Week 4 - Response 2

ORIGINAL POST: Brett Wilson

Wk 4: Reading - The Art of Possibility

I must admit that the lighting of the spark was a step up to responsibility for me. Zander could not have painted a greater picture than when he shared some history from the Middle Ages. People, during this time, would often carry a metal box with a small flame so that if they needed a fire they wouldn’t have to go through the laborious process every time. The beauty of this is that individuals would willingly and easily share their spark with others so they could find their way. This selfless, passion-filled kind of living is alert to others and is willing to partner with them. Zander writes, “It is about playing together as partners in a field of light.” What a beautiful image!

Passion and possibility are contagious. It seems that the reverse is also true (negativity and apathy) and many times dominates our living. We must remember though that it is not about us, but about others and that we have a lot to offer others. We are gifted. We are talented. We have a spark to share. We must live to pursue passion and dismiss fear and encourage others to do the same. What a challenge for all of us!

MY RESPONSE:

The idea of sharing your own spark with others is pretty cool. I loved how the authors were able to paint such vivid pictures of the stories they told and give real solutions and suggestions for the difficult situations they encountered. While it was hard for me to get into this book during the first two chapters, I definitely feel like my mind was opened during the last ten. To have a mindset that we ARE talented and have something to share really makes you look at situations differently. I come across more and more teachings about that as I study the Bible and I hope to remember those things when difficult or unknown situations arise.

Week 4 - Response 1

ORIGINAL POST: Leland Kreigh

I loved this book. In fact, I purchased the audio version so that I could hear the authors tell the story. The final chapters continued the theme of the book. The most important theme of this book was to get rid of your ego. By doing so, we are able to overcome our selfishness and calculating selves. When we open ourselves to the world, we are able to see how wonderful it can be.

Every chapter, every story from this book could have been read from the pulpit at my Episcopalian church. They could have also been spoken by a Buddhist monk. The authors are Jewish. The ideas the authors outlined core ideas that almost all world religions strive to promote. It is the human experience versus reptilian tendencies. What is great about this book is that we often feel off balance and upset. We don't always have ideas on how to change things. This book gives a fine illustration.

I love the idea of defining yourself as the board. This opens one up to seeing how we all interact. I know we can play the roles of victim, prosecutor, fixer, etc. By defining ourselves as the board, we open ourselves up to seeing a much bigger picture and how we interact. As curious beings, we love possibility. Unfortunately, our ego and/or our role as a player blinds us from seeing possibility when we inevitably encounter another human being.

MY RESPONSE:

Very insightful comments. I, too, agree that many of the ideas here could have been read from various religious agencies around the globe. While there are some obvious differences, we all seem to share the same ideas of how to live with decency towards each other.

Using this book's ideas as a way to help us find balance in our oft-unbalanced lives is also some great insight. I took a lot from the readings for that purpose alone. The illustrations were by far the most powerful to me and showed real, tangible ways for me to handle difficult situations differently.

I hope to be able to look at situations slightly different now after reading from this book and believe I already am.

Week 4 - Reading: New Ideas

I am truly amazed at the gift of working with people that Benjamin Zander has. His story in chapter nine was amazing. Knowing how tough students can be on performances, especially classical music concerts it’s truly a testament to his ability to engage a crowd, no matter who they are comprised of. I must say that I was inspired by this chapter to really try to create a spark in my classroom next year with the endless possibilities of learning.

I appreciated the apology story about Cora the violinist. I think it was a great reminder of many of the other points in the book but most importantly to remain humble, appreciative, and understanding of other people’s situations and circumstances before forming an opinion or casting any form of judgment.

The story about the teenage orchestra in Sao Paolo was just great. I can recall chaperoning situations that I had challenging students and issues and also recall responding to them aggressively early in my career. However, I learned that dealing with the person and the cause for the action is much more effective and sensitive. I really liked this story because it gave me another great strategy for overcoming those challenging chaperoning situations.

