I just watched the Apple Education event keynote and I’m very excited about what I saw. If you haven’t seen today’s keynote yet, run, do not walk to your local device (I got a better connection via my iPad projecting the keynote to my TV) and sit a spell. Nope, Schiller will never have Steve’s dynamic style, but the content is definitely something that we need to be keenly aware of. In a word they are taking book publishing and specifically textbook publishing, and taking it to the next level. The textbook will not be a static collection of words and images frozen at printing but have the portability of a book, the videos and interactivity of a networked computer and the freshness of blog pages, while retaining formatting, typography and layout that tends to be lacking in web-based textbooks.

I was going to try my hand at getting Udutu to work for my stand-alone copyright unit but I’m now going to investigate the possibility of using iBook Author to make the unit. Now we know where all the iWeb brain-power went over the last couple years. And I’m curious to see Full Sail will continue to experiment with iTunes U, in that iTunes U seems determined to become it’s own LMS and not just a lecture delivery vehicle.

I’ve been getting emails from QuarkXpress begging me to check out their new iPad/ePub friendly $299 app (if you have a previous version of QuarkXpress). They’ve got to be peeing their pant. I wonder how Schoology feels about Apple putting more effort/muscle behind iTunes U with added assignment and communication features. Yikes.

Enjoy. jbb

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW! – http://www.fightforthefuture.org/pipa

PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites– they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

The Time Management Matrix by Stephen Covey

I love that Stephen Covey put mail and phone calls in the “Not Important” quadrant of his “Time Management Matrix.” There you go, straight from Covey himself, “Not Important!”Makes me laugh, when I left public education in 2008, my principal chided me for trying to get help from support staff through email instead of using the mailboxes in the front office. Email was something that the district used (once they realized that it was a hell of a lot cheaper to do then sending out paper newsletters that no one reads). I love how education is almost always a good ten-years behind the technology curve. And here I am, even though I’m on the computer all day (unlike classroom teacher who told me, “I don’t have time to check the email!”), thinking that there’s got to be a better way to get this done.

What started this quest was the somewhat inefficient practice of saving my emails in folders in my email client based on general purposes. I have folders for my coworkers, folders for my students with subfolders for various repeated tasks (like their capstone projects), then I have folders for social networks and entertainment and blogging, etc., ad infinitum. But sometimes the message doesn’t fit any single folder. Sometimes it’s a message from Dr. Bedard about a student’s capstone project. Do I store it in Dr. Bedard’s folder or the Capstone subfolder for my students? Alas, the search function requires that I know which folder the message is stored in before it can find it. I use iCloud (formerly MobileMe [sound of taps playing off in the distance]) because it’s IMAP and I can access my account(s) and stored messages on all of my devices and am not limited to which messages are stored on which computer, but there is that “which folder” problem. I much prefer the Gmail way of dumping everything into one single Archive folder and using tags to ID messages. Thus, if I were using Gmail I could put Dr. Bedard’s message into the archive with her name as a tag, the student’s name as a tag and “capstone project” as a third tag. Wonderful. But Apple’s Mail app on the computer or iOS devices don’t use the label/tag structure.

So, I decided to check out an email client called Sparrow. It’s very visual and has a “conversation” style. But guess what, it allows for tags and the like and has a unified INBOX but I can’t pull messages received via my iCloud accounts and save them in my Gmail label-drive archive folder. It might look like it’s more conversational and has a reduced footprint on my desktop, but it’s actually even more segregated than how I did email using the default Mail app. I really should have tried out the free demo version before buying the thing. Doh! FAIL. And… and this doesn’t really address the problem of measuring one’s efficiency by the tool instead of perhaps changing the tool to better serve the real purpose of working with students and colleagues.

It’s too bad that Google Wave died. Some have experimented with Google hangouts, but that looks like glorified video-chat. We’ve been experimenting with Manymoon (now called Do.com – scared), but it’s basically just a single-level task-manager where we check off when we’ve done an assigned task with no collaboration and no project building. And, of course, we get all of our notifications through our emails, so it doesn’t diminish that flood. Truthfully, we’re probably just not very good at using this tool. So, here you have a group of highly intelligent tech-savvy online educators, who actually really like to work together and we can’t seem to find a collaborative tool that is worth the effort of getting up to speed on.

Just to take this discussion up to a mind-blowing level, I’m reminded of a Net@Nite interview of Luis Suarez from IBM, who works in the Canary Islands with bosses in the United States and coworkers spread across the world and has virtually eliminated email as part of his workflow. Right. He’s using social media, blogging and collaborative tools to get the job done. Email has been reduced from the conduit to another form of texting, sending short messages. It’s taken all of this time, more than ten-years, for many educational institutions to get everyone on email and now we realize that it was never meant to be the main conduit/repository of our communication needs. It’s just a goddam useful tool meant to be a reminder of some task, not a measure of whether one is getting one’s job done or done well. Check out Suarez’s blog and vision for how we should be working (online) together:

Sources:

• image: Image: ddpavumba / FreeDigitalPhotos.net retrieved 1/13/2012.
• image: The Time Management Matrix by Stephen Covey from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, (c) 1989/2004.
• image: MM900234754.GIF, microsoft clipart, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?ex=2&qu=email#ai:MM900234754|mt:3| retrieved 1/13/2012.
• Video Podcast: A World Without Email, Net@Night, episode 204, http://twit.tv/show/netnight-amber-and-leo/204 retrieved 1/13/2012. 
• Blog post: Reflections from 2011 – A World Without Email – The Documentary by Luis Suarez, http://www.elsua.net/2012/01/06/reflections-from-2011-a-world-without-email-the-documentary/ retrieved 1/13/2012 

