Imagine this:

• Traveling to Housatonic, Massachusetts, to visit the Wall of America and participating in activities there
• Traveling elsewhere to engage in activities and taking actions related to the Wall of America
• Building activities online that are accessed by clicking hot spots on the online image of the Wall of America
• Creating other "walls" that draw in local "people to celebrate" in America
• Creating other "walls" that represent the people and images of others around the world
• Building actions and activities through the EEV that break down walls to join people in America and around the world in learning, collaborative activities, conversations
• The richness, beauty, and depth of Ellen Griesedieck's creation will be the stimulus and the soul of what plays out.

Past events and conferences:

On July 9 we held our first WOA/EEV event. Ellen presented at Camp 2002 [see note below] and all in attendance dreamed of the possibilities in WOA/EEV activities in the future. Ellen’s presentation was powerful, humorous, and totally engaging. We hope to capture some of that event on this site. One person has the video at this moment; another has the audio. We hope to edit and package some of it here soon. Beginning on July 12, we started up an online discussion board for those people who were with us on the 9th which remained open until July 30. More than 100 messages fill that discussion with rich and meaningful ideas. As it was a conference following Camp, some of the conversation refers to the camp experience, but those who participated in it are comfortable with you reading what they said. In addition, we have a synthesis of some of the ideas mentioned in the Conference which are available for you, too. To read the synthesis, click here. To see the entire conference, click here. We ended the conference at the end of July.

On September 12 we held a kick-off with Ellen for 100 guests who were teachers and community members. Again, we will have images to share with you from that event.

On October 14, we hired a bus and traveled to Ellen’s home and studio in Sharon, CT and then to the mill in Housatonic. It was an extraordinary experience for the 35 people who attended. Here we are in Ellen’s studio.

Find out about Ellen’s work in the following way:

Read “About the Wall” off the Wall of America link and look at the “Study Explained.” Click here for the description and then at the bottom of that page, click on the “Study Explained.”.

Work your way through the “Images” area on this site. Glimpse Ellen working and images of Ellen’s work already begun. We will eventually put “voice overs” on many of the images to explain what they are and their context in the whole of the work. Ellen is working on those with us now.

Check out “Planning.” We will soon announce the wall of gifts, to begin for all in January 2003 for children and adults around the country. We will have the directions for submissions of someone any individual would like to celebrate. We started a pilot of this project in Fall 2002. Please take a look at it so far at http://eev.liu.edu/wallgifts/

For further information on EEV plans for the Wall of America, please contact Blanca Bowman at blancab@optonline.net.

Note: Camp is a weeklong experience on the Southampton Campus of Long Island University. The Department of Educational Technology from the C.W. Post Campus relocates for that week, in residence, in a program usually focused on the creation of multimedia websites to represent culture and community in the EEV. Constructivist learning environments are created throughout. One day is a day for guest presentations and building toward the coming year. Ellen was one of the guest presenters in 2002 at Camp.