(image from: Ken's Oven, "Gift Box", March 26, 2009, Creative Commons License)

Week 4 - Publishing_Leadership Project

I've chosen to copy and paste my final publication into Google Docs to allow for comments and suggestions right in the document. A note is left on right margin of the document as a reminder for how to leave comments. Here is the link for my final publication: https://docs.google.com/document/d/184jUimewF4xdDtkSOZUdCbp2PNFgc6i9WUWgn3nzw00/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CJ2ntrQI#

The link for my two think-alouds are as follows:

http://briankatiethomas.blogspot.com/2011/05/week-3-my-choice-blog-post.html

http://briankatiethomas.blogspot.com/2011/05/week-2-ar-presentation-choice.html

Looking ahead, I noticed that we are supposed to hear back from the publications before we finish month 12 so I'm going to start looking for more publications to submit to. As of now, my first choice is Ministry Today, but I've also found a couple other places that would be relevant. Youth Ministry magazine would be a great option for publication as it would reach a target audience that is most closely related to my research. I'll also probably submit to The Christian Journal but it seems that their articles need to be related to the monthly topic so it may not work out there. Now that my publication is drafted out, I'm going to keep looking for more options and try to get some submissions sent out early as I will have to finish my month 12 class a week early due to a mission trip I'm taking with our church youth group to El Salvador.

Week 3 - Response 2

ORIGINAL POST: Bruce Neubauer

I learned many years ago there is a great difference between disloyalty and disagreement. Reading the description of the conductor’s relationship to the musicians brought this lesson back to me again. It reminded me of a situation I was in many years ago.

I was on staff in a fairly large organization. The owner believed he was always right, regardless of how many poorly rendered decisions he made or how bad the consequences were from those decisions. He was convinced no one was as wise as he. The most tragic part of the story was that providence, fate, (or what have you), brought together the most talented staff I’ve ever been part of. These seven people were all passionate, all gifted, all creative, and all quite brilliant. But instead of seeing this group as the powerhouse of intelligent creativity and problem-solving that it was, the owner was threatened by it. If one of us contradicted or questioned one of his schemes, his response would be negative and personal. No one questioned he was a true visionary. He had an eye for outstanding ideas. He was brilliant, but lacked execution skills. All of us bought into this vision. So when we addressed looming decision or dissected a new program, we spoke from a unity with, and care for, that vision. But he confused disagreement with disloyalty. He disempowered the people he hired to bring his vision to life.

Not one of those people remain in that organization today. All are scattered, working in different fields or other organizations. All reached a moment when they had to make a decision: Do I remain in a state of constant disempowerment, where my creative and intellectual dignity are constantly diminished, or do I pack up my skills and look elsewhere? And slowly, over time, this owner lost a very talented group of people. Every single one of them. To this day, whenever life causes any of our paths to cross, we mourn the time when great potential was squandered away by a brilliant man’s insecurities.

There is a world of difference between disloyalty and disagreement.

I completely agreed with the idea of Rule Number 6 and the “calculating self”. In particular, I liked the quote, ”A child comes to think of himself as the personality he gets recognition for or, in other words, as the set of patterns of action and habits of thought that get him out of childhood in one piece. That set, raised to adulthood, is what we call the calculating self. The prolonged nature of human childhood may contribute to the persistence of these habits long after their usefulness has passed.”

This can mutate into a constant need to “displace others”. At our school we have a junior class that is captured by their “calculating selves” that they will do everything and anything to outdistance one another in their class rank. No amount of counsel seems able to redirect these efforts. It is clearly out of control, almost reaching a state of obsession.

I am going to teach them about Rule Number 6.

Completely agreed with the idea of the half empty, half full discussion. The optimist is measuring what is actually there, the negative person is only measuring their perception. As a matter of fact I used this in class today.