Uploaded by imetthewalrus on Jun 17, 2008
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina have collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack. A spellbinding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit and timeless message, I Met the Walrus was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short and won the 2009 Emmy for ‘New Approaches’ (making it the first film to win an Emmy on behalf of the internet).
Category: Documentary Animation & Cartoons The Screening Room
Starring:
Jerry Levitan John Lennon
Directed by:
Josh Raskin
Produced by:
Jerry Levitan
Written by:
Josh Raskin

Uploaded by 13640 on Apr 22, 2007
John Lennon and his wife Yoko

Whereas “Imagine” evokes nostalgia and some sadness at what the world lost when Lennon was murdered, this next version of Lennon’s “Merry Xmas” calls us to task at how little we’ve accomplished in fulfilling the message of Christmas, that the world should not be the playground of the powerful stomping on the weak. We have so much to fix and undo…

Uploaded by johnlennon on Aug 24, 2010
The Official video for John Lennon ‘Merry Xmas (War Is Over)’

Sources:
I Met The Walrus: Lennon’s Brain Animated by Maria Popova, http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2008/11/21/jerry-levitan-i-met-the-walrus/ retrieved 01-13-2012.

After the premature obit-twitter post from What’s Trending a few weeks ago, I searched twitter and news-sites to make sure that this wasn’t another hoax. Sadly, it wasn’t. My girlfriend and I spent most of the rest of the night watching Leo Laporte‘s TWiT.TV Live coverage of the event. As much as I know that many outside of the tech field won’t give a moments pause over this, but watching Laporte and friends, it felt very much like a gathering of the tribe memorializing the passing of one of our best.

Image/Website by Boing Boing

Over the course of the past 18-hours I’ve seen a number of wonderful tributes, stories and creative works related to the life of Steve Jobs. Boing Boing skinned their website to look like an old Mac OS desktop. One of the more interesting posts was by Gizmodo’s Brian Lam who had been in the center of the stolen iPhone 4 controversy last year. His post, titled, Steve Jobs Was Always Kind To Me (Or, Regrets of An Asshole), began with his interaction with Jobs when Lam was new at Gizmodo and how Jobs expressed his fondness for Gizmodo’s geeky coverage of gadgets. The most telling part of the story was that even in the midst of the negotiations to get back the stolen iPhone, when it was apparent that fondness Jobs had for Gizmodo was going to end, as Jobs ended the phone conversation with Lam asking, “”What do you think of it [iPhone4 prototype]?”

Lam said, “It’s beautiful.”

Written tributes abound. Ars technica had it’s staff write about The first time I used an Apple computer was… It was interesting to see how many staffers when back to the Apple ][ and how many were from the macintosh or later iMac eras. The newly reborn BYTE website (formerly magazine) had it's editors and contributors share their memories of Jobs. In a separate BYTE article, Jerry Pournelle, the godfather of all tech-journalism, weighs in on Job's journey and vision that we got one step closer to with the iPhone and iPad. Finally, one of the more touching and insightful comments was posted by John Gruber in his Daring Fireball blog when he recalled the last time he saw Jobs, at last summer's WWDC, and noted new grass-stains on the heels of Job's famous grey New Balance 993 shoes and what that might have meant (Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot).

None-too-surprising, the visual tributes to the man who believed that technology was at it's best when it empowered our human need to explore and express ourselves through the arts, would find speak out loudly and passionately at Job's passing.

"Eternal Flame" by XKCD

"iSad" by Gregory Wadsworth

"ThankYou Steve" street art in Hollywood - photo posted by rob sheridan

"Thanks Steve" by Jonathan Mak

The Joy of Tech by Nitrozac & Snaggy

I was lucky enough to have attended the 2007 Macworld keynote when Jobs unveiled the iPhone and one in 2000 when Jobs had just returned to Apple, became iCEO and introduce OS X to the world. One thing that has stayed with me about the 2007 keynote, besides the energy in the room when the iPhone was revealed, but at one point when there was a technology glitch and Jobs had to riff a bit while the minions fixed whatever had fouled up behind the curtain. Jobs got to talk about how he and Woz would pull pranks in the old days and there was a definite sense of nostalgia in that moment with an equal sense that this was going to be another moment to be remembered for a long time. I won’t soon forget that I was there when the iPhone was introduced to the world.

I never met the man personally but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t felt the pressure wave from the dent he left in the universe. Gone too soon, but never to be forgotten, he will live on in the lives of millions who know that this thing is about something more important than a technological device or an American corporation. He believed in a place where Liberal Arts intersected with Science and Technology for the betterment of the human soul. Some thought that was just hype and marketing, a reality distortion field. I choose to believe that this little wedge in history, the Apple/Jobs Phenomenon, is an opportunity for us to remember and do the great things that humans can do when we get past our prejudices and fears. Steven Paul Jobs 1955-2011, thanks for leading the way. It’s our turn to live different(ly).

