明版的Howard 3-year-old drummer

Three-year-old Howard Wong rocks out on the drums and has a good time at it. Fun. I bet the Asian characters in the title are saying something rude about stupid monolingual americans. jbb

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Art of Possibility Reflection: Unexpected Directions & Unanticipated Destinations

I just finished updating the reading part of my course and I somehow ended up telling my own story of Possibility. At this point in the course my students have read the first nine chapters of the Art of Possibility and are finishing up their final week in my course. They are just about to begin their last month in Full Sail’s emdtms program. Thus, the following is a glimpse of what my students suffer through. Don’t feel sorry for them. I’m the one who has to read (and grade) their blogs. Ack. Actually that is one of the best parts of this job, it’s reading the great things they share in their blogs… oh yeah, I usually share such things right here in this blog. Duh. Enjoy

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

:: Rationale

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.

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Is the “Texting While Driving” PSA Too Graphic?

CNET’s Technically Incorrect blog, asked the question about whether makers of the following public service announcement (PSA) went too far depicting the dangers of texting while driving. If one views the video on a “surface” level, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been shown on most American televisions. My guess is that the uproar is this video presents its brief horrific narrative with no villain to blame and no happy ending. The video is disturbing. My fear is that it’s intended audience has already been desensitized to the message and those of us past our middle years, who recognize the preciousness of life, are the ones most likely to get rattled.

Sources:
blog: Is PSA on texting and driving too shocking? Technically Incorrect blog by Chris Matyszczyk. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10318015-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 retrieved on 9/9/2009

YouTube video: Graphic Crash, UK, Dangers of texting while driving PSA by Peter Watkins-Hughes and the Gwent, Wales police department, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdvFh95Yg6M retrieved on 9/9/2009

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Roll Over Beethoven and Copy… Right!

Part of my course at Full Sail is about media issues, you know, stuff like Copyright, Fair Use and Creative Commons. The “M” in our program title (EMDT) is Media and my students, who are in their ninth month of a year long Masters degree program, are expected to stare down this huge subject and come up with a reasonable approach to something that I tell them occupies the life’s work of an army of lawyers, policymakers and troublemakers. As I lay down guiding principles to understanding the moving target that is Copyright/Fair Use/Creative Commons the discussions tend to be quite lively and informative for all participants. One thing that I’ve never fully appreciated is how difficult and expensive it can be for teachers who want to follow copyright law who teach band, or theater or any of the other arts.

One teacher wrote in her class blog:
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My Year with the OLPC – NR4PT

Around this time last year I was very excited to receive my OLPC (One Laptop per Child), called the XO-1. Having drunk the Negroponte gatorade I was endlessly frustrated with Dvorak and other tech journalists who kept their criticism of the XO-1 focused on either Negroponte’s eccentricities or the fact that the creators made it specifically to not be a Windows PC. The concept, begun at MIT’s Media Lab, that technology in education is not about training students to be little MS Office drones but to use computers to teach programming in order to teach thinking and communication seemed to waft past the XO-1′s dissenters. Leo Laporte and David Pogue got that the little green XO-1 wasn’t about attacking an untapped technology market, but was an humanitarian cause to bring the gift of technology to Third World classrooms.

In the ISTE Keynote address that I heard Negroponte introduce the XO-1 he quipped that they must be doing something right to have raised the ire of Intel and Bill Gates. Alas, maybe the joke in the end was on Negroponte when Intel promised to play fair but couldn’t resist the temptation to undercut Negroponte’s “humanitarian cause” and sell their competing kid-size ultra-light laptop, the Classmate, to the same countries Negroponte was trying to reach. So the Gospel according to Negroponte fell on deaf ears because the Win/Tel hegemony couldn’t hear the words for the vastness, opportunities and profits presented in possibility of harvesting the Third World educational/government technology nickel.

This holiday season the OLPC foundation is repeating their give one/get one campaign that I participated in last year to get my own XO-1, only this time they’re working with Amazon.com to get the word out and do the distribution. The commercials are very cute. My own XO-1 sits on a top shelf in my bedroom, part of my shrine to sentimental technology I’ve previously invested in (I really wish I had kept one of my old Kaypros to put in the shrine). I hate to think that Dvorak and the others might have been right after all.

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“About your blog…”

Yeah, that was the subject line I found in my Full Sail account this morning. I was scared and decided to not read the message until I got a few things done… Turned out that the writer for Full Sail Online is working on an article designed to “encourage people to keep an engaging daily blog.” She heard about my blog from my boss’ girlfriend and was looking for tips. Wow, from panic to being flattered. So I wrote back the following response:

Ashley,

Greetings. First off, I’m guessing that you don’t know how scary it is to get an email on the corporate account with the subject line: “About your blog…” Yikes. I’m so happy to help out in any way that I can (and not be in trouble!). My first thought is something the rock-star Sting said about how he believed that one has to write everyday if one expects to write well. That is, that one shouldn’t expect to write…
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Dissidents

When I read about the techniques Chinese bloggers were using to get the word out, I was reminded of my middle school students dying to listen to their music or get to their myspace page from behind the district’s firewall. District official’s no doubt would bristle at the analogy, but I’m sure that the Chinese officials also believe that they are justified using their firewall to protect their users from the great harm of an unregulated Internet. And legally speaking Public Ed is required to take whatever measures necessary to protect minors from exposure to potentially harmful material. Question is, when dealing with middle and high school students specifically, whether any firewall is strong enough and whether there are much more meaningful, inexpensive way to protect students from inappropriate content and the network infrastructure from attack and abuse. Included in my TCO (total cost of operation) analysis is the expense of not using the energy, ingenuity and genius of these students and the cost of keeping the disenfranchised disenfranchised.

Technorati Tags: blogs, community, gaming, internet, kids, media, china, teaching, thesystem, work

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Safely Arrived in Baton Rouge

After an incredible 31-hours on the road straight from Prescott AZ, Matt & I arrived in Baton Rouge this afternoon. You can follow along on our journey at http://twitter.com/jbb where I post little 140-character snippets of what’s going on from my phone and where we are at. You can also view posted photos from the trip here at my flickr account.

Thanks for your good thoughts, prayers and continued support. jbb

Technorati Tags: california, comedy, family, iPhone, kids, longbeach, travel, twitter

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Last Day with Kids

Lot’s of pix, lots of memories. I had some very cool kids this year. Gonna miss ‘em.

Music: Buffalo Soldier from the album “Legend” by Bob Marley & The Wailers

Technorati Tags: friends, kids, longbeach, teaching, work

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Classroom Journalism: Welcome 2 The Real World *music video*

* “Welcome 2 the Real World” was a music video inspired by the 80s jane child song by the same name. Students wrote a paragraph about what the word “Real World” mean to their parents and I recorded them reading their essays and added that to footage I’d shot in Downtown Long Beach.

Technorati Tags: kids, longbeach, musicvideo, teaching, video, writing, youtube

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