that the strange creatures had this on the holy site and therefore should be teleported away. And first they they isolated Chateau Del from the rest of the world they cut internet connections close the rail with candles, etc. And then they used the teleporter but there was a programmer mistake with the set coordinate. So only those humans who were on the surface of Chateau Del were teleported away, not the priest who was in the catacombs and not the barkeeper who was looking for more beer in the cellar and Professor Jones who had already been close on the aliens' heels for years had been in the cellar together with the barkeeper. And this Professor Jones had found out most of the story and had written letters to his aunt but they never left Chateau Del those letters so the students can find them. And finally Professor Jones managed to find the cave that was trapped there and so he had to wait for his rescue. And this whole story is manifested in Chateau Del by various hints. For example police records that the students can find in the police station about thefts because as I said before the aliens had started to collect some objects that they found there and of course people said this is well, they were stolen. Then they have the statements of the survivors of the barkeeper and the priest they have letters to Professor Jones' aunt which never left Chateau Del which they found in the post office and of course they have as a starting point some statements for example statements from Amazon.com who realized that the Chateau Del people do not pay the bills anymore. And well this is quite a challenging mystery and some interference skills are needed by the students so it's not that easy but as they are in teams we thought they should be able to solve it. What we need as a preparation of course is we need to set up these hints in Chateau Del I hope that you can see this slide here at the right side for example you see a customer complained record at the local computer store where several people complained that the internet doesn't work anymore and the other thing is a letter which Professor Jones wanted to write to his aunt and there he tells that he caught a radiogram and he observed some strangers in the night things like this and how do we run this story with the students? The basic idea is that there is a teacher in the class who reads a story to the students and shows those slides where several people wonder what's going on in Chateau Del for example as I said before the Chateau Del students do not pay the bills anymore or the train from Chateau Del doesn't arrive anymore or Professor Jones' aunt who promised to send the letter every week but no letter came and then finally of course people from the newspaper they just think what's going on in Chateau Del we have to send some people there and find it out so first we read this story then we distribute fictitious emails to each team for example this is an email from a private investigation company who was contacted by this aunt of Professor Jones and he writes to his team of private investigators that they have received disorder from the aunt that they should go to Chateau Del, look for Professor Jones go to immediately meet your team members at the police station and check what the police knows about Professor Jones and then they should send a report and an invoice and by the end of the day so each of the team each team we have five different teams and each team gets this fictitious email and this is the point where they log into Chateau Del, go there meet their colleagues from Norway, if they're Ausprens or from Austria if they're Norwegian and go explore Chateau Del hopefully find the letters hopefully find the other hints hopefully find the surviving a bit drunk bartender yes and hopefully find Professor Jones in the cave at the end in order to get into the cave they have to find out the secret key that opens the cave and then they they they find Professor Jones there and they get some reward which is an incentive for them because the aliens didn't take all the things they collected with them they left some things in the cave and those are then gifts for the students so they can get some gadgets for the avatars so we did this several times and the students always loved it. I did it once with a class of 24 students, 22 where boys and only two were girls and I've never seen this class so focused, so concentrated so engaged they didn't use the break they had a double session with me and they didn't use the break these 10 minutes they would have between the two sessions they just wanted to solve this mystery but nevertheless some of the students were a bit overwhelmed by handling technology and interfierencing at the same time and some others didn't realize that the other avatars were real people and misbehaved a little bit and the chaos reduction strategy didn't completely work out but what we learned in this first trial was that we need a second quest to do it before in order to introduce students to this kind of activity in a virtual environment this is where we developed the second quest which is the granny quest and the granny quest is the simplest possible quest that can be done in a virtual or real environment it's just a scavenger hunt where students are basically sent from one station to the next one where they collect hints and their interfierencing skills are not really challenged, only a very tiny little bit and the granny quest is also a lot easier because there's the same assignment for all students although they have different starting points so by sending them to different starting points we'll make sure that they do not just follow one other and the idea of this story is really to make them getting familiar with the environment and this kind of activity the story is that they have to find out where granny lived and organizationally it's quite similar to the mystery story it starts with the teacher reading a letter from granny where it says basically that well granny had died a year ago and she wants she wants to inherit her house to the one who first finds out where she had lived and granny seems to be a little bit a strange personality and students have to have again go to chat meet the team and then find hints and those hints are distributed at various locations if we have actors then actors would give this information that you see in the speech bubble if we don't have actors here they find the hint as a texture on a queue and each of those hints has a little bit more about poor miss pedigree about this granny for example here at Harold's fashion store the storekeeper says that each fall she came and bought some of the warmest clothes she had her house must have been terribly cold and windy but maybe you want to go to the fish and chips shop she was a good customer there so go there and ask and the fish and chips shop that she often brought very fresh fish and asked them to fry it for her etc and finally to find out that granny had lived in the lighthouse and there is the lighthouse guardian which is the only act that we really need for this quest and the lighthouse guardian then gives them some more background information and hands them over this declaration from the municipality of Chatterdale that they are the official owners of the lighthouse now so these are the two quests that we did with the students they are fully worked out ready to use in Chatterdale just ask Nick if you are interested in our experience is that really students engage very very nicely with this kind of activity and especially in a cooperation setting of different schools is a brilliant way just to get them use their language and have some fun as well this brings me to the second aspect of my talk if you remember my first slide the second aspect is this data collection aspect and this is an aspect that we came to by our engagement in the next project Big Brother is collecting data from you as I said before obviously we have very various possibilities to collect data from our students the important question obviously is which data to collect what to do with it and then how to interpret it and what we did in this trial was that we started with the curriculum aims of our students of course you can we use the European framework of reference for language learning and in this curriculum you have statements like for example students should understand written texts in B1 level so what we can do is we write this fictitious email which they get in B1 level then the second question is of course what can we observe and how can we can we conclude that the student had understood the text and then the student straightly moves to the right place after having read the text we well we think that obviously he has understood it of course we can't be sure but we try to do it well if we do it more often then hopefully it would statistically be out-weighted and then the third step is how can we read the text and for this we used location tracking scripts and automatic reader script that writes into local chat when an avatar enters a place so this is really a very simple mechanism to track it it costs a couple of lines of code in this object but it's quite quite powerful because it can be derived just by tracking where students move and how they move and how the whole group moves the second thing we have of course our actors so we do not have to generate all this evidence automatically but we can also ask our non-playing characters to assess the quality of conversation they had with the student and so there's a little pop-up when the student leaves the bar for example and the actor would just press the button and assess how well the student spoke to him and all this evidence then goes into a big log file and what we do with this log file is we hand it over to a component called prunefer which is contributed by Technical University of Graz and they work with knowledge, with competence-based knowledge-based theory approach which is quite theoretical