Sources:

• image: Thanks Steve by Jonathan Mak, http://jmak.tumblr.com/post/9377189056 retrieved 10/5/2011.
• youtube video: Steve Jobs’ Think Different Tribute Video by Fuego7, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeN5TJxxX2E retrieved 10/5/2011.
• image: Steve Jobs has died by boing boing, http://boingboing.net/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-has-died.html retrieved on 10/6/2011.
• article: Steve Jobs Was Always Kind To Me (Or, Regrets of An Asshole) by Brian Lam, http://thewirecutter.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-was-always-kind-to-me-or-regrets-of-an-asshole/retrieved on 10/6/2011.
• article: The first time I used an Apple computer was… by ars technica, http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/10/the-first-time-i-used-an-apple-computer-was.ars retrieved on 10/6/2011.
• article: BYTE Remembers Steve Jobs by BTYE staff, http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/consumer-services/231900188 retrieved 10/6/2011.
• article: Steve Jobs: Jerry Pournelle Reflects by Jerry Pournelle, http://www.informationweek.com/byte/commentary/personal-tech/smart-phones/231600299 retrieved on 10/6/2011.
• article: Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot by John Gruber, http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/universe_dented_grass_underfoot retrieved on 10/6/2011.
• image: eternal flame by XKCD, http://xkcd.com/961/ retrieved 10/6/2011.
• image: iSad by Gregory Wadsworth, http://twitter.com/#!/aggregart/ retrieved on 10/6/2011
• image: “ThankYou Steve” street art in Hollywood – photo posted by rob sheridan, http://instagr.am/p/PcYQs retrieved 10/8/2011.
• image: The Joy of Tech by Nitrozac & Snaggy, http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1600.html, retrieved 10/10/2011.
• youtube video: Macworld keynote 2007: Introducing the new iPhone PART 1, posted by leocg, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ftf4riVJyqw#! retrieved on 10/8/2011.
• article: MacWorld Bound – Hurry Up and Wait by Joe Bustillos, http://joebustillos.com/2007/01/08/macworld-bound-hurry-up-and-wait/ retrieved on 10/6/2011.
• article: MacWorld 2007 Debrief by Joe Bustillos, http://joebustillos.com/2007/01/28/macworld-debrief/ retrieved 10/6/2011.
• article: Steve Jobs Macworld 2008 Keynote in 60 Seconds by Joe Bustillos, http://joebustillos.com/2008/01/25/steve-jobs-macworld-2008-keynote-in-60-seconds/ retrieved on 10/6/2011.
• youtube video: To Steven Jobs on His Thirtieth Birthday, uploaded by technologizer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d1uMcVl8NQ4 retrieved 10/10/2011.
• youtube video: TWiT Live Specials 95: Tribute And Remembrance Of Steve Jobs by twit, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u_V9MIPBP0&feature=channel_video_title and http://twit.tv/show/twit-live-specials/95 retrieved 10/6/2011.
• Steve Jobs Documentary 2010 posted by computertwit, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgiEG-NsAB0&NR=1 retrieved 10/17/2011.

Video originally uploaded by chipotle on Aug 25, 2011

Coldplay’s haunting classic ‘The Scientist’ is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled, “Back to the Start.” Download the song now available on iTunes. Label and proceeds benefit The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-scientist-single/id458479961

The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

Sources:

• Microsoft ribs Google’s tech with “Gmail Man,” by Josh Lowensohn, http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20085072-75/microsoft-ribs-googles-ad-tech-with-gmail-man/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 retrieved 7/30/2011.
• Gmail posts intervention tool to wrangle non-users, by Josh Lowensohn, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20084396-93/gmail-posts-intervention-tool-to-wrangle-non-users/?tag=mncol;txt retrieved on 7/30/2011.

Then the years began to slip by and the world continued, such as it was, some years not so great and other years pretty good. I know that Chuck Smith and others continued to talk about these being the Last Days, but we started growing up and having families and setting different priorities than our own personal salvation. It wasn’t that the world had change as much as that my relationship to it and to life had changed. I began to see each year as a gift and my friends as connections, instead of as sinners in need of salvation. Salvation was what we did with each day, accepting the challenges and set-backs and looking for the best in ourselves and bring it out in our neighbors. I didn’t know any better as a teenager and young person, to not know that the world is a pretty big place and that living in fear of Divine judgment or the anxious expectation of Divine intervention wasn’t a very constructive way to live one’s life. It sadden’s me that an 89-year-old former engineer hasn’t figure that out.

Worse than that Harold Camping, president of Family Radio and chief proponent of the May 21st Rapture Date, is changing the course of many, many lives with his numerological nonsense. There’s the couple, Adrienne & Joel Martinez, quoted in the NPR article, saying that they quit their jobs and moved here to Orlando to spend the last days handing out pamphlets, reading their bible and spending time with their two-year-old. And they say that they have just enough money to get to May 21st and none should there be a next day for them. Oh and Adrienne is pregnant with a little one that’s set to arrive in June. Camping has lived his life and when May 22nd comes he’ll come up with another reason why his calculations were off (he previously predicted the Rapture for September 6, 1994). The Martinez family and possibly hundreds of others will probably have a bigger problem to deal with.

Imagine how different the world would be if all of this energy spent on ripping families apart, moving to different cities and days spent on the streets harassing strangers with a false gospel of fear and foolishness; what if that energy was spent on getting to know our neighbors and listening to them when they are lonely or sharing a meal with them when they are hungry, how different would the world be. Too bad Camping hasn’t used his numerology and wealth to feed the hungry, clothe the needy and visit those in dire straits. Maybe, instead of counting the years in books that know nothing of the Gregorian calendar, he should have read what was in the books, the stories about compassion and mercy and love. Engineers [sigh]. I’ve heard whispers on Twitter from some jokesters who are planning on Saturday to leave articles of clothing all over their cities for the laughs. This isn’t funny. That people would buy this stuff and leave their jobs, homes and families, speaks to level of their needs to be loved and heard. This is, in fact, something that we all need. Jesus was all about meeting people at that level. Too bad nobody listened to him until he was killed. Too bad these troubled seekers aren’t listening to him right now (in that he said quite plainly that no one knows the day or the hour of his return). We could all use with strong dose of compassion and connection right about now. May 21st be damned, the only day that counts is the one you are living right now.

