Category Archives: Community

From Mine to Ours

take me
use me
share me
i’m licensed
to be
re
mix
ed.

those ideas
these words
the painted
scrawling blathering
ruse
moves us from
mine to ours.

i can feel it in you
just as you’re feeling
it in me:
nothing original
nothing new
nothing owned
everything free.

dancing derivatives
denizens of a developing
culture.
unattached and untethered
blurred and modified
(r)evolutionary
copied and copied and copied.

a commons
in which we give and take
remix and build and create
and share and evolve.

non-commercial
and not for profit
call me an idealist
and I will call you one too.

take me
use me
share me
i’m licensed
and ready to be
made into you,
as i take you into me
and carve a we.

no monsanto
no pfizer
no property

this is buddha
this is marx
this is freedom
this is sharing
this is free

give credit where credit is due
then take the thing and add to it
too.

this new thing,
the one that belongs to neither you or me
give it away and let a third voice sing it free.

i am creative commons licensed
everything i think
i feel and create
is there for you:
use it,
adapt it
share it.
give it away once you’re done with it,
tell people where you found it
don’t try to make money from it.

Last week, I got my favorite Creative Commons License (Attribution, Non-Commercial, ShareAlike) tattooed on my arm. I didn’t tattoo the symbols on my arm, because I think it is cute to cite photos I use for presentations. I tattooed the license on my arm because I see it as a badge of honor! Despite some of the criticism I have recently read, I see the vision of Creative Commons:

Our vision is nothing less than realizing the full potential of the Internet — universal access to research and education, full participation in culture — to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity.

as something bigger than just teaching kids how to use images they find on the Internet. I see The Commons cause as bigger than piracy and media use. I see Creative Commons as the building block of a new culture. A culture in which cooperation trumps competition. Where we understand the derivative nature of human intellectual and artistic growth and try to build new laws to deal with a world where Everything is a Remix.

I see Creative Commons as an alternative to the very concept of copyright, and not only in the field of digital media. I hope to inspire kids to see their ideas are extensions of generations of thinking. I hope to challenge the idea of intellectual property as something that can be owned. I want kids to see that they are a link in an infinite chain of ideas. I want kids to see that while companies can copyright genetic codes in food production or own powerful medicines, that perhaps they can create a world that would be better served with a culture that chooses to share and build upon ideas, rather than owning them. Perhaps we can create a culture beyond commercialism and profits, one were we strive for sustainability and evolution.

I know these ideas may seem romantic, idealistic and perhaps a bit naive. I was raised on Imagine and Blowing in the Wind. Did you expect anything less? So while like the UN, the actual power of CC may be limited, I chose to tattoo the label on my arm because I value and love the idea of a shared commons. A place where the cultural and natural resources are accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately.

What are your thoughts on Creative Commons?

Teachable Moment

4 Replies

Today, as my grade 7 students were working in small groups, I heard someone say,”Stop being such a homo. That is so lame and gay.”

I walked over very calmly, sat down and said:

Can we have a very quick but serious conversation? I heard you just say, “Stopping being such a homo. That is so lame and gay.” I just wanted you to know that I would prefer that we didn’t use that kind of language in our classroom. I don’t think it is very kind to use words like Homo or Gay or even Retard in a derogatory way, do you know what derogatory means? It means to use it in a negative way. To use those words in a way to be put someone down. I don’t think it is okay to use words like Homo or Gay or Retard to put people down. There are most likely people in our class who might be homosexual or know people who are homosexual and if we use it as a put down, then they feel badly about themselves and that doesn’t seem fair. I know from experience because many of my friends who are homosexual have told me that language is powerful and the words we choose affect people in ways we cannot always see. Does that make sense? So please do not use the word Homo or Gay or Retard as a put down in our class again. OK? Thanks.

These Days

4 Replies

I’ve been meaning to write. It has been a while. I know. Did you miss me? I missed you. Missed you terribly. Missed the idea of you sitting there nodding or shaking your head, connected to my thoughts. Each one spilling from my fingers onto your screen into your psyche and daily thoughts. Or maybe, you just skim the words on a phone on a train in the night, soon forgotten. Who am I to know where you and I will meet? What will stick and what will float away. All I can do is write. I’ve been meaning to. It has been a while. I know. I missed you.

The problem is and always has been for most writers, I suppose, that I couldn’t make the time to get it right. A batch of half baked ideas taking up space does not always invite publication or sharing. So we swim with our premature ideas, hoping they will keep us a float long enough to make it a shore of completion.

The problem is that if there are enough of these incomplete thoughts, we may feel we can float forever and never need to actually give our ideas shape or voice or form. I see clearly now, that enough is enough– it is nearly October and I have yet to write the year’s first blog post. Here are my random thoughts looking for form:

I am cynical and distrustful of technology these days. It all feels trite and superfluous and outdated and stale. I tried to look for what I still value, really value in the Ed-Tech mold and there is not much. I do howver keep coming back to these ideas from Connected Learning.

I guess my goal this year is to define the aspects of this graphic that matter to me and really look at where and when technology is helping me accomplish these things in my classroom. I am planning a two-day workshop on the topic, so I best have my thoughts really clear.

But even in my personal life, the technology and even my network feels stale. Perhaps it is because I haven’t blogged in a while and have lost touch with the core of my audience. Perhaps I am in the midst of a necessary reflective period. Maybe I just need a break, or a detox. Not sure, but all I know is that I am not seeing technology like I have in the past. I am hyper-critical, aware and observant about the role of tech in my life.