approach but the basic idea is to decompose a domain of knowledge into chunks and somehow update this competency state and they have written a very nice little tool which they call the chat log analyzer module and in this chat log analyzer module we can we can quite nicely get some deep information about how students behaved and what they did during the session for example the first on top right you see the chat intensity over time so we see how much did the students chat so how active had they been of course analyzing the chat gives a lot of other opportunities as well for example we can check if they chatted in English, in German or in Norwegian we can parse for keywords to find out if they behaved well or if they used keywords then we have what else do we have well there are many more reports but this chat intensity is one of the nice the other one of course is the movement pattern and from this movement pattern we can derive some information how well the team work together did they stick together or not who found a certain hint first did they just follow each other or did they use the information they had on things like this so we see quite a big potential in this approach and we would be very happy to get some support from the research community to go on a little bit with this kind of research and frankly speaking the hard point of course is to derive these rules to find out some good heuristics to derive information assessment about competencies based on this chat log and we were quite surprised how far we got by those simple things that we are tracking so four minutes left finally the third aspect of my talk working with schools as I said at the very beginning schools are quite different organizations to work with because they are very busy they follow their own rules and they have very little time in general and but the good news is that there are certain times that work very well and these are times we have to find out when we approach a school for example the last two weeks before the summer break is for many schools a time slot where they are very happy to get some news interesting innovative projects in because then the grading is already done and students do not know why they really go to school anymore so to have something really engaging to offer them is normally very welcome same is true for often for hours in the afternoon when some schools do not have classes but some students have to be there so the question obviously is what to do with them then of course the second thing is the curriculum so we know that what we do has to fix has to fit into the curriculum but the curriculums are quite flexible in general finally we know that schools usually have very limited resources but they are quite happy if you help them and if they see that they have the chance to get somebody in who is IT savvy who can help them with general IT problems they might embrace you yes of course schools need to be flexible and often timetables shifts and things are different in the morning than you thought the evening before this is something we just have to live with of course very important we need a safe environment so OpenSim 3D LES is a lot more useful than second life and of course when we have a cooperation with the school you must be aware that there is a huge coordination effort and one very important thing is to make sure that the students get enough time to build up their relations the virtual environment question shouldn't be the first time when they meet but they should have written or exchanged emails before or did some Skype conferencing so I think I am perfect in time although there is technical hiccups so you can need to stop the audio you can continue the text ok so I was just told that they stopped the audio now but I may answer your questions in text let me say one thing here before we quit I thank you for a terrific presentation I apologize to you and the audience for the technical difficulties but I must remind everybody that OpenSimulator is still alpha software this completes the educational portion of the OpenSimulator Community Conference 2013 there are still a few social events you may want to attend you can see the conference schedule at conference.opensimulator.org thank you again to our speaker and the audience and then we will continue on chatting here if you wish thank you we can use voice ok Beth says we can use voice for another 10 minutes so Beth can they hear me now I am going to Beth so so let's just continue until she shuts this off yeah let's just continue until she shuts this off ok so let's see there was one one comment ok there was just this one comment from the question are the students in the same classroom in real life where they locked in from the houses well in our trials they had been in the same classroom which which was one reason I mentioned this chaos minimization strategy and to be honest I think it helps a lot in minimizing the case if they are not in the same classroom so the question is really what kind of organizational context you have and I think if it's possible that they do it from the houses in the afternoon it would work even better if they are already able to handle the environment of course if they have to be in the same classroom or at least it's cool it helps to distribute them at least to different labs if possible and of course if it starts becoming too loud then really go back to text chat so the way we handled it then was that we restricted voice chat to the conversations with the actors and communication with the team was only done via text chat okay I think there was one comment about mixing up problem solving skills and language skills yes this is of course a problem I mean what we derive about language skills has a certain amount of uncertainty in it and if we do it only once then maybe we can say anything at the other hand if this is an integral part of a class and you do it more often then I think it's possible to derive language skills and one thing that's important is really to start with the granny quest not to do the hardest thing at the beginning because of course in the first sessions they struggle with all kinds of things but once they have the mindsets and they are and they know the way we work and the way these quests work and they know what they are expected to do then I think it works quite well any other questions kids the kids can help because of course I have a class that will go online every four weeks every four weeks for one class or one week yes of course this is a question of quest design as well as soon as you really try to assess language skills then this has to to deeply go into the quest design you really have to think what kind of activities what kind of tasks they need to perform and what can be derived in our example they had teams that were mixed with two Austrians and two Norwegians this was the fun about it oh ok this was a question to Nick talking about I'm not sure are you talking about are there any more questions for me if yes then please type them now Gerhilda I think that brings us to our second ending of the session maybe any file question I apologize for our timing issues and the technical issues but thank you very much thank you to the audience and thank you Gerhilda well thank you


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Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota, produced by Lakeland PBS with host Bethany Wesley. Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport for information available at memidjiairport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at NiswaTax.com. Hello, welcome back to Lakeland Currents. I'm Bethany Wesley. There are more than 15 million Americans who provide unpaid care to people who have Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, according to statistics from the Alzheimer's Association. It is estimated that in 2016, those caregivers provided 18.2 billion hours of unpaid care, valued at more than $230 billion. Those figures are only expected to rise. The Alzheimer's Association reports that there are more than 5 million Americans living with Alzheimer's now, and that number could reach 16 million by 2050. In Bemidji, community members have been working in recent years to identify ways through which the greater region could become more dementia-friendly. Bemidji in 2014 was selected as one of the sites for Act on Alzheimer's, a statewide initiative that aims at better preparing the state for the impacts of Alzheimer's and dementias. Joining me for tonight's show are Carol Priest, the action team coordinator with Northwood's Caregivers, and Trisha Cowan, assistant professor of nursing at Bemidji State University, who has been doing her doctoral research project on Northwood's caregivers and Act on Alzheimer's. Together, we'll talk about what exactly Act on Alzheimer's is and how it is making a difference. Welcome. