My Experiences In Education

Tag: copyright

Week 4: Creative Commons and Podcasts!

Intellectual property, copyright and public domain include bimodal positions that both have strong arguments. In the film “A Remix Manifesto”, they look at copyright, creative commons and public domain and while they are biased coming from a pro creative commons standpoint do a great job of explaining both sides. The main artist they follow is Girl Talk, an individual who takes unauthorized samples from a huge variety of songs and makes his own remixed song. It is incredibly creative, and very popular. He does not see it as stealing, as he is making something new and very different from these sources. On the flip side, in one of the interviews, Lars Ulrich from Metallica is shown to be very upset about people illegally stealing his music. He argues this is his intellectual property. Throughout the movie however we see that the people that really benefit from locking up their content are very much driven by wanting the maximum amount of profit without really always giving credit or the money to the original artist. Disney is a great example. Disney has made billions of dollars reworking and animating stories that have been in the public domain for hundreds of years, for example Cinderella. Yet somehow, they do not see it as taking those stories and making a profit but consider them their own. Another great example is “Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve”. There has been a decades long battle with the Rolling Stones on how the Verve did get permission to use an orchestral section of the Stones song “The Last Time” but then claimed they took too much. The issue here is that the Rolling Stones based their song on a traditional gospel song that was sung by the Staple Singers. Sounds a little hypocritical to me.

One of the main reasons to be upset about someone taking your work is the lack of recognition however, and that can be accomplished through creative commons. I personally agree with creative commons as the way we should move forward as a society. We are striving to be a better connected global community, and it is so important for the betterment of everyone to “promote the free flow and