But this is also what drives me crazy about this book. On one hand he tells me to trust a new, very individualized, very subjective view (what is in my head), but then switches around and tells me I must pay attention to the objective amount of water in the glass (what is actually there). Which keeps the book feeling like a remix of Stephen Covey and semi-religious cosmic New Age idealism. Which means he waivers back and forth between being a pure naturalist and being a wishful spiritualist. You can’t have it both ways (just ask Dawkins and Hitchens). Still, I’m reminded of an Asian proverb, “Be where you are at.” So the overall message is fairly legitimate.

The discussion of evil and struggle was intriguing. “Good” and “bad” are only imposed perceptions? (C’mon, we all know better than that). But there is great life (and art) in pain, strain, and struggle. This is why I liked Stravinsky’s quote, “I don’t want the sound of someone playing this passage, I want the sound of someone trying to play it!” I also liked the conversation diagrams of the two starting points: “what is” and “what should be”. Simple. Elegant. I’ll be using those in class.

In the end, I’m not sure how comparisons with the creative arts helps a salesman caught in the daily grind of their routine. Creative people (painters, musicians, writers) who get to use their creativity for a living (even if they’re offended at conductor) don’t struggle with wishing they had been something else. Can you imagine a paid musician saying to themselves, “Boy, I wish I could have worked in a cubicle for an insurance company instead of doing this orchestra gig.” These metaphors and analogies work perfectly for a creative, but for the average guy stuck in a grinding occupation? I don’t know. The application seems a hard sell to me.

MY RESPONSE:

Wow, what a powerful story! You truly brought to life the distinction between disagreement and disloyalty in a way that I hadn't heard of before. That's very unfortunate that this individual wasn't able to take criticism and ideas for the betterment of his own vision.

I, too, agree that Rule Number 6 is something to be emphasized with high school students as they start to get too into themselves and their competitive nature and desire to be the best at the expense of everything. With age comes wisdom though I suppose - I've realized now that it's ok to be good (and not the best) if I'm able to enjoy the experience and bring joy to those around me rather than being the best at the expense of all that's important to me.

Week 3 - Response 1

ORIGINAL POST: Dennis Woodward

"I'd like to start off by saying that this book should be part of any teacher education program. Not that the content is limited to teachers only, but the book is excellent in letting you know that not everything we do is worth getting all worked up.

Zander explains "Rule #6" as a depiction of a story he tells when he is trying to take a lighter look at the current situation. The story goes like this:

Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: “Peter,” he says, “kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by a hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?” “Very simple,” replies the resident prime minister. “Rule Number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so seriously.’” “Ah,” says his visitor, “that is a fine rule.” After a moment of pondering, he inquires, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?”

“There aren’t any.”

Humor is one of the few things that can cheer up a person or break the ice when tension is high. Having read most of the "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" books years ago, I have learned to adopt this mantra as well as the Rule #6 to my daily life.

While I am a serious worker, I do feel that serious work can be completed and even enhanced if some humor is interjected periodically. Fun is contagious and when the brain is happy, good things happen.

The light hearted stories that Zanders used as examples complemented the concept of Rule #6 while I was able to relate to several of the scenarios in my personal life. Sometimes in our self-centered thinking we forget that our experiences, dilemmas, and decisions are not unique to us."

MY RESPONSE:

I like the laid-back nature of the text as well and agree that much more of what we do needs to be taken lightly. I also agree with your stance on humor. This is my number one way of building relationships with my students and it has helped me to grow closer with them throughout my career. It also helps break down barriers and teaches students that they, too, can take themselves lightly and enjoy life. It is all too true that our experiences are often shared by others and to remember that is to help us better relate to them.

Week 3 - Publishing_Leadership Project Part 2 of 2: Where to Publish

After reviewing a number of different Christian magazines, I think the best fit for my research is the magazine called Ministry Today. I think it will probably be a real challenge to get it in as they seem to have some pretty strict guidelines but I feel like the data could be very valuable for the audience of that particular magazine. At this point, I need to start refining my data and results to get it under 2500 words (which is the restriction for the publication). Time to get busy!

(image by: Rodrigo Galindez, "Magazines", May 25, 2010, Creative Commons License)

Week 3 - Reading Post: Observations...