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Bethany. As we get started first, let's talk about dementia and Alzheimer's in general. We talked a little bit about these numbers rising nationally. Are they also rising then in the state as well? Yes. When we look at the state figures, one of the things that we talk about is that for people age 65 and older, one in nine people of that group has Alzheimer's or another type of dementia. For people 85 years and older, that number rises to one in three people. All of us all across the country, we're going to be experiencing an increase in the percentage of the population and the number of people who are 65 and older as the baby boomers age. That means an equivalent increase in the number of people living with dementia in our communities. When we talk about the number of people who have dementia or Alzheimer's, are those that are diagnosed or are those kind of based on general figures based on what they assume or where do those numbers come from? There are some assumptions in that. A lot of people who have signs of dementia are not diagnosed. In fact, some of the numbers from the Alzheimer's Association say that only 45% of people who have dementia have been told that by their doctors. One of the things that we are really emphasizing in Acton Alzheimer's is early diagnosis and treatment and supportive care. We want people to know what the 10 warning signs of dementia are and get in to see a doctor as soon as possible if they start seeing those. For one reason, because it may be something treatable, it may not be dementia. There's a lot of things that can look like that. But also then to get support for the person living with dementia and their caregivers as soon as possible. Is there something specific about dementia that is concerning more so obviously the numbers are going up. You're going to have an older population, so more people with it. But is there something about the care that they need or the care that they're getting or not getting that is concerning? Is there a reason that this in particular has a focus? There's a lot of things that people can do once they receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or another type of dementia. There are medications that can help to reduce the symptoms. It doesn't change the physical progression of the disease in a person's brain. And people have heard those names, Aricept, Namenda. There's a couple others that are being used. But even for people who choose not to use those medications, there's some things that are very important. And something that we see a lot of is that when a person is diagnosed with dementia, they start to isolate themselves. Because the symptoms and how it feels from inside can make it very uncomfortable for them to be in public places, in places where they would have socialized. And we still have a lot of stigma around dementia and Alzheimer's. And so the person and their caregiver may feel I don't know obvious or that's I'm not getting the right word. A little bit targeted or like this. Yeah, like people are looking at them funny. Okay. And if you think of 60% of the people with Alzheimer's, they're living at home still with support. And so they're in the community, they're going to the grocery store, they're going to the bank, they're going to the post office. So how do we support them where they are? So Act on Alzheimer's is a statewide initiative, correct? So who is administering it? Who kind of oversees it from a statewide perspective? There's a woman, Emily Farrah Miller, who is at the, what is it, the Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging. And she's the statewide coordinator for Act on Alzheimer's. But there are individual communities who have been part of this. There's about 35 communities in Minnesota who have applied and received funding to start this project. Interestingly enough, one of the first seven communities in the state was Walker. And so they started before we did. We applied for this grant in and received it in 2014, the initial grant from Act on Alzheimer's. So we were part of the second round of communities. And if I remember correctly, Walker was the only rural community, if I recall that correctly, from that first seven, but it's become a little bit more common now to reach out to the rural areas, correct? And if someone were to go on the Act on Alzheimer's website, there's a map that shows the distribution of communities around the state. And you know, it's considering population, it's pretty evenly distributed per capita throughout. So there's a lot of rural communities who have gotten involved in this. There's also cultural communities that have had started Act on Alzheimer's projects. One of the first ones was the St. Paul Neighborhood Churches, which was a coalition of African American churches. There's a Hispanic group in the cities that had an Act on Alzheimer's project. And there's been a Somalian group as well. So are you all able to share information back and forth and then learn from each other to see, I mean, what worked down there might not work here in vice versa. But is that an ongoing conversation? So working with Emily Farramiller out of the Metro Area Agency on Aging helps connect us and share those resources. And you just presented at a learning collaborative meeting, which they have those once or twice a year. Oh, okay. So people from all the different groups kind of come together. Okay, interesting. Share what they're doing. Take me back to 2014, Carol. Who first of all, who was asking for this? Who was it that was really driving this? Locally. I think at Northwood's caregivers, we provide in-home services for elders and people with disabilities. We do a lot of caregiver coaching. But we were working with a lot of people who were living with dementia and with their caregivers and seeing the stresses that are happening with those families. So you had seen people going through some difficulties while trying to go through this disease. Very difficult. Okay. And hearing about, like I was saying, ways that people have withdrawn from their communities because they feel conspicuous. And they feel people may not actually be placing the stigma on them, but they think it's there. Okay. And so we became aware of the grant opening with Act on Alzheimer's and applied for that. And so in May of 2014, we started in the four-step process that comprises Act on Alzheimer's. And at that time, our project was called Act on Alzheimer's Bemidji. So in the first step, we formed an action team. And that included people from more than what you would expect as the typical folks involved. Yes, elder service providers, healthcare providers. But also people from businesses, from banks, legal and financial planning, people from government agencies. Were these people you had to reach out to or that had their own, for whatever reason, personal interest, heard about it and got involved? Was it hard to drum up that kind of cross-section of support? Yes and no. We had some people that we reached out to initially who were our main supporters in getting the funding and becoming part of the action team. And that also included a woman living with Alzheimer's and her husband who was her caregiver. It is her caregiver still. And then some obvious places like adult day services of Bemidji where many people with dementia go for day support and care, Sanford Health Care, Calvary Lutheran Church. So we really reached out to faith communities as a place where people get support and have a sense of community. First National Bank, the 55 Connection Program, Linda Sten saying has been very active with us. Choice Therapy, one of their staff. So a lot of places, some not so obvious. So this was that first step, if I understand you correctly, this is when you started to form the team. So as you form this team and you start preparing for the assessment phase and moving forward, did you have set kind of expectations or goals as to what you were going to learn or were you guys wide open in terms of where this was going to lead you? We knew what our own thoughts were about it. We knew our estimation of what was available in the community and where the gaps were. But you never know how that's going to come out. So we did do an assessment with many different people in the community, businesses, organizations, about 30 different people with different, you know, different locations, compiled that information and analyzed it. And then in March of 2015, we had a community meeting over at Adult Day Services. And through that, we talked about what we found with the assessments and where the community wanted to go with that in terms of actual action steps for phase four. Okay. And now Tricia, I just want to kind of just pause for a second and tell me about how you got involved and at what stage in all this you kind of started to take an involvement as well? The, I believe all four phases were complete when I became involved. The action team was up and going and kind of in the community already working on initiatives to raise awareness. So I was connected with Carol through a colleague of mine. I was looking for a project to do with my doctoral research. And so I was connected with Carol and just talked about what the community needs and met with some people in the community and found that they really needed some education around dementia. Education was kind of the big focus from what you heard. Is that what you heard then as well then? Really, yes. What we focused on after the community meeting was education and awareness to get people in the community more familiar with what dementia really is and what maybe what people thought it was. And then support for caregivers and people living with dementia so that they can live as well as possible in the community and stay connected. Were you surprised at any kind of response from either those who were looking for more support or from business and community members who just wanted to learn more? Was there a good amount of people who took an interest in hearing not just during the action phase but during the action or not just during the assessment but during the action phase as you geared up to put things in motion? Yeah, we had a very, we had a sizeable group of people who were really involved. We had about 50 people at the community meeting and that really included a broad cross-section of folks and a lot of them proceeded on to stay involved with the action team through some of the things we were doing in terms of we had about 20 people who received training from the Alzheimer's Association in leading their two basic workshops. The first one is called the basics and it's you know simple things about dementia and Alzheimer's and then the second one is called know the 10 signs so the 10 warning signs of dementia. We developed a brochure originally it was labeled act on Alzheimer's Bemidji but the name has changed with time and with expanding our geographic area that we're looking at that compiles resources for people with dementia and Alzheimer's and the