Sources:
Is The End Nigh? We’ll Know Soon Enough by BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY, http://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136053462/is-the-end-nigh-well-know-soon-enough?ps=cprs, retrieved May 19th, 2011.

Believers Sound The Alarm: Judgment Day Is May 21, NPR Talk of the Nation,
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/18/136432488/believers-sound-the-alarm-judgment-day-is-may-21, retrieved May 19th, 2011.

I don’t know if this governor expected such a huge backlash and just assumed that the unions would take it lying down. So let me say it plainly, this isn’t about balancing a budget as much as political bullshit. Fix the problems. The unions have shown that they will work with you, if you actually had a working plan. Here’s the link to the NPR story: The Long-Term Effect Of Wisconsin’s Union Battles.

WI “Budget Repair Bill” Protest (Feb 20-24?) Pt. 3 from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.

We are peaceful. We will stay peaceful.

Around four days of footage (Feb 20-24?) from Madison, WI protest against the SB11 “budget repair bill.”

You can see all the amazing emails I’ve been receiving from people all over the country here: www.mgwisni.posterous.com/​

Mgwisniphoto@gmail.com If you would like to embed the video somewhere, please email me. Please keep sending me encouraging emails of support from wherever you are.

Why do we do what we do? Some might respond that asking such questions is a typical first-world problem, that it’s the modern equivalent to trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head because with so many people going hungry in the world and in our own country, how dare we waste time entertaining such things as “motivation.” It should be pretty damn clear that we do what we do so that we can feed ourselves and our families and keep out the dangers of the outer world. It’s all about higher and higher levels of survival. Once you have enough bread for the day, then you need to make sure that you have enough bread for the week and then once you have that you need to make sure that you never go without having enough bread. But can one ever have enough bread?

During 1980s and early 1990s I worked for a local telco as a well-paid technician. We worked in a union-shop so whenever we worked overtime we got time-and-a-half and if we worked enough over-time early in the week we could reach double-time. With construction booming in Southern California there was a lot of over-time to be had. I noticed that the technicians who were the best at what they did liked getting the over-time pay but were motivated to do the quality job that they did because they liked fixing problems and liked being good at it. The technicians who were just about getting the over-time pay rarely were the ones one could count on to get the job done right the first time. In fact, for all of the time they put in, they could be guaranteed as spending most of their time avoiding work. And neither group like having management breathing down their necks, telling them what to do at every turn. Even the self-motivated ones would let things slip through the cracks because micro-managing stole their incentive to do better. Just like the video said, getting properly compensated helped, but it was no guarantee that the job would get done. When I left the phone company to go teach we were working so much overtime that it was almost a 50% cut in pay for me to leave. And even much later when I left California to come to Florida I took another huge cut in pay. One has to make a living and should be able to do so without resorting to endless part-time gigs, but it’s not about the pay. It’s unfortunate that it’s generally only highly funded companies like Google, where they have a 20% time policy where employees can work on personal projects for 20% of their on-job time, where they explore such things as “motivation.” Too bad.

Another day, another Fair Use issue in the headlines. Imagine my surprise as I began to do research to update my previous article on the Fair-Use/Copyright kerfuffle between the Associated Press (AP) and street-artist/icon-wanna-be Shephard Fairey, to discover that the case was dismissed yesterday, January 11th, 2011, and that the two parties had entered into an undisclosed financial arrangement. I loved the lead paragraph from the Animal/New York website:

US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has dismissed the cases between Shepard Fairey and the Associated Press. And so, the whole copyright infringement vs. fair use vs. fake evidence ballyhooed mess has been resolved with a “confidential” financial settlement. The AP and Fairey will also “collaborate on a series of images,” according to the AP’s press statement. Wait, what?

For those who may not be familiar with the case, Shephard Fairey has been practicing his craft of graphic commentary/stencil graffiti for a number of years and found some notoriety with the Andre the Giant/OBEY image. According to Fairey, in an LA Times video/interview, he said that he wanted to do something for the Obama campaign around the time of the Super-Tuesday push, found an image of Obama and by the following day had a poster with the word HOPE. The poster and image instantly went global. Fairey said that the image captured the leadership and humanity of the candidate and the word HOPE captured the feelings of his supporters. Success.

After the conclusion of the campaign AP threatened to sue Fairey for the use of the photograph that they believed he used to create his poster. Then in February of 2009, Fairey decided to beat AP to the punch and sued AP, claiming that his use of the photo was covered under Fair Use. To make things even more complicated, the photographer who allegedly took the original image, Mannie Garcia, sued AP claiming that he was a freelancer and not an AP employee when he shot the disputed photo and therefore he was entitled to compensation from this litigation. At the end of February 2009 NPR interviewed Fairey and Garcia (separately). It probably didn’t help to settle things down that the disputed poster had just been hung in the US National Portrait Gallery on January 20th, 2009.

It was a textbook case on Fair Use that I immediately chatted with my students about. Looking at Fairey’s actions and pre-emptive lawsuit, those who had read the requirements for a Fair Use defense could say in unison: Fair Use is not a right but a defensible position. Again, Fair Use is not a right but a defensible position.

At the time I asked around to see what others in the media business felt. I asked photographer and TWiT contributer, Scott Bourne, his take on the case (via Twitter) and he said, “I think the artist stole the photo and his fair use claim will end up costing him treble damages. All depends on whether AP owns [the] pic.”

