Here is my Summary of Learning for OLTD 505.
Dear Cohort Group,
I wanted to leave you with a summary blog highlighting my experience with the sharing, discussion and commenting elements of this course. First of all, I wanted to formally acknowledge my admiration for those individuals who have managed to master Twitter, blogging, and our Google + Community. I raise my hat to you all, and I have appreciated your thoughts, feedback and knowledge. I must admit, however, to feeling a bit intimidated by the quality and frequency of your posts and comments. For a while, I beat myself up, worrying about not being able to keep pace, and then I remembered something. I speak often about my boys, and here's another story to illustrate my point. My youngest son has a condition that causes physical limitations. He has always had trouble with activities that require large muscle strength and coordination. He still watches in awe as his friends seemingly effortlessly, maneuver through monkey bars, roller-blade, or climb trees. And yet, he's never really seemed to be bothered by the difficulty he had with keeping up. We have always told him that he was good at things that other people struggle with, and this conscious teaching and the inner confidence that he seems to have been born with, have enabled him to admire others without self-recrimination. I appreciate this quality and I have found myself trying to emulate him by allowing myself to admire the prolific and eloquent posters in our cohort group and, at the same time, accept that online discussion and conversation are not really my strengths. However, as Mother Teresa said, "We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." I take comfort in that. Therefore, all this being said, I also acknowledge that even though I did not have the most tweets, I can now say that I have used Twitter. I can utilize hash tags and I can appreciate how Twitter is a powerful tool to connect and share. I can also say that I have now blogged, and have experienced the thrill of having people respond personally to my thoughts and opinions. In turn, I have tried to Tweet relevant and useful information and links to others, and I have also commented on other people's blogs, in a way that hopefully was constructive and encouraging. In the end, I have identified that I find it easiest to share in our Google + community and I appreciate that our Google + community was the spot where I could most easily connect with others and was most able to add to the conversation. On the odd occasion, I even got to help someone out. I wanted to end this entry with the chorus from one of my favourite songs, "Watershed", by the Indigo Girls. These lyrics go out to the members of my cohort group, who also struggle with second-guessing every online comment that they make, and who sit back for far too long, think far too much, and second-guess their opinions far too often. Up on the watershed Standing at the fork in the road You can stand there and agonize Till your agony's your heaviest load You'll never fly as the crow flies Get used to a country mile When you're learning to face The path at your pace Every choice is worth your while (I've attached a youtube video of the song too, if you aren't familiar with it, and care to listen.)
I took a bit of time, this week, to re-visit the blogs of the members of my OLTD 505 cohort group. The topics in these blogs were as unique as the individuals who wrote them, and I found myself connecting again with their ideas and opinions. According to the article Ten Top Reasons Why People Blog , individuals blog to network, advertise, communicate, create awareness, promote, help, connect, create, record, and learn. I think you can argue that the blogs of members of our OLTD group touched on each of these reasons. Here are some of my highlights from the "Voices of OLTD 505".
I connected with the questions that my colleagues raised. Melanie started a great discussion on the sometimes frustrating task of finding appropriate OERs. Nadine wondered about the lack of allotted time to "research, create and adapt resources". Lisa thought about how the artist, Richard Prince, is making a fortune by 'stealing' other people's works, making me recall my reference to Andy Warhol, after watching Larry Lessig's Ted Talk: Laws that Choke Creativity and making me think again about whether Warhol and Prince were opportunistic thieves, or clever artists. Jane blogged honestly about her struggles with Twittering and included the video "Obvious to you, Amazing to Others", which reminded us that we all have something valid to say. George struggled with the thought of the possibility of 'buried gems' as he metaphorically flipped burgers at a BBQ, missing parts of all the conversations going on around him. I was thankful for the tools, experiences, and resources shared by others including Bryan's video that reviewed and explained the educational potential of Storify and Karen's great find, E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth series, free, complete with accompanying materials, and downloadable. Chris' and Edward's blogs documented the advantages of disadvantages of Merlot and Openstax CNS, which left us with the reassurance that these OER had materials could be of use to all of us. Carrie's explained her 'aha' moment and shared her Pinterest pins so we could track her thoughts throughout this course, and realize how this tool could be used to full advantage. Fenella had a marvelous inspiration as to how valuable it would be to curate collectively and Kym wrote about BC's Open Textbook project and provided both explanation and insight into this initiative. Robert gifted us with an explanation of how he has implemented Weebly in a class project, and even provided a link to his students' work for a glimpse of how this could work in the 'real' world and Barry, a self-confessed 'hoarder' explained how hashtags have helped him to sort, control, and share his collection of information. Thomas and Carol, explored the concept behind MOOC's and had us contemplating the direction of education and Maria reflected on the 'Magic Cookies', which caused her to ask the great question, " How can I help my students become savvy users of the great materials, resources and products available?"
In his book, Master of Stupidity, writer Toba Beta says, "“I understand that we're smarter than me.
That's one reason I like the idea of sharing." Beta's words resonated with me as I watched Dean Shareski's keynote video address, Sharing: The Moral Imperative, and I was drawn back to the distant past. When I first started teaching, an experienced colleague invited me into the treasures of her filing cabinet. To this day I am thankful to her, for within this 3-drawer, metal, giant were resources that would go on to save my time and my sanity, and would ultimately make my lessons more enriching. Her generosity enabled me to not only benefit from her experience, but it allowed me the time to take what she had done and adapt her resources to fit my own students and goals. There are probably many teachers who have encountered a 'filing cabinet saviour', and it is this type of sharing that Dean Shareski is referring to in his keynote address.