other idea behind this brochure is as much as it goes out to people in the community it's also something where if you get connected with one of the providers in here they will help connect you with everyone else that you may need so it's not like a person has to call every place to get a variety of resources. So you've been involved with Northwood Caregivers even before Act on Alzheimer's came so were there things that you learned either through the assessment or through the implantation of the actions that surprised you? I mean were there things about the community that you found gee I didn't know that we had a gap here? I think it was really it was a very good surprise that we really have a lot of services in Bemidji it's just a matter of getting people connected probably the biggest gap that we see is people realizing that they have these warning signs knowing the difference between what's normal aging and what is actually a sign of dementia which really has to do with with the disruption to someone's daily life all right I mean we all forget things a little more just like our bodies are becoming less flexible our minds are as well and I always say you know it's because there's so much in there by now you know so but for people to know when there's a good reason to be concerned and to go see their doctor and ask those questions even if they're afraid of the answers because the answers might be better than their worst fear okay and we've also come to I think the other piece of that then is as we moved the project out from Bemidji to a larger area including tribal communities we found how much the services don't go beyond Bemidji in many cases and how much of an issue transportation is for this population as well as many others so that you know there are some gaps that we have and we're doing what we can with that I want to talk a little bit about how that happened because you did initially start with Bemidji right and kind of that kind of focused on Bemidji at what point did you really realize you had to look beyond the city limits how did that come up I think that was that was always a goal okay act on Alzheimer's they encouraged us to stay small to start with you know until we got our feet wet and kind of knew what we were doing to limit it to like Bemidji and five miles around it starting January 1st of 2016 we received a dementia grant from the Minnesota Board on Aging which allowed us to greatly expand what we were doing in time both in terms of staff time and resources that we could make available to people at that point we began engage trying to engage people from other parts of the of the broader area so we worked quite a bit with the elder services at Minnesota Chippewa tribe which is host the Minnesota Indian Area Agency on Aging and also with Leech Lake elder services talking with folks at Red Lake with family and children services there and Red Lake Comprehensive Health Services and also in some of the smaller communities around our area um and so we renamed the project act on Alzheimer's Gawadinong Northland uh to represent that larger area and all the people in it okay so as you expanded your region you began kind of helping to really make sure we're reaching out to the tribes and including that population as well are the actions that were kind of put into or as you went through the plan does it splinter is it different for that for a different section or is it is it why is the actions across the greater region or are they targeted towards certain certain geographical images am i explaining that well okay i think it's so right now a lot of the the things that we do the basics the ten signs those are all really prescriptive so it's the same um same session that you offer whether it's in Red Lake or or in Bemidji or really anywhere else but we're working um to make some of those more culturally relevant for different populations so there's a lot of initiatives not just in the American Indian populations here up north but also with Hispanic communities and um West African communities and African American communities across the state oh okay so you're taking these trainings to people as well as just leaving them open and say come to Bemidji and come you're taking them to people as well right and how frequently are you doing those how how often are you going out we really do them as requested um when we had people trained in the Alzheimer's Association workshops that did include a number of people from Native American elder service providers um and so we've teamed with those folks to you know as part of our action team and the Gawadinon committee which is a subset of of our action team um to offer workshops in Cass Lake um you know as you were saying in Red Lake in a variety of locations that would attract more Native American people and one of the easiest ways to make it more culturally sensitive is to have a Native American person leading the workshop because they can add there are many places to add examples from your own experience and they add you know examples from their experience in their community and that's a big part of of what cultural sensitivity is about um there's also uh there's a really amazing woman um from Cherokee North Carolina and she is a gerontologist um her name is Blight Dr. Blythe Winchester and she has done um some a training webinar for the Minnesota Board on Aging that talks about cultural awareness in caring for people with dementia and she she brings up some connections that uh can apply to Native people all over the United States regarding traumatic experiences connected with boarding schools or adoption um or other things that may have happened in the person's past that may affect their um their progression through dementia and how they react to caregivers who are coming in to help them um so so tell me a little bit about your research in terms of what did you actually look into how did you do it and what happens with it next so the first thing I looked at was what does the community need and I found education which is connected to awareness I'm really connected to stigma so if we're using these words like demented when we describe people or we're saying things like suffering from dementia instead of living with dementia how that then is sort of a barrier to care people don't want to seek care if they're going to be called demented or suffer from dementia and then I with Carol's help found the dementia friends program which is an act on Alzheimer's initiative as well and that's a one-hour information session and I thought how can we use this to change people's attitudes toward dementia and that's what my project was looking at how do we change attitudes toward dementia connected with stigma and barriers to care and all of that so we implemented the dementia friend session and I used a pretest and then offered the dementia friend session and then did a post-test after to see if there was a change in people's attitudes toward dementia and we found out there was that after people participated in a dementia friend session they had more positive attitudes toward people with dementia so is dementia friends different than the 10 steps how does it how are they unique it is dementia friends talks about the warning signs normal signs of aging but it also talks about communication techniques some simple things about what dementia is versus Alzheimer's how are they different also helps people identify five key messages about dementia things like you can have a good quality of life with dementia people are more than just dementia things like that so is this something that's open more to like the wider public versus maybe targeted at a certain like a healthcare providing situation right you can offer it to any anybody we've we've offered it to nursing students it's been offered to middle school age students it can be offered to businesses okay all over oh we did a session at the community center downtown or no not the community senior activity yeah activity center yeah and so then your research obviously is being put toward your degree work but then is it also being shared then within the larger statewide group where they can also see those benefits yeah right so i have we're doing a webinar with there's eight states that are implementing dementia friends initiatives so i have a webinar scheduled it's called dementia friendly usa with them and dementia friends comes from the uk so i from the Alzheimer's society there so i have a webinar scheduled with the people in the uk as well okay interesting so carol with the stage that you're at now at some point does the does the work end do you think it continues into the future or at some point do you reach a point where you're like okay we've kind of we're dementia friendly well there's always more people to educate and in terms of caregiver support and support for people living with dementia we're going to have more people being diagnosed with dementia you know for a long time i don't expect to cure or prevention anytime real soon but more and more like trisha said we're focusing on how can people live well with dementia how do we maximize quality of life for that for the person with dementia and for their caregiver and we really have have found a lot of different ways to work with that and to make it to make a bad disease a little easier well listen ladies i want to thank you for joining us and telling us all about the history in terms of how you've got here and what could possibly be coming next anyone who's watching who might want to learn more either about act on alzheimer's itself or some of the materials that you guys have put together both locally and statewide you can visit the website here on the bottom of the screen i thank you for tuning in tonight and i hope you join us next time thank you