When NPR’s Terry Gross asked the photographer of the Obama image, Mannie Garcia, his take on Fairey using his photograph he said, “[It's] crucial for people to understand, simply because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean that it’s free for the taking, and that just because you can take it, doesn’t mean that it belongs to you.”

A cursory survey of opinions online at the time from the likes of Milton Glaser on BoingBoing, Mark Vallen on Art-for-Change, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, and Chal Pivik on the Los Angeles METBlogs, seems to show that the more the pundit knows about the actual steps or changes to the photo that Fairey made to create the poster the more likely the writer came down on the side of Fairey’s Fair Use claim. NPR, of course, did an excellent job covering all of the angles of the story, finishing up with a discussion with law professor Greg Lastowka on the case and Fair Use. Click on the link/player at the end of this story for NPR’s interview.

And so the case stayed here for about ten-months with the photographers crying foul and the graphic artists flipping the bird. Then in October of 2009 Fairey dropped a bomb admitting that he’d lied about which photograph he’d used and destroyed evidence of the actual images he’d used (which he feared would have proven AP’s case because the image required far less manipulation to create the poster). Fairey’s attorneys, which included support from Stanford University’s Fair Use Project, withdrew their support. Photographers 1, Graphic Artists 0.

In my original article I concluded that had my research on this story ended with the NPR piece I would have been left with a different image of Shepherd Fairey than the one I gained via a series of videos that were created long before Obama campaign, when Fairey’s main claim to fame was his “Andre the Giant: Obey!” world-wide sticker/poster/street art project. Fifteen-plus arrests later for “street art” activities and it’s little wonder that he’d be a media darling while at the same time being in trouble for taking someone’s else’s photograph and not thinking twice about using it to make the Obama: Hope image. Even though it would have gone completely counter to his street-artist-persona, a simple call or email to AP would have saved him all of this hassle.

But who am I kidding. In one of the videos, when Fairey says, “Shephard Fairey: Icon” for the G4 series of the same name, implying his own status in the art/street culture world, I was put off by the arrogance and willingness to play both sides of the media. I predicted that when all of this plays out the title of his next video would be, “Shepherd Fairey: Oops.” But I guess given the out of court settlement, the Fair Use test case was kicked to the curb and Fairey is left to say either, “Shephard Fairey: Halfsies” or “Shephard Fairey: Do You Take Checks?”

Media:

NPR: Fresh Air: Shepard Fairey: Inspiration Or Infringement?

If you don’t see the audio player above, you can switch to Firefox or Click here to listen to the podcast

Los Angeles Times Video: Hope: Shepard Fairey and Barack Obama

Sources:

Image: (FILES) People walk past Shepard Fairey’, retrieved from http://www.boston.com/ae/specials/culturedesk/FILES-US-POLITICS-INAUGURATION-PORTRAIT_001.jpg on 01/13/2011

Shepard Fairey Settles Case, Collaborates With AP Instead by Marina Galperina, retrieved from http://animalnewyork.com/2011/01/shepard-fairey-settles-and-collaborates-with-ap/ on 01/13/2011

Barack Obama artwork case settled, retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12170620 on 01/13/2011

Image: Giant/OBEY, retrieved from http://www.graffiti.org/faq/kataras/kataras_fig3Fairey.jpg on 01/13/2011

Obama photo: Mannie Garcia (AP)/Obama image: Shepherd Fairey, retrieved from http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/09/milton-glaser-weighs.html on 04/09/2009

Obama “Hope” Image vs. One Lost Shephard by Joe Bustillos, retrieved from http://joebustillos.com/2009/04/10/obama-hope-image-vs-one-lost-shepard/ on 01/13/2011

Shepard Fairey: Inspiration Or Infringement? NPR Fresh Air interview, retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101182453 on 02/27/2009

Hope: Shepard Fairey and Barack Obama – Los Angeles Time interview/video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_EOzZ9iaJQ&NR=1 on 04/07/2009

ICONS: Shepard Fairey, YouTube video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNv-9IOBZZo on 04/07/2009

It’s something that the computer geeks don’t get. It’s part of why Microsoft’s efforts to promote Tablet PCs for the past ten years has completely failed. It’s not about the hardware or the feature list. It’s about the books, magazines, newspapers, and movies I can connect to and my access to my stuff stored on the cloud. In typical Apple fashion they are at least a good five to ten years ahead of the curve and this is resulting in more than a few disconnects. The geeks are thinking GBs storage, USB ports and processor speeds and old media are thinking pay-walls and DRM. And both of them are so dead wrong, it’s embarrassing.

On the media end I should be able able to click on any book and get an electronic or audio version for less than the price of going to my local Borders for a dead tree version. But the publishers have got their heads so far up their asses that they want to charge me a hard cover price or more for a version that doesn’t cost them one physical cent to produce or ship. They would rather sell 1,000 copies for $25 than 1,000,000 copies for $5. Or worse, there’s no e-version available because they can’t figure out how to make a digital version (though I remember a Harry Potter fan copying a 500 page book in less time than it took for the dead tree version to make it to his country).

Here’s the deal, we want to pay for the story, movie, song. The career of Jonathan Coulton should be proof of this. What should also be clear is that we’re not interested in paying for all of the middle managers and flunkies who don’t add one wit to the product. Yes it’s a business, and there are lots of important folks who make it happen But we’re not going to pay $25 for a book when we know that the pricing structure was built around creating a physical book that isn’t getting created. And the scarcity model, where only so many books/song/videos can be made every year, isn’t going to work in the era of almost infinite artists freely sharing their works on the Internet (remember Jonathan Coulton?).