What I’ve observed from the readings this week (especially from Chapter 6) is that many of Ben’s philosophies about putting others first and living your life in a positive way have been in the Bible for thousands of years. The problem is, most people (including me) have not been so good about reading these principles and applying them to our lives. I believe that if we all spent more time reading and applying THAT guidebook that we would be able to show much more love and genuine concern for each other.

That aside, I particularly liked the discussions in the book on opening up your thinking to possibilities and using the word “and” instead of “but” to describe our current situation. I think it’s this type of positive thinking that can really help make or break your day and your outlook on your current situation. I also liked the discussion of leading from any chair. I think this idea is especially important to share with a classroom of students that might have confidence issues (which, for most teens, is almost a given). To understand that your contributions are valued no matter what your role is, is a very important concept to get across to a class and I appreciated the authors insights and stories about this idea.

(image by: Jacob Botter, "Thinking RFID", Jan 17, 2009, Creative Commons License)

Week 2 - Publishing/Leadership project part 1 of 2: - AR Presentation Choice

According to one of the MAC videos, we were to declare our presentation style for our Action Research Project so here it is: I've decided to aim for a paper as my presentation choice. My ultimate goal is to present this in front of the pastors and youth leaders at the church but I don't know that I want to do it formally so having a research paper is probably going to be a better way to go. In their eyes it might give me more credibility as well, so, there you have it. We'll see how it goes!

(picture by mortsan, "Papers", Feb 9, 2011, Creative Commons Attribution)

Week 2 - Response 2

ORIGINAL POST – TOM TURNER:

These legos to the right of here sum up what I conceptualize what our reading is about for this week. For many, myself included, this pile of legos present an enormous road block in the creative process. Ask someone like myself what they see in this picture and the response is easy, "A pile of legos". We'll get back to what the other creative minded people will respond with here in a little while.

This week's reading consisted of Chapters 1 - 4 of "The Art of Possibility". I'm a very avid reader, and will enjoy reading this summer once we are done with this EMDT program. I've so missed sitting out in the pool with a book. One tool that I like to use when I read is to imagine someone else's voice as I'm reading particular areas of text. For some reason when I was reading the other night the only voice I had going through my head was that of Dr. Siegel. One of the takeaways for the Gaming Strategies and Motivation (GSM) course 2 months ago was to always imagine the unimaginable and then to make it possible. This is mostly because gaming strategies for education is one of those taboos that mainstream educators and administrators don't want to talk about, think about or dream about. In my mind this is what Chapter 1 was all about. For example, the Zander and Zander shared on page 15 the following:

"What might I now invent, That I have not yet invented, That would give me other choices?"

In my head this SCREAMS Dr. Dan! The entire month of GSM revolved around finding limitless opportunities for our students to create and invent and explore worlds and realms that are not possible to visit in the traditional classrooms.

I was also very intrigued with the third chapter, "Giving an A". I very much enjoyed reading how the instructor of the music class attempted to get the best out of students. In the past I would start off the each marking period with the same statements. That right now EVERYONE has an A in my class. After reading this chapter I can see how I would amend that and utilize a similar method. Zander and Zander believed that giving an A to students would lead to students to take risks that they normally would not take. All with the hopes of after reflecting upon positives and negatives that the creative processes will be unimpeded thereby letting innovation take place (p. 34).

The great thing about this philosophy to learning is that it breaks down the barriers to learning between student and instructor. This frees up students to be as creative as they can be and for teachers to maintain a facilitative role (Zander & Zander, p, 36).

Now, back to that pile of legos above. If that pile was placed in front of student in an environment where they are not given the freedom to take chances would it be possible to end up putting together a design such as the Millenium Falcon? I am highly doubtful that students would be willing, or wanting, to put the effort needed to create something as elaborate as the falcon (or a building tower, car, etc) where they didn't feel their teacher was supportive to their learning and risk taking.

MY REPONSE:

Tom, your post definitely helped me gather more from the reading than I had previously. Your explanation of the quote you chose from p.15 of the text opened my eyes to more possibilities from that part of the reading.