You've got to stick to it, so I'm there for it. I'll bet that thing goes on the 11th or maybe the 11th. Well, and this has been a week, as every night. Have you been out every night? Yeah, and a couple of them, two in a row. 270 or so hands here, one thing. And then it's all good by, thanks for the money. See, we come from another one to there. Can't send it one, it was nice. Yes, very nice. I thought Jack Danforth's prayer was just sweet. I mean, he was so sincere. Well, he wasn't pretty, wasn't he? Mm-hmm. An official British one. A official British. Quite a guy, and a good fellow. How did your thing with Mr. Maras work? Did you just select him, or did he just ask if he could do that? No, I think, no, I think somebody does this. This is the official biography, so it's, right? There's some committee that decides on that. It must be, because I was just told that he was. Put some documents on the Oliver North case, sir. The things we're blocking, the things that duty requires we block. These are things that are national security secrets. Is this a backdoor way to block a trial? No, this is something from the very beginning we knew we would have to do. Would you be at all upset if this prevented the prosecution of Oliver North? We'll all take its course. Mr. President, you've said several months ago that you believe both Colonel North and Admiral Pointextor eventually would be found innocent of any crimes in connection with Iran conflict. Do you still believe that? Well, at this stage, I don't think I should comment on the order innocent for anything of this kind. I think the law has got to take its course. Would you say the law has got to take its course, Mr. President? Are you still opposed to a pardon until the legal process plays out? Yes, from the very beginning. I've said that to consider a pardon would leave, even if I did that, would leave them under a shadow of guilt for the rest of their lives. I think we have to let the judicial process proceed. Thank you. Thank you. Cameras this way, please. Thank you. A minute or so so they can get some nice footage of pictures. Why don't we take about a minute? This is your getaway. You're going to miss this? Are you going to miss this? I don't know what I'm going to miss and what not. It is kind of a bittersweet time, much as I look forward to California and all the things you think you're going to miss and people are going to miss. Well, this sure beats when we were in the governor's office and I used to go out to Kentucky Fried Chicken and spread it all out on the cabinet table. Yes. In fact, I wonder, I think it'll be a little bit nicer than that in the Los Angeles office. We do have a restaurant attached to the building. We have a little mini kitchen in our office, so we can pretty much do a regular lunch for you there. Just know 30 seconds here. I want to appreciate some input from you as to what you see yourself doing as far as we're not planning anything for a few weeks, of course. You get adjusted to your new surroundings and everything, and we're not going to commit anything anyway without. Well, it'd be kind of hard for me to say right now in what book and all, get on the ground first and find out. For this, this time it was just a thank you for all the nice things that you've done for me and for all your wonderful staff, and I hope you enjoyed it and think you've done a lot of good things for the country. Well, thank you very much. I made a few little notes here of some things that you missed and I might not. Good. Like, for example, your great interest and I know of in the Americas and the Caribbean and the work at the constant of the America's society, views and the progress that the United States business is. Delighted to ask the question. I've just come from a meeting of the Caribbean Central Movement in action, which is. I'm going to find a chance to say thank you. Thank you. Jeanette Nichols? Hello there. Another Canadian city. Naomi Zaven. I was a 76th delegate. Virginia. Well, bless you. Thank you. Your original. Denny. Alastair. Ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you. Judy Woods? I'm a 76th delegate, too. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Charles Camelier? Mr. President, I see you. Last time I was here, Mr. Hartley. I've never met you once in a film. Sir? Good to see you. Joe Zantrano? I got your pictures in a little while. Diane Wieschenski? Hello. Our mutual friend, my investment sense is real. Well, I saw him just together. I know you did. I know you did. Well, thank you. Junior McCabe, have a good day. This is wonderful. Thank you. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Molly Fasen? Hello. Hello, Harry. You always keep smiling. Well, thank you very much. Steve Jernigan? Hello, there. Nice to see you. Chesley Pruitt? Hi, how are you? Thank you, sir. Lillian Knowle? Hi. I want to thank you for the privilege of serving my role. Thank you. Thank you for doing it. Millicent Monks? Hello. Thank you for seeing us today. Nice to see you. James Thompson? How do you do, sir? I'm proud to see you. Thank you. Doug Vanerson? Hi. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Nice to see you. Claire Chambers? How do you do, sir? I'm too fast. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. I guess we'll go over here. You got one. I'm going to be quick. Thank you. All right. Let's go sign this. You should have a bag. Hey, ma'am, you can come up right behind. These two, sir. I'm not going to cry. I'm losing my bag. Perfect. OK. Ready for me here? Thanks for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I was a female. I enjoyed it. I got a lot better. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to be here. Thank you. Please get going. All right. All right.  Thank you.  Thank you. Mr. President, I'm going to present you our report. This is a detailed report and I have to say a few words about it. It doesn't seem like seven years that you appointed us to this committee. And we've worked hard and diligently and following your mandate to see that the private sector supports the performing arts with minimum contributions from the government. We wound up raising $1,300,000 for our National Cultural Center. Well, thank you very much. And I want to thank you again for doing that little bit for us. That message that you gave us to support our Hollywood Goes to Hollywood Salutes at any center in California. And for that event, we raised $268,000. So your help all the way through has been very much appreciated. And we want you to know that none of us would have wanted in any other way than to have served you in this way. Well, thank you very much. This will be myself. I will. This will be some of my reading at Camp David. I'll be there before the afternoon is over. But also I just, I do want to thank you. And I'm looking forward to Sunday also when one of the honorees there at the Kennedy Center is going to be George Burns. He's, you know, George now, I think it's 92 and still working and all of that. He can still get good laughs. And I remember somebody when he hit 90, somebody asked him what it was like. And George's answer, I thought was typical of him. He said, well, I get up in the morning, I go down and out on the porch for the paper. He said, I look at the obituaries. And if I'm not there, I go in and have a cup of coffee. We'll miss you also.  We are. And we'll be very happy to welcome you back to California. Yeah. Well, it's kind of a bittersweet period, right? I should imagine. There's a sweet part about getting back to California. If none of you have tried it before, eight years away from California, you are eight years of perpetual homesickness. That's right. Well, I take come up with my own sometimes. Well, thank you. Thank you.


Hello everybody. You're here with dental L. Yes, I do offer a study course for the dental anesthesia assistant exam. A lot of people do ask me about that. I do offer a course, a study guide. If you will, I am going to give you a sneak peek inside that so you can kind of see what is what it is about. This is meant to go along with your full textbook. So this is meant to be used with your textbook as well and not alone because what it has is it has review videos and mock exams to practice with. So let me just show you guys what that looks like.  Oh, I lost it. Sorry guys, one moment. Oh, here it is. Here it is. I found it. So let me just share my screen. This is the link to sign up. I will leave the link for you guys at the bottom. This is kind of a sneak peek inside the types of topics that you are going to have with you, and this was just updated October 1st. Depending on when you're watching the video, it is now October 5th. So this has been updated. We are actually adding new mock exams this week inside the course. So stay tuned. But as you guys can see, so with your dental anesthetic assistant examination, so the main things you have to know are basic sciences. You need to evaluate, prepare, and administer for your patient, for your client, and then medical emergencies. I kind of put all of that together for you to aid in your studying. A lot of students were coming to me asking years ago if I did offer a course on this. I said no, but it's taken me a while to prepare something for you to give you guys a good study base to study from, because it can be very, very hard when you go to take the exam.  So I do offer this for everybody. And there is, as of now, a 92% success rate in students taking this course and passing. You have full access to everything until you do pass. So you could sign up now, take the exam in six months. You have full access. There is always more being added. So here is kind of the things that you are going to be studying for. There are PowerPoints and there are teaching videos as well. There are mock exams all about. If you guys have any questions, please let me know. I am so happy to help. You can email me anytime and I will leave the link for you guys down below if this is something that you want to sign up for. So thank you again. I hope you guys like my Halloween shirt. I'm getting into the season and have a great day. I will talk to everybody very, very soon.