Free Background Old newspaper by ShironekoEuro

So, getting back to the iPad, I was really hoping on the first day to subscribe to my local papers and national voices from the first day and buy any book like Michener’s The Source from the 1970s or even older tomes like The Idea of the Holy. Over the past month the only books I’ve bought were from the amazon app because the ones I wanted weren’t available on the Apple iBook app and I haven’t found a single newspaper to subscribe to that was any better than what I can get on an RSS reader. Fail. But in the last couple of days I’ve been encouraged by the iPad version of National Geographic (offered by Zinio) that not only mimics the magazine format but also offers unpublished photos and videos not available in the dead tree version.

My thing is that technology is so expensive, so, except for the geeks, it’s got to deliver something more than what can be had without the device. And that extra stuff has got to be the music, books, magazines, newspapers, media that is cheap, instantly available and brings something “more” than the analog versions. The Achilles heel is whether the media companies can wrap their heads around the game changing nature of this new model. If Apple loses the tablet war it’ll be because the public lost interest while the media companies fiddle with their business model and fail to deliver. jbb

"May I axe you a question?" Astro's Got an Axe! by tohoscope

Bob is still looking for his A

Grades in middle school are controversial, especially now that students earn credits to be promoted to the next grade level. Ask a teacher at my school to “give an ‘A’” and their response is likely to be one of confusion, disbelief, laughter, or even anger. Administrators will tell you that grades should be used to measure student success and communicate progress. Unfortunately, many teachers use grades to communicate a very bad message and focus on “principle.” “Its the principle of the matter,” exclaims a colleague. “If you give an ‘A’ to a student who does nothing in your class, what kind of message are you sending the kid who works their butt off?”

So it goes back to measure and comparison (see chapter 2). Giving an A is not about allowing students a free ride and telling hard working students that it is all for nothing. Rather, it is eliminating the “anticipation of failure” and allowing the class to focus on what is more important; learning. It’s all about placing everyone on a level playing field (pardon the competitive sports analogy) and saying, “you already have the grade, what’s next?” It’s likely that the response will involve a feeling of relief and willingness to explore.

Ashley’s always reaching for an ‘A.’

However, I think the next step of giving an ‘A’ is just as important as giving the ‘A’ itself. Teachers who feel that giving an ‘A’ would eliminate student accountability will like this step the most. Requiring that students predict how they have earned the A before they have actually received it, helps them develop goals and builds intrinsic motivation. It also helps them see the possibility of being successful, something many have given up on.

Interested in seeing how I felt about this in October, click here. – Noel Nehrig

And my erudite response:

Grades are a bit like religion. There may have been a point at some time but it’s gotten lost in all of the noise and people are very scared to consider what to do if grades/religion had never existed. In the classroom, has the point of all the effort gotten lost to pursuing a grade? I mean, just like religion, isn’t all of this effort suppose to amount to something intrinsic, some good that goes beyond measure?

Grades are institution solution to communicating student progress and/or position in the A-to-F continuum within the classroom. There the measure, not the point. But i’ve seen instructors at all level quibble looking to seal up any possible loophole that a student might use to game the grading system. At best a grade is an approximation that may or may not be related to student progress fulfilling course requirements. In the end, it’s what we carry in our heads and hearts that matters more than this imperfect approximation. Funny how only those who excel and those who feel besmirched care so much about grades. What’s up with that?

Sources:
Wk 1 Reading- “A” is for Ax Murderer by Noel Nehrig. http://web.me.com/noelnehrig/The_Blog_Prince_for_EMDTMS_MAC/2010_MAC_OCD_Wk1/Entries/2010/2/6_Wk_1_Reading-_%E2%80%9CA%E2%80%9D_is_for_Ax_Murderer.html retrieved on 2/9/2010

Astro’s Got an Axe! by tohoscope. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tohoscope/182444838/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

Stone mason by sk8geek. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sk8geek/3917647300/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

Pretty Princess Picking Her Nose by Pink Sherbet Photography. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3295969599/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

In Bad Faith, Part 4: The Evil Media

What both the Left and Right seem to forget is that the Media, especially in the form of the movie industry, is a form of banking, and it will do whatever it thinks will make money for it’s investors. Period. It rarely leads and often plays both sides of the issues because it needs to draw attention to itself, not to change things but to make money. The Media is not a perfect reflection of our culture, remember it’s first responsibility is not to reflect Reality, but to make money. And this “bottom line” mentality is not limited to the movie industry but, sadly, has become a big part of the News Industry too. Journalism has felt the pressure to sell it’s wares. We may think of Journalism as a service, but it’s a business. This is not to say that Journalism has abandoned the principles of Objectivity, but it’s more of an ideal, like how Americans try to live up to our Constitution, Bill of Rights and Pledge of Allegiance. Journalism believes in Objectivity, in part, because it’s business model requires a certain level of trust. No trust, no sales. So, at it’s core the News & Media industries are neither Left or Right. They can’t afford to be. They will follow the interests of their audiences, Left or Right, but the commitment isn’t to the politics but to the business of making money. The Media decision-makers are not pushing any position except the one that keeps them viable and better yet, more than viable.

Add to all of this, one of the dangers of our Internet era is that, just as much as we have the possibility to get our news and information from world-wide and culturally diverse sources, it’s just as likely that we will choose only sources that we agree with, creating a kind of echo chamber of information. This is the unintended result of the combination user-selected news/media feeds with user-created journalism. What does this have to do with God and Faith? Well, today it is possible to completely blanket oneself 24/7 with whatever message one wants to hear and completely blank out anything that one doesn’t agree with. For many there’s no problem with this picture except for the part where one might want or need to interact with someone not from ones own media bubble. For Christians we call that the Great Commission. For the Secularist, there is a curiosity to understand our fellow-person (especially if they don’t agree or understand us). So, how do you do that if the other person is not from your media bubble? Is there even a common media language left that you can use to reach this other person?

