Jun
24
Thing 10: Creative Commons
June 24, 2008 | | 2 Comments
CC (Creative Commons) is the way that anyone can put their creative work out there. It has the potential to turn everyone into a creative director by making active web participation. I am amazed how kids already know how to do this as if it were an instinct they were born with. My 11 year old has created 2 videos for You Tube all by himself. He only needed me when he was moving too fast to think through how to upload/download – minor things. What he really needed me for was to process what he was trying to do. By talking about it, he was able to see the process more clearly. I collaborated with him, not on the creative part but on the process part. He also has his own website of original comic strips he has hand drawn based on his life as a fifth grader. He manages the site, and is he the process of helping his older brother develop a website to showcase his band’s music. I just try to get out of the way. He can really get annoyed with my limited understanding of all the things I have been learning about in this course.
In hindsight, the experience taught me a lot of how to collaborate with students by helping them to reflect on what they are trying to do and not so much on controlling the content. Of course, school sponsored content should be accurate and appropriate. But once the content has been established, I say learn from the kids. What amazed me is how many responses my son has gotten to his stuff. Kids are writting comments about his videos. They seem to find every mistake, like spelling errors.
CC is great if you’re an amateur. If your a pro, you probably would want more protection for your work. But if your goal is to change the world in some way, and you’re not worried about how your work is being used, it’s phenomenal!
I was going to include the link for my son’s You Tube videos which shows how to solve a 4×4 Rubik’s Cube in two parts but I couldn’t find it on You Tube. There are thousands of them.
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It is cool that you are able to collaborate with your children and help them through the thinking process of Web2.0 tools. What great practice for all the neat things you will do with your students!
Creative Commons is all about copyright and fair use. Another good resource when the students are using images and how they can use the images, but must site the source depending on the creator’s permissions. This allows for a teaching moment.
What you said about “getting out of the way” of your sons, and how this is a great model for “teaching” with technology (after the content has been checked, etc.) really resonates with me. I think if we try to be one step ahead of our students technologically we will lose, because 1) they were born into this in a way that we just weren’t, and 2) there’s a mind-numbing amount of “stuff” out there, and there is just no way to keep up. However, if we can familiarize ourselves with some basic (and a few not-so-basic) tools and see our role as being the providers of assignments and coaches/ nurturers of their investigations then there is a win-win situation brewing.