This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson, San Jose, California. The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer.  He started forward to caress the cat, but alarmed she jumped from the table and sped across the room. Come back, come back! he called. I wouldn't hurt a single one of your lovely black hairs. I'll feed you on beer and fish the rest of your life and you'll never have to put in a day's work. What's the matter? said Grisquetter. Green hugged him, then sat down in the chair. Nothing except that that wonderful cat showed me how to activate the equipment. You do so by brushing your hand across this screen. See, I'll bet you do the same when you want to deactivate it. He touched the screen. The whistle sounded again. The metal ball ceased glowing and the screens went dead. Again he touched it and life came back. Nothing to it, but chances are I'd never found out how simple it was. He began sobering up. Down to work. Let's see. The six TV windows showed them the north, east, south, west, above and below. As the island was resting upon solid dirt there was, of course, nothing to see beneath. We'll remedy that, but first I think we'd better see if these screens give expanding and contracting views. He fiddled around with the levers. When he depressed the second one the room jumped. Hastily replacing it in neutral, Green said, well, we know what that one does. I'll bet the people outside think they had a slight earthquake. They've seen nothing yet. Hmm. Here I think is the one I want. He twisted a knob on the right-hand arm. All the TVs began narrowing their field of vision. Reversing the knob, however, made them spread out their view, though the objects in them, of course, became smaller. It took him five minutes more of cautious testing before he felt justified in beginning operations. Then he raised the island off the ground about twenty feet and rocked it back and forth. Lady Luck leaped for his lap and cowered down in it. Gris Quetter bracing himself against the table turned pale. Relax, kid, called Green. As long as you're going along on the ride you might as well enjoy it. Gris Quetter grinned feebly, but when his father told him to stand behind him so he, too, could learn how to operate, he gained color and confidence. When we get to Astoria I may have to leave this chamber and I'll need somebody who can see me through the TVs and answer my signals. You're the candidate. You may be only a kid, but anybody who can calmly talk of slipping a knife through a man's ribs has what it takes. Thank you, breathed Gris Quetter, in all sincerity. Here's what I'll do, said Green. I'll roll this island back and forth until the soldiers are thoroughly panicky and seasick. And the walls around the cave are tumbling down. Then we'll lower to earth again and give the rats a chance to desert the ship. But we're no sinking ship, not us. After everybody that's able has fled to the plains we'll take off at top speed for Astoria. Fascinated, the boy watched the screens and saw the soldiers run off into the early morning light, yelling, their eyes and mouths bulging with horror.  I feel sorry for them, said Green, but somebody's got to get hurt before this is over and I'd rather it wasn't us. He pointed to the scopes, which still indicated the ring of towers. As long as this island was on automatic it couldn't pass those inhibitories, but I've bypassed that with this switch. Now we go ahead, and not over the towers as we could easily do, but through them. I think we've got the weight behind us. There was a slight shock, the rooms trembled. Then the towers before them were gone and they were speeding across the plain. Minute by minute Green increased their rate, until he thought they must be making about a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour. Those dials are probably telling me my speed, he said to Grisquetter, but I can't read their alphabet or numerical system. It doesn't matter. He laughed as he watched rollers wheel hard to port or hard starboard in a frenzy to get out of their way. The rails and rat lines were lined with white faces, like rags of terror fluttering in the breeze of the island's passage. If there were time to send a message, I imagine we'd encounter the whole historian fleet, said Green. What a battle that would be. Rather, what a massacre for this craft is built for eating up whole navies. Father, said Grisquetter, we could be king over the whole world. We could rule the exertimer and take tribute off every roller that sailed.  We're using this for just one purpose, rescuing the Earthman and your mother and sisters. After that, yes? I don't know. He fell into a reverie as the plane beneath raced past, the white sails of the rollers blooming from small patches to great flags then dwindling as swiftly. Finally, rousing from his thoughts, he began to explain a little to the boy. You see, many thousands of years ago there was a great civilization that had many machines that would seem to you even more magical than this one. They traveled to the stars and there found worlds much like this one, and they put colonies upon them. They had swift skips that could jump across the vast abyss between these worlds and so keep in fairly close touch. But something happened, some catastrophe. I can't imagine what it could be, but it must have happened. While it would be interesting to know the cause, all we can know is the effect. Travel ceased, and as time went by the colonies, which were probably rather small to begin with, lost their civilization. The colonies must have been rather dependent upon supply shipped to them, and they must have had a limited number of highly trained scientists and specialists among them. Anyway, whatever the reason, they lapsed into savagery. And it was not until ages had passed that some of these colonies, utterly without memory of their glorious heritage, except perhaps disguised in myth and legend, attained to high technology again. Others stayed in savagery. Some, like your world, Grisquetter, are in the transition stage. Your culture is roughly analogous to the ones that existed on Earth between a hundred AD and a thousand AD. Those dates mean nothing to you, I know, but let me assure you that we present-day terrestrials regard those times as being, well, rather hazardous and unreasonable in their conduct. I only half understand you, replied the boy. But didn't you say that nothing of the wisdom of the ancients survived on your planet? Well, why had it done so on ours? These islands must be the work of the old ones. Correct, and that's not all. So is the Exerdimer itself. What? Yes, it's obvious to me that this planet must once have been a tremendous clearing-house and landing-field for spacecraft. Those planes couldn't be natural. They must have been leveled out by machinery. A laboratory-born grass was planet that had all the characteristics needed to hold the soil together and keep erosion away. Plus the fact that the islands themselves were, you might say, caretakers, and kept the whole field spruced up.  Ten thousand miles across. The mind boggles before the thought. They must have done things on a big scale then, which makes it all the more difficult to figure out how they could have come to ruin. Will we ever know what force wrecked them? Gris Quetter, of course, had even less of an answer than Green. Both were silent for a while. Then they cried out simultaneously when the pointed tips of the white towers surrounding Astoria glittered upon the horizon. One of the screens began flashing a series of cone shapes that indicated the towers. If the island were still on automatic, it would be forced to go around the entire nation, said Green. But I'm running it now, and we're paying no attention to those towers. Knock them down! That's just what I intend to do, but not right now. Let's see, wonder how high we can go. Only one way to find out. Up, see Daisy! He pulled back the lever and the island began rising, though still maintaining its horizontal attitude. The ancients, like us moderns, knew how to build anti-gravity machines, and they also must have kept building their spaceships in the conventional rocket form long after there was any need for it. Perhaps, though, they did so in order for the islands to have a more definite radar image. Maybe, no one really knows. He spoke to himself, meanwhile glancing at the screen which showed him the plains and the city of Astoria beneath, ever dwindling as their height increased. Do me a favor, Grisquitter. Run out to the cave's mouth and tell me if those walls have fallen over, and on your way back close the door to this room. It's going to get colder very quickly, and the air will be thin. But I imagine that this room is equipped with automatic heat and oxygen. If it isn't, I want to find out now. The boy began running back.  