So, the Media is neither Left or Right. It’s a business that wants to stay in business so it’s going to be careful not to offend what it perceives to be its audience. You don’t like what’s on the air you now have at least three choices: change the channel/stream, turn the thing off, or make your own news/media organization. By the way, according to the film’s official website the film opened in limited release this past Friday, January 22, 2010. At the bottom of this entry I’ve embedded the film’s trailer and an NPR/Fresh Air interview of the Randal Keynes, the author of the book  the film is based on.

NPR Fresh Air Interview: Randal Keynes: When Darwin Is In Your Family Tree:

Sources:
* Movie poster: Creation: The True Story of Charles Darwin. http://www.creationthemovie.com/ retrieved on 1/26/2010

* Charles Darwin film ‘too controversial for religious America’ by By Anita Singh. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html retrieved on 1/25/2010

* Image: Freedom of the Press poster by Publish! Magazine (nd).

* YouTube: ‘Creation’ Trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BREvUKpZTeU retrieved on 1/26/2010.

* Randal Keynes: When Darwin Is In Your Family Tree. Fresh Air from WHYY. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122778363 retrieved on 1/25/2010

The Role of Technology in Education

As you work through this course’s reading assignments and create your Udutu project you might notice that you might be the only one among your peers working at such a high level of expectation as far as the integration and useage of technology in the day-to-day functioning of a classroom. Why is that? The normal excuse on the part of educators tends to be the lack of time and on the part of administration the lack of funds. And even when technology is brought into the classroom the purchasing process tends to be such a top-down “what do we need now” event, lacking any long-term vision or implementation plan that it’s no suprise that thirty-years after the arrival of the first small computers into the classroom, we’re still having this discussion.

One of the voices of dissent is astronomer Clifford Stoll, who feels that the last thing we need is to have students equate staring at a picture of the Louvre on a computer screen with anything remotely similar to experiencing the real thing. When Dr. Stoll wrote Silicon Snake Oil (1996) the Internet was in just in its commercial infancy, NetDay had 20,000 volunteers wiring local schools to the Internet and there was great buzz about improving education by improving access to the Information SuperHighway. At the time his concern was whether this investment in infrastructure could be better spent on teachers instead of tools. Over a dozen years later, with institutions flying to “online learning” as a way to cheaply expand programs without having to invest in more facilities or faculty, the question still remains whether sound pedagogy is even entering into these decisions.

The following videos look at the role of technology in education, but not in such a “either/or” point of view. The first video harkens from the dawn of the small computer era when Seymore Papert developed something called Logo to teach programming to children:

This next video is one man’s crazy idea to enable third world children to completely skip industrialization and move from agrarian culture to the information age. Another alumni from the MIT Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte talks about the deployment of the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) program:

In this last video the protagonist looked outside his office window, to a wall that separated his nice surroundings from a slum and thought, I wonder what would happen if… Thus began Sugata Mitra‘s “Hole in the Wall/Digital Divide“ studies:

Please review these videos and come to our Wimba session ready to talk about the Role of Technology in Education.

Sources:

* The Internet? Bah! Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana, by Clifford Stoll | NEWSWEEK (From the magazine issue dated Feb 27, 1995). http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554 retrieved on 12/7/2009

* Youtube video: Seymour Papert 1983 posted by cynthiaso. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOf4EMN6-XA retrieved on 12/7/2009

* TED video: Negroponte takes OLPC to Colombia. http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_negroponte_takes_olpc_to_colombia.html retrieved on 12/7/2009

* TED video: Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html retrieved on 12/7/2009

:: Description
You will read the Art of Possibility chapters 10 -12 and post one entry (or more) into your blog.

:: Rationale

pacbell by joe bustillos

Sometimes the road we take in the Universe of Possibility leads us in unexpected directions and to unimagined destinations. I took a summer job with Pacific Bell in California. That the company was called Pacific Bell might tell you how long ago that was. I met an energetic manager who shared with me that the secret to avoiding job boredom was to never stay in one job position for too long. He estimated that 18-months was usually more than enough time to get to know all one needs to know and then move on. He was an unusual entrepreneurial sprirt in a company that was much more well known for it’s “lifers” not making any waves and just putting in the time needed to get to retirement. I wasn’t as entrepreneurial as the manager but I knew, much to my family’s frustration, that there was something more for me to do. After finishing a second bachelor’s degree and nearing the end of my teacher credential program, Pacific Bell decided that it was time to let some people go. Normally that would have been a horrible thing, but for me the timing was perfect and I started my career as a public school teacher a few months after letting go of my 15-year “summer job” with the phone company.
Ah, but the story continues from there. Truth be told, being a teacher was somewhat akin to being a phone company drone in that the highest form of praise tended to be that one always showed up for work on time and never did anything that made work for others. Yeah, I somehow ended up in another world of “lifers.” Of course, I didn’t know any better so I kept doing things like teaching my students video journalism to help with their literacy and brought computers from home into my classroom. I guess I became a bit more entrepreneurial because I’d get involved in creating some new tech/ed/media program on campus, we’d have great success and then after a couple of years the funding would go away and I’d find myself working for another school/district, bringing tech/media to the natives. While getting a master’s degree and time spent working on a doctorate I continued the “create a tech program/find success/lose funding/change jobs” cycle three times. Alas, the doctorate program ran aground (twice), but I was lucky enough to work with Dr. Ludgate and somehow found a home on the opposite end of the country working for Full Sail. I am not the poster child for the Art of Possibility. But I am kind of stubborn as far as expecting a lot from myself because I’ve already been given so much. And if I can influence someone to not settle for the status quo, to push the technology, to enable their students, well then, that’s a damn good day.