Dan Myer, a California math teacher, is a good example of this, and he is featured in Shareski's keynote. Myer saw a need for a transition lesson in one of his math courses, and he created the lesson and then shared it. The many people who accessed his lesson did not have to re-create this particular wheel, although many probably chose to adapt it. I particularly liked Meyer's observation that, even though his lesson took him 18 hours to create and share, the more people that used the resource, the less time, he felt, those hours cost him personally and 'in an instant my 18 hour time cost felt like nothing to me, it was much more worthwhile." Meyer, essentially, shared his filing cabinet online, to all that were interested, and was therefore able to hugely magnify the overall impact of the sharing act. Did Meyers, and others like him, create and share resources out of a sense of obligation? Do they seek the public eye? Are they more altruistic than others? And, after all is said and done, does the question of why even matter, or is it more a question of why not?
A teacher in our district (SD70 - Port Albern), Jim Lawson, forwarded an interesting message from a colleague, Rob Purgavi, a teacher at that Alternative Trade Exploration Centre (A-TEC) in SD79 - Cowichan Valley.
The message was an announcement that the foundation of CVAS2 (Cowichan Valley Open Learning Co-operative) Learn Math Foundations wiki was in place. This wiki was created through a local school district, using a 'learning initiatives' grant. The wiki is meant to be a support for previously existing paper-based packages, and it takes advantage of free sites such as You Tube and Khan Academy. The website, IXL, which requires a subscription is also one of the links. There are three things that I find most interesting and notable about this event. 1. Since the wiki is an editable web page, any members can add to it, making it a working document that will continue to grow as people add resources and content. Request for membership seems simple, and the editable web page seems to truly be all about, not only meeting the needs of students and teachers, but also acting as an OER site that can be shared freely. 2. It is exciting to see teachers embracing this type of open-educational resource. It has been my experience that most teachers are more than willing to jump on board a concept that makes sense, and that will enhance student-learning. 3. According to the sender of the original email, Rob Purgavie, the idea for this web page started with a teacher, Patrick Kinghorn, at a BCAEA (BC Alternate Education Association) conference, a number of years ago. This webpage creation provides another example to why making connections with colleagues is such a vital component in our growth as professionals and individuals.
I've just read Carrie Cann's interesting post and it got me thinking more about another huge example of how copyright doesn't seem to apply to song parodies. I have two teenage boys and they, like millions of others, spend hours immersed in the world of League of Legends. For those who don't know, League of Legends (better known as LOL) is a multiplayer online battle arena video game. In the game, players choose the role of a character to battle against a team of other players. Each player has unique characteristics, and millions of people spend millions of dollars to get access to new characters to enhance their play. "As of January 2014, over 67 million people play League of Legends per month, 27 million per day, and over 7.5 million concurrently during peak hours". Another characteristic of LOL, and the reason for this post, is the huge number of song parodies that are an integral part of the play. LOL forums are filled with discussions about the song parodies that play continually in the background of the game. I can't count how many times a song will come on the radio and one of my two sons will remark how they have heard a parody of the song on LOL. They don't know the original song, but they know the parody. Carrie mentioned how probably the most famous parody artist, Weird Al Yankovic, always obtained permission of the songs original artist before releasing a song parody. I couldn't find any information on whether the minds behind the LOL parodies go to the same trouble, but apparently, it is my understanding that legally, according to this source, they don't have to.
I'd love to hear if someone wants to challenge me on this understanding. (Note: The image below is from Creative Commons. It is not really specific to LOL, but it was as close as I could get without infringing on copyright.) Traditionally, a lurker has a negative connotation. We can all conjure up the Law and Order image of the lurker as the person waiting to ambush, concealed, and anonymous. Online lurkers, in a community, can also been seen negatively as it can be felt that they are 'free-riding' on the thoughts and efforts of others, not contributing, and eavesdropping or maybe even 'spying'. However, are there not benefits to having lurkers around, and are there not benefits to lurking? Lurkers are taking in information even if they are not responding and, lurking gives the lurker a chance to process what he's reading, to get a feel for what is expected and to avoid redundant contributions and posts. I realize that lurking doesn't have a place in an arena such as our OLTD 505 community where, if we were all lurkers, the discussion wouldn't get very far. But, I was curious about people's opinions of lurkers in general. Do you think there is a place for lurkers?
Larry Lessig: Laws that choke creativity
I quite enjoyed Larry Lessig's Ted Talk: Laws that choke creativity. And, as he was speaking, my thoughts kept coming back to a personal debate I've had for several years now. As a former art teacher, I often had assignments where students were required to copy a particular artist's 'style' or sometimes, as in the case of Ted Harrison, I asked them to try to recreate actual pictures to experiment with mixing colour as part of a colour theory unit. The question is, "Was I requiring students to cross a copyright line. I don't believe I was, and thankfully, Lessig seems to agree with me. My students weren't recreating the exact piece of artwork. They were participated in the "creation and the recreation of their culture" as they took what someone else had done, and re-worked it, re-analyzed it, and added and subtracted to it, until the process of their efforts resulted in an entirely new piece of art. On the stage, behind Lessig, is a photo of Andy Warhol. Maybe it was Warhol's presence that made me think about experiences in my art classes. Warhol did exactly what I asked my students to do. His most famous 'copyright infringement' was probably his Campbell Soup Cans. Here's a link to the paintings I'm referring to. https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans-1962 Warhol painted 32 identical paintings of Campbell Soup cans, where the only variation was the name on the can. Interestingly, Campbell's didn't seem to have a problem with Warhol, but were actually flattered by it. Here's a link to a letter, written to Andy Warhol, in 1964, by Campbell's product marketing manager. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/07/i-hear-you-like-tomato-soup.html Would Campbell's 2015, product marketing manage have the same reaction as his predecessor of 51 years ago? Was I creating many little plagiarists each time I assigned my Ted Harrison assignment? Thoughts? |
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