I wriggled through without any trouble. I think you can squeeze through. Green felt a little sick. That possibility had not occurred to him. It would have been ironic if the statue had completely blocked the entrance and he'd had to stay inside until he starved to death. The Astorians, of course, would have considered his death a case of poetical justice. No, he wouldn't have died either. He'd just have gone back to the controls and rolled the island over on one side until the statue's head came loose.  He sweated at the thought and glanced fondly at the black cat. He wasn't superstitious, not at all, but it seemed to him that his luck had been better since she'd adopted him. Of course that wasn't the scientific attitude to take. Nevertheless he felt comforted just knowing she was around. By now the whole nation of Astoria could be encompassed in one glance, and the sky was getting darker. We're high enough—he stopped the island. If anybody didn't get off he must be dead by now, the air's so thin. And I was right. We do have automatic heat and air providers. Very comfortable in here. I only wish we had something to eat. Why not lower us to the height where I can go out and find food in the garrison's kitchens? said Grisquetter. Nobody'll be alive to stop me. Green thought that was an excellent suggestion. He was very hungry, for he always had to eat for two, himself and the vigilante. If the symbiote within his body provided him with more than normal strength and powers it also demanded fuel on which to operate. And, deprived of food, it would survive by living on Green's tissue. A vigilante wasn't all advantage, it had its dangers. He lowered the island to about two thousand feet, set the controls on neutral, then decided that it would be safe to go out with the boy. Just as he got to the door, however, he began feeling uneasy and wondering what he would do if somehow the door closed and he couldn't get it open again. That would be a fine situation to be stuck two thousand feet in the air and no parachute. Perhaps he was silly, absurdly apprehensive, but he wasn't going to take any more chances. Grinning sheepishly, he told the boy to go on by himself. He decided to study the controls more closely and think out his strategy in finer detail. When Grisquetter returned with a basket loaded with food and wine, Green swore at himself for his moment's weakness, then forgot it. After all, discretion was the better part and all that, and he was only playing it smart. Greedily he devoured the food and drank half a bottle of wine, knowing the vigilante would use alcohol before food and that little of it would remain in his bloodstream before being consumed. Between bites, he told Grisquetter what he planned. We'll descend as soon as we're finished eating. I'll write a note and you'll drop it over the side upon the steps of the palace. The note will inform the king he'd better release his prisoners unharmed just outside the windbreak. There we may easily pick them up and then take off like the proverbial big bird. If he refuses, we will proceed to lower the island upon the temple of the fish goddess, crushing it and her jewel-encrusted golden idol. If he still isn't convinced, then we'll smash the palace, not to mention toppling over the entire ring of towers around the country. Of course, before we drop the note, we'll knock over a few anyway, just to show him we're not bluffing. Grisquetter's eyes shone. Can the island crush a big building? Yes, though I think there's a possibility we could as easily disintegrate it. I've wondered how the island cut the grass and can only conclude that it must use a device similar to one we have on earth. It cuts through objects by breaking up the atomic structure with a beam that is only a molecule thick. When on grass-cutting duty, the island must emit such a beam and only beneath its base. Of course it must have other machines, too, for cleaning up wreckage and debris and other stuff that its memory banks tell it has no business being on the field, but I don't know how to operate these. Grisquetter looked reproachfully at Green. Well, I don't know everything. I'm not Superman, am I? The boy did not reply, but his expression conveyed the idea that he had thought his foster-father was just that. Green shrugged his shoulders and sent the boy out to get paper, pen, and inked from the garrison. By the time the boy returned, Green had lowered the island to about fifty feet above the palace. He hastily wrote a note, put it in the basket which had a cover that could be snapped shut, and told Grisquetter to throw it over the side, aiming at the steps. I know you're going to be worn out with all this running back and forth, he said, but you can do it, you're big and strong. Sure I am, said the boy, chest expanded, he dashed from the room, almost tripped going through the door, recovered, and disappeared. Green began to watch the crowds that had gathered below. Presently he saw the basket hurtle toward a group of priests upon the great stairway. His grin broadened when the group disintegrated in panic, and several of them lost their footing and rolled down the steps. He waited until one of them got enough courage to return and open the basket. Then he lowered the island another twenty feet. At the same time he saw a cannon being hauled into the square before the palace, and its nose being raised so that it could fire upon him. Have to give the beggars credit for guts, he murmured, or for sheer folly, I don't know which. Well, fire away, friends. They didn't, because a priest came running to stop them. Evidently his note, though written in wingrow, had been translated swiftly enough and the historians were taking no hasty action. While we're waiting for them to make up their minds, we'll give them a taste of the feast they can expect if they aren't reasonable, Green said. He then proceeded to push over about twenty towers just outside the windbreak. It was great fun, and he'd have loved to knock down a hundred or so more, but he was too anxious to find out about Amra and the Earthman. He returned to his former vigil above the palace steps. Impatiently he waited for ten minutes, that seemed like ten hours. Finally, when he could bear it no longer, he growled, I'm going to squat on the roof of the temple and make them hurry up. Do they think this is a diplomatic conference or something that they can dilly-dally about like this? No, Father, said Grisquetter, there they come. Mother and Paxi and Soon and Inzaks. And a strange man. He must be the demon.   Even from this height I can see he looks bad. Look how he has to be supported between two soldiers. Amra and the others, he was happy to note, seemed to be unharmed. Nevertheless he was anxious about them during their ride through the city streets and out to the windbreak. The historians might have plans for a sudden attack, though he didn't see how they could expect to surprise him, since from his vantage point he would notice any concentration of troops immediately.  