So what is working? My classroom for sure! I am loving the lessons I learned from #TCRWP. I have fully embraced the workshop model. Complete with writer’s notebooks and mini-lessons. There really needs to be a post about this transition soon, but this post is not it. Let me just say that I love the idea of writers teaching writers how to write, instead of teachers teaching students how to write. I am very enthusiastic and I hope inspirational to the young writers in my room. I have removed the publication (blog) aspect from our writing work up to this point, and I couldn’t be happier. I am approaching blogging, writing and publication with a different outlook.

I have always advocated the openest form of online sharing and writing, but I am reconsidering my philosophy this year, and focusing on helping kids understand the stages of writing: Collecting, Drafting, Revising, Editing and Publishing. We are as a class discussing what it means to move through this process. Discussing along the way what it means to be a writer and the role of audience. It has been nice to write in private notebooks and work on skills and confidence before we share. We are getting ready to introduce blogs soon, but I am working on a new approach and will share our parent letter and explanation as soon as we go public.

What else is there to say? It has been a great opening to the year. We have been working on a new formative assessment procedure and a new reading program. All in all it has been a year of change and growth, but also one of nailing things down and building upwards. I just needed this post to get the wheels greased again.

So please do not forget about me here in your corner of the Internet. I am here and muttering and scribbling and changing and growing. Who know some of these half baked ideas might just be useful to you. Let me know if they are, because who are we kidding, I still need to know you need and want me.

No Budget

3 Replies

Hello friends and strangers and readers of all sorts. it has been a while, so I feel a more gentle start is in order. It’s Sunday night and the sky just went from cotton candy, to dolphin belly, to slate. I am feeling….how about a full stop. I am feeling. Weeks have passed since I allowed myself the luxury of tussling with words, and so tonight, feeling at best a tinge of flirtation, but really a more lingering weariness and fatigue, I have decided to take a break and carve a chunk of time from the ongoing present and future to speak to (with) you.

I had a strange morning. One of those days when the randomness of sharing and the thrill of living open and honest online collide, leaving tasty treats in their wake. Fun nuggets of camaraderie and inspiration- reassurance that when we share our thoughts and lives and passions with the world, the world will often talk back, returning our ideas and work back in a myriad of songs and echoes.

It started with this email:

Hi Jabiz,

My name is Adriana and I’m an artist. I long time ago I found in one of your blogs this picture I loved.

and it spired me to make a series of paintings in my Pop Surrealism Style. here’s a link to my website so you can see the pictures I have of it.

The other paintings aren’t up yet.. too much work to do still but I wanted to share it with you and if you want I could link it to the page where the picture is.

That’s it for the moment and thank you for sharing all those beautiful pic!

Does this exchange mean anything? Is it important? I don’t know. Who am I to say, but it does feel right. Something about looking to the world to find inspiration, to make those human artistic connections resonates with me. More importantly, giving of my life in a way that might connect to other passions matters to me.

So many people are terrified of posting and sharing and over doing it, but time after time- for me at least- cool things happen. You can check out Adriana’s website here and the picture from above here. I am looking forward to exploring more of her work and hopefully getting to know her a bit more online. I have already asked if I can buy that print.

The second story, which also happened this morning, which is not usual is as follows:

Hello,

I just came across your image of the Azadi Freedom stencil on FB and would like permission to use it in a book I am finishing up on street art.

My name is KET and I am an author and graffiti writer. I have been writing books on graffiti, street art, and tattoos and publishing magazines for over 15 years. My books include: Graffiti Planet, Rocking It Suckers, Street Art, Graffiti Tattoo, New York City Blackbook Masters and many more (link here)

I appreciate what you did and would like to include the image and a quote in the book.

Please let me know if you are interested. There is no budget just my desire to share the image to the world thru the book.

There is no budget, just my desire to share. I love it. You can read more about that photo here. It is great to see that project move onto its next incarnation and live in a book. After years of living online and sharing my life with the Internet, I am more often than not pleasantly surprised by what comes back to me. There were but just two examples from this morning.

What do you think? Do things like this happened to you? Am I too naive? Too trusting? Or is this the karmic state of global art we should be striving for?

Tell Me The Story of My Life

10 Replies

Fancy yourself a storyteller, a writer, a creator, a tinkerer, an artist, a child at heart? You like to play and sculpt and shape and remix and mashup? You like photos and stories and music and art and never ending searches for meaning and beauty and things that give you pause and gratitude and feelings bordering authentic? You feel connected, disconnected, isolated, surrounded, loved, ignored or necessary?

Wanna make some art?

For the last year, I have been taking photographs. For each day of the 365 I have chosen one photo to be the photo of that day. The photos can be found here. Or I suppose if you want, you could flip through them here:

But I want you to do more than just view dear reader. I want you to absorb and internalize, synthesize and make your own–the emotions and ideas that consume you when you find a photo or photos that speak to you. Look for themes or colors or people and — Write a poem. Scribe a song. Create a short film. Write a short story. A newspaper article. Blend the media and tell the story digitally.

Whatever you do, please link back to this post with a URL of where your creation lives online. Please also add the link to the Flickr photo itself. Perhaps you can also scribble some lines in the comments of the photo, where someone else can take the lines and move them forward or backward to wherever they needs to go.

You can also share this set with your students, your peers, your administrators, your grandmas and grandpas. But, if, however you do not feel artistically up to the challenge, then send me some ideas and I will do it for you. Fill out this form to give me some direction:

If you have any other ideas, please share. I am curious to see where these photos will go, who they will come. I am giddy to see my life told back to me by you, with you through you. Last time we did something like this, we ended up in some interesting places.

So come on…the least you can do is write the first thing that comes to mind on a photo that grabs your attention. Your random dribble thoughts, could ignite a fire some place else.