I too am intrigued by the idea of “giving everyone an A” but I honestly wonder how it would work with at-risk low motivated freshman and sophomores. I wonder if they would choose to skip because the class “didn’t matter” or would choose to not do any homework for the same reason? I’ve thought a lot about this possibility and how it would work at a school I’ll be interviewing for on Monday and Tuesday (physics/physical science and engineering/physical science) positions. The school population has VERY diverse learners with diverse abilities. My entire educational philosophy is based on building relationships with students and I feel this is a must for students to buy-in to this idea but it’s definitely something I will think more about if I’m asked to work at this school.

Week 2 - Response 1

ORIGINAL POST – Josh Tolar:

I keep thinking about the current situation about my job and how it happened so fast. While I was hastily updating my resume to look for a new job to cure my unhappiness with my current one, an opportunity came out from no where and basically slapped me in the face. I’m now in a new position with the same company, but I don’t know for how long. I have this hidden fear that one day this position will be over and I will have to go back where I used to work and fall into an unhappy lifestyle again where my expertise is nothing but a title on a sheet of paper. It is here that I have enclosed myself into a box and never stopped to think about the opportunity I have right now and how it might actually affect my future; An opportunity to seize the moment.

By reading the first 4 chapters of “Art of Possibility”, I realized the potentials I have as well as the weaknesses I have had and still have. When thinking about giving an A to someone, it somehow calms my nerves from expecting too much and allows me to focus on how to contribute to someone else’s life or a project. This IS a realization, but NOT THE END of realizations. While giving an A to someone might make it easier for two people to work together in a more harmonious fashion, there is still the realization of giving yourself an A. For so many years I have been controlled by a never-ending urge to please everyone. It has caused me to go above and beyond to the extent that my body shuts down and causes many problems like stress or an occasional illness. This is from my past of always having to live up to an A or suffer the consequences or living up to the expectations of a parent and it never stopped. It never stopped because I never allowed it to stop. I have always given in to the persistent calculations and measurements in my head. I have always been afraid that if I don’t do the best possible work then I would fail or cause someone to feel disappointed. I have always been in the realm of self-doubt despite of what others say. This is just like what Ben Zander was describing about his students and how giving an A would open up the possibilities of being creative and not focusing on the measurements in their head. If I give myself an A first, then I feel I can start handing out A’s to other people and I can then start a successful domino effect of contribution.

Life is constantly changing and the past year at Full Sail has not only given me strength and trust in myself, but has shown me that when you work with others and recognize their contributions as well as your own, amazing things start to happen. I have always been told, “If you put your mind to it, anything can happen”. This is so true in so many ways, but you have to first realize that if you give in to self-doubt and the measurements that we are so conditioned with, you start to focus on the negative instead of the positive. You become enclosed in a box. I think that by realizing our contributions and the contributions of other people, we can start to open the lid of the box and slowly come out.

MY RESPONSE:

Josh, your post was really deep. It seems like your life really opened up as a result of the reading, which is really quite powerful. I feel like I have a better idea of who you are and where you’ve come from after reading this post and also understand more about where your drive to perfection comes from. As you insinuated, perfection comes with a cost and sometimes that cost is health or stress. I suffer too from perfectionism but recently have been able to allow myself to be freed from it in situations where the end result was not critical (although I still struggle with it). I’m very excited for you and your new position as well and hope that it is just the beginning. But as you said, with a different view on the work and the people you’re working with, the old job may be “new” already.

Week 2 - Wimba Make-Up

Most of the conversation was directed at the videos we just finished watching so it was a good review of the copyright content. I had a hard time figuring out if titles were copyrighted or not until Joe explained that further. Jason Reed mentioned something he called the “poor man’s” copyright, which I had never heard of before. It sounds like a few other members of the groups had used that seal-in-the-envelope approach too. Another piece that was a surprise was that all you had to do now was save something in order for it to be copyrighted. The most significant piece of copyright info for me was the portion about Fair Use in education – “if the lesson can be taught without the material it’s not Fair Use”. I’m not entirely clear on one point though. If it is a breach of copyright to play music in a classroom from our computer, is it also a breach of copyright to play music from the radio? What about Pandora? I’m hoping for some insight on these questions so if you have any real legal answers, please respond.