The following video features someone who found amazing success, in many ways, through equally amazing failures. Having witnessed three of his incredible keynote speeches, this is not one of his better speeches. But the message is all the more real given the speech’s lack of polish. Enjoy.

:: Resources

The Practices
This books is less of a “study” book, where you try to analyze every sentence and paragraph and more a book that you want to move through and try to focus on the over-arching concepts presented. At the end of each chapter are some questions that form the “practices” part of the book. Use the questions to prompt your book notes that you will post in your blog. Feel free to answer the following study questions, or comment on the practices at the end of each chapter, or write about whatever moves you most (that’s directly related to the reading). Your choice.

Chapter 10. Being the Board: It’s not them. It’s not the circumstances. It’s me. It’s my choices. Now what do I do?

Chapter 11. Creating Frameworks for Possibility: How do I take this flash of insight and make it into daily thing? And how do I share this with others?

Chapter 12. Telling the WE Story: I told you it wasn’t about you. Have you been able to tap into the power of combining your expertise and passions with someone equally gifted? Have you had the pleasure of lifting a teammate, student, stranger up enabling them to realize their dreams and exceed anything that you could have imagined?

Coda: Now what do we do?

Sources:
Image: Pop!Tech 2008 – Benjamin Zander by Pop!Tech, http://www.flickr.com/photos/poptech2006/2968249798/ retrieved on 11/12/2009
image: pacbell01.jpg by Joe Bustillos, http://joebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/pacbell01.jpg retrieved on 11/12/2009
image: jbb & zander by Joe Bustillos, http://web.me.com/edm613/media/jbbnbzander.jpg retrieved on 11/12/2009
YouTube: Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 posted by peestandingup, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA, retrieved on 11/12/2009.

High Speed Aerodynamics by o b s k u r a

One of the books that I use for my course is the inspirational The Art of Possibility and in one of the opening chapters the authors, Ben & Roz Zander, propose getting rid of grades. This usually invokes strong pros and cons reactions from my students. For example…

“The author of the book, “The Art of Possibility” made a statement that “not just in this case, but in most cases, grades say little about the work done.” This statement could not be more true. The first thing I thought about when reading this chapter is the meetings that I have sat in with administrators that have implied students should earn nothing less than a 50% and that is if they even fail. Today, we are educators, which work in a data driven education system where the author’s statement of this book could not be more applicable. Grades today do not reflect the work or worth of a student for the simple fact that, like Southern California, there are so many other places that are driven by political, or administrative, holds to influence their “data” and/or “funding.” by Melissa C.

Two of Melissa’s classmates responded:

“I feel the exact same way!!! My school wanted us to also not give students anything less than a 50% a couple of years ago and last year the 50% was raised to 60%. When we were told this many of us were livid! I felt like what was the point of grading work if we were just going to GIVE grades. Where is the “Truth in Grading”? Our system depends on data for funding and political purposes. Since our high school graduation rate was so low I believe this was a strategies used to improve it. I don’t understand how passing the children when they clearly have not mastered the material. Giving students a passing grade is being done on all levels and it is so frustrating when students come into my classroom and you are thinking they are on level and find out they are very far behind.” by Nicole

The second classmate said…

“I recently shared this chapter with some of my colleagues at school and you should’ve heard the gasps of horror when I proposed that grades mean a lot less than we think. Of course, they all seem to agree that the way schools are “graded” according to NCLB is unfair. Talk about a double standard. In all actuality, grades can be a good way to provide feedback to students as long as what we are really assessing is mastery. Then again, there are a lot of better ways than grades to do that. I feel lucky that my administrator feels the same way I do (he has also read this book). Unfortunately, we have a steep hill to climb to get everyone on the same page.” by Noel

Being the class professor I had to add my two-cents:

So, part of the problem is that grades are meant to be a way to communicate progress, but rather than track the progress of the learner, they tend to be a crude measure kind of like the height requirement before a little kid could get on a rollercoaster, “rider must be this tall to ride this ride.” It doesn’t tell us anything except for that one data point. So in many ways it fails in it’s primary task. Worse than that is that this crude measure becomes the goal, when what the student is capable might be far beyond “the goal.”

Now your concern is a bit different because administrators are trying to keep students from digging themselves into a hole that they cannot get out of, because if they fail to turn in the first of three assignments, for example, they cannot make up the points needed to pass if they get a zero out of one-hundred the first time out. Now the grade is being used as an accounting tool that needs to be tweaked, which should be a sure sign that something’s amiss. There are some fundamental issues being lost in the need to show a number, forgetting that there might be dozens of reasons for the student not turning in an assignment, beginning with a basic cultural conflict between the needs of the school and the pressures at home and that the student probably can’t read. This is where data is the enemy because it provides excuses and allows decision-makers to hide from the truth that this section of the community/school wall is completely broken and needs more than meetings and studies to repair it.

Sources:
image: High Speed Aerodynamics by o b s k u r a, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mixedmedia/2650461196/ retrieved on 10/31/2009

Week 3 – Giving an A by Melissa Clark (with comments by Nicole and Noel), http://constantclarke.blogspot.com/2009/10/week-3-giving-a.html retrieved on 10/31/2009

image: Cover of “The Art of Possibility” from Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=qLz0SmPL-qgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false retrieved on 10/31/2009