Neither of these possibilities happened. The prisoners were released outside the fallen towers and the soldiers retreated into the city. Grisquetter left the control room to guide them onto the island. In fifteen minutes he ran back. Here they are, Father! Saved! Now get off the ground before the historians change their minds. We're going back, replied Green, looking in vain for the others and then deciding that the boy had outstripped them in his haste to report. He shoved the lever forward and the ship, he was beginning to think of the island as a ship, soared toward the cone of the spacecraft, which he could see glittering in the sun inside its wall near the palace. When Amra and the girls ran into the chamber and wished to throw their arms around him, he told them he'd be very glad to give each a big warm kiss later on. Right now he had work to do. Amra's smile was replaced by a frown. Do you mean you're still thinking of leaving on the demon's ship? She said harshly. That depends on certain factors about which I don't have enough information as yet to act on, he replied somewhat stiffly. The earthman limped in. He was a tall, broad-shouldered but emaciated man. His bushy beard made his long, lean, big-eared, hawk-nosed face resembled Lincoln's. Captain Walzer of the terrestrial interstellar fleet. Intelligence, he said, weakly. Alan Green, marine food specialist. I have a long story to tell and no time to tell it. I would like to know if you can pilot that spacer and if it's an operating condition. Otherwise we might as well forget it and go elsewhere. Yes, I'm the pilot. Hassan was the navigator and communications officer. Poor devil. He died in agony. Those beasts. I know how you feel but we've got no time to go into that. Is the ship ready to take off? Walzer sat down and leaned his head wearily to one side. Gris Quetter offered him wine and he took two long swallows and smacked his lips before replying. Ah, that's the first drink I've had for two years. Yes, the bird's ready to take off at a moment's notice. We'd been on a mission whose purpose I can't tell you. Security, you know. We were returning when we encountered this system. Since it's part of our duty to report any T-type planet if we've time, we decided to stop off and stretch our legs. We'd been in space so long we were beginning to suffer from claustrophobia and were ready to fly at each other's throats. You know how it is if you've made any very long voyages. And those scouts have especially cramped quarters. They're not made for long trips but the nature of our mission required the use of one. Well, we won't go into that. Anyway, we were wild to breathe fresh air again, to see a horizon, to feel grass beneath our bare feet, to go swimming, to eat freshly killed meat and freshly picked fruit. We rationalized ourselves into the idea that it was our duty to land. We decided on this city because it was so conspicuous, stuck out here in the middle of this incredible plain. And, of course, when we got close enough to see that it seemed to be surrounded by a ring of spaceships, we had to enter the city itself and inquire about this phenomenon. We were greeted friendly enough, lulled into being off guard, then attacked. The rest of the story, you know. Green nodded and said, Here we are, just above the ship. He rose from the chair and faced the group. But before we take any further steps, I think we ought to thrash out something right now that has been bothering Amra and me. Tell me, Walzer, is there enough room for Amra, Poxy, Soon, Gris Quetter and myself, and perhaps for Inzaks if she wants to come along? Walzer's eyes widened. No, man, absolutely not. There's barely space for you, let alone anybody else. Green held out his hands to Amra. You see, I was afraid of this all the time. I'll have to go without you. He paused, swallowed, then said, But I'll return. I swear I will. I'll get the interstellar archeology bureau interested in this planet. When I tell them of the exertimer, of the rocket-shaped towers, of the islands with their anti-gravity machines, they'll not hesitate a moment in organizing an expedition. The chance of solving the mystery of how man's spread all over the galaxy in prehistoric times will be too strong for them, and I'll come back with them. I'll make this planet my life work. I have a PhD in Ictheology, and I can get accredited as a scientific member of the expedition. There's no doubt about it. Amra fell into his arms, weeping, crying that she'd known all the time that he couldn't leave her. Then, in the next breath, she was swearing that he was just promising to return so he would avoid a scene. I know men well, Ellen Green, and I know you especially. You won't come back. Yes, I will. I swear it.  She smiled through her tears and said, that's what I wanted to hear you say. But, oh, Ellen, it'll be so long. Won't it take at least two years? Yes, at least. But it can't be helped. I'll worry about you when I'm gone. Or I would if I didn't know how capable you were. I can learn how to run this island, she said, half sobbing, half smiling. By the time you get back, I'll probably be queen of the Exertimer. I could contact the Vings, and together we could have the whole plain and every city along its border under our thumbs, and he laughed and said, that was what I was afraid of. Turning to Walzer he said, look, you're too weak to consider another long trip immediately. Why don't you just follow this island in your ship until we get to a safe distance from here, say about a thousand miles due north? We'll live on the island until you get your strength back and get over your claustrophobia. I imagine it wasn't helped any by being cooped up in that dungeon. When you're ready we'll take off. In the meantime I can be showing Amra and Grisquetter just what can be done with the island. She can live on it while I'm gone. We'll trap wildlife to replace the animals that were strangled when I went up too high for them to breathe. She can shuttle back and forth over the Exertimer, or over the whole planet if she wishes. And she will, I hope, get out of Mischief until I get back. That's fine, said Walzer. I'll get in the ship and follow you. Three weeks later the two earthmen boarded the scout and closed the port behind them, the port that would not open again until they were on earth, some four months' subjective time away. They sat down in the control cabin and Walzer began pushing buttons and throwing switches. Green wiped the sweat from his brow, the tears from his eyes and said, Phew! A fine woman, said Walzer sympathetically. A rare beauty. She has a tremendous impact upon one. Something like crashing into a planet head-on, said Green. She has the faculty of ringing out every last bit of energy left in the particular emotion she happens to be feeling at the moment. A great actress who believes in her roles. Her children are fine children, too, Walzer added, slowly and as if he were about to say something that might hurt Green's feelings but was anxious not to do so. You will be glad to see them again, of course? Of course! After all, Paxie's my daughter. I'd love the others if they were also mine. Ah, breathed Walzer. Then you are going back to her. Green didn't express surprise or anger because he had guessed from Walzer's actions just what he was thinking. You can't imagine my wanting to live on that barbaric planet with that woman, can you? he said evenly. That after all, there are serious gaps in our ways of thinking, in our behavior, in our education. Isn't that what you meant by your statement? Walzer glanced out of the corners of his eyes at Green, then replied, warily, Well, yes. But you know what you want far better than I do. He paused, then added, I must say, I admire your courage. Green shrugged. After all I've been through, I'm not afraid to take one more chance. The End of The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer This recording is in the public domain.


with this month's morning basket I'm taking child blood learning to a whole new level I decided to kick off summer I would let Emily pick our entire June morning basket she chose the theme she chose the items inside you guys are definitely gonna see games or her love language and she is even going to be filming the video without further ado here is her marvelously super morning basket hi welcome to the water gray my name is Emily and today's video is going to be our June morning basket because I wanted a mostly super summer our morning basket will be for Mad Libs we have Marvel Avengers Mad Libs for trivial we have Marvel ultimate quiz book argue a Marvel expert we have who was Stanley next we have Marvel studio character and psychopedia next we have five-minute Marvel stories for hands-on activities we have us born right and draw your own comics best Marvel look and find Marvel jumbo coloring and activity book jumbo coloring and sticker sticker activity book Marvel studios ultimate sticker collection more than 1000 stickers next we have Marvel Avengers Perler beads kit we have top drum who's your hero Marvel Marvel Avengers Uno Marvel Marvel Luxe car game pick Tobias Marvel five-minute Marvel and to ensure that you two have a marvelously super summer we have decided that we are going to give away five copies of our who was Stanley unit study all you have to do to enter to win is like this video and leave a comment down below