(SqueegyX, "Pandora", Jan 8, 2008, Creative Commons License)

Week 2 - Reading Post: A Revelation

I think the thing that I learned most from the first two chapters of this book was something about myself. This “thing” is something that I’ve had to deal with throughout this course and upon reflection, throughout my entire life. I’m talking about the types of books that speak to me and the type that I really cannot in any way relate to. Unfortunately, this book seems to be of the latter. I would classify it as more of a philosophical get-in-touch-with-your-inner-self type book. After finished up the first couple chapters, I felt a rush of all the books I’d read come back to me – those I enjoyed and those I did not (regardless of the genre or content). As an individual with a severe case of concrete logical-mathematical thinking, I realize that my brain has a particularly hard time processing text that is deeply philosophical, yet reading a physics, chemistry, or calculus text is relatively easy. As is reading any manual on whatever the topic. And I find some of the statements in the book particularly hard for my brain to accept. Take this passage on p.20 for example: “The pie is enormous, and if you take a slice, the pie is whole again.” (Zander, 2000) Now, as we all know, if you subtract a part from the whole, as long as the part is > 0, you no longer have the whole, as is insinuated by the authors.

Poor mathematics aside, the awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses in reading opened my eyes to the difficulties that some student may have in reading such texts as I enjoy, and quite truthfully, this was my greatest take-away from the first couple chapters.

So, that aside, I do see the value of thinking outside the box, as explained in the text. Another part of the text that resonated with me was the part about scarcity thinking. I believe as Americans, we have really fallen into that mind-set and try to accumulate as much as we possibly can, without much regard for those that have little to nothing.

Moving into chapter three was fearful (because it was much longer than the infinitely long previous two chapters combined) but I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the authors take on “giving an A” and thought at length about what kind of effect that would have on a student population I might be working with next year.

Ironically, I didn’t really start to get into the text myself until I watched the TED talk (which I had seen a couple years ago) and remembered how much I enjoyed watching Ben Zander. And at that point, I decided to give the book an A, and have enjoyed it much more ever since.

(image from the cover of The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander)

Week 1 - Response 2

ORINIGAL POST - Michael Wood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM_4YpXoetw&feature=player_embedded

MY RESPONSE

Michael,

That’s an awesome story about getting into an artist job at Knott’s Berry Farms! I think you’re right on when it comes to student’s using Google images, but more profoundly was your comment on how teachers really don’t care if students copy and past other people’s work. I was (and maybe still am although I’m TRYING to change) one of those teachers but with more education on creative commons, I think I might be able to change.

I agree with your comments on Netflix as a solution for piracy. I think that we’re on the verge of a music version of this through Apple called iCloud and I’m really curious to see where this goes. They’ve invested huge amounts of money in a facility dedicated to music storage along with petabytes of hard drive storage space. Hopefully, we’ll be ushered into a place where we don’t have to be as concerned about copyright because we’ll have other viable options.

Week 1 - Response 1

ORIGINAL POST - Heather Taylor

"Copyright has always been one of those kinds of topics that I was unsure of, especially since I was part of the Napster generation. At that time, I felt like that if you really liked a artist, you would still pay to see him/her/them perform and buy their stuff regardless if you could download it online. During that time, I was also under the impression that as an artist or musician that getting your music out was more important than the money, but now a little older, I can realize and understand the financial implications.

While as an artist, I don’t want people taking credit for and making money off of my work, I don’t take any offense to someone remixing it. Being an artist after years and years of artists before me, makes me feel like artists are recyclers and remixers in a way, by nature. That doesn’t mean we should lose the ownership of our creations though. I remember hearing about the Shepard Fairey story when when Obama was elected but I didn’t follow up on the conclusion until now. I think it’s truly ironic that after having made such a big deal over him stealing the photo, now the AP are going to work with him on projects. I don’t agree with Fairey’s actions, but it follows right inline with what Larry Lessig said about a generation that doesn’t care at all about copyright. Mayer and Bettle made me much more aware of how much Creative Commons stuff there is out there, I think it would be valuable to show my students in the future as well. ”Good Copy Bad Copy” really opened my eyes to how other countries view our digital “pirates”. The Fair(y) Use Tale” was too clever in using Disney characters to describe “fair use”.

As a teacher, in the past, I’ve been worried about how I’ve used copyrighted items in my class, and felt that “fair use” was really vague. If you talk to my high school students they download illegally, even when I’ve tried to explain why they shouldn’t, they don’t care. I think that Creative Commons is a happy medium so that artists/musicians/etc. have a choice what happens to their work and the consumers can take on the mantle of creators."

MY RESPONSE

Heather,

I was also in the Napster generation and felt until a few years ago that downloading whatever I wanted was ok mostly because everyone else was doing it. I’m thankful to say my convictions have since changed. But I’ve gotten similar reactions from high school students when I brought up illegal downloading. To them it’s just not an issue and there’s nothing wrong with it. My hope is to have students start creating more and more media in my classes so they can appreciate the work that goes into it. When the time is right, I think there will be some great teachable moments in copyright when one student tries to use part of another student’s work to bypass all the hard work and time that was put into a project.

Action Research

I've decided to ramp up the number of participants in my action research database lately and I'm glad I did it. My action research is a study on what the determining factors are in young adults leaving their Christian religious practices after leaving high school. The data I've gathered from my qualitative interviews has been incredibly enlightening and flows very closely to the data I gathered for my lit review which makes it even more exciting. My hope is to get twenty different interviews by the time I need to create my presentation/report. So far the new data I've collected through the new interviews hasn't changed my results, only strengthened them, so I might not even need to make any major changes on my website.

I'm really thankful the the opportunity to work on this as my action research project because I feel like it can lead to some everlasting results.

(BaronBrian, "Cross in the Wichitas", June 20, 2009, Creative Commons License)

Week 1 Reading - Copyright Issues on the Resurrected Blog

The blog is alive again, and now I’m talking about copyright. Let me start by expressing my surprise to some of the copyright laws:

I didn’t realize that improvisational acts that the actor wanted to make permanent were not copyrightable unless they had a script or had it on video. I suppose I’ll have to start recording my amazing one-man improvisational plays before I get bamboozled.

The belief “If I don’t charge for it, it’s not a violation.” was a good reminder of something that is NOT true with regards to copyright. I didn’t fully understand the legalities of that before these videos. The best reminder for me was the statement: “Copyright is not about usage, it’s about permission.”

The story about Pirate Bay was enlightening. The Swedish interviewee had some interesting points but I think it’s all based on perspective. Had he created something that provided him his major source of income, I wonder how he would feel about others using it and it’s affect on that income. That being said, international piracy seems like an impossible problem because of the lack of international laws against this.

On to the Fair Use discussion:

The part that surprised me the most about fair use was that there was no definable amount that could be reproduced when using copyrighted content. While there is no black or white area here, I do like that some documents about fair usage in documentary films and online video were created to at least give a general guideline. The shocker for me was when I learned that if you can teach the content or subject without the copyrighted material being used, then you don’t really have Fair Use rights to use it, no matter how little you take.

It sounds to me like those that want to be able to use copyrighted content for free have some very impressive arguments. However, ultimately the music belongs to the big music producing companies and as long as there is ANY threat to their bottom line I anticipate they will fight against the free use of their music. I believe a change to copyrighting IS possible but think that it would have to be made by independent artists that become popular through social media sites rather than the big labels. Then they would have to vocally support the free use of their content. All the while ignoring the promises of riches from the big music companies. Possible, yes. Likely…?

(Bettyx1138, "copy", September 5, 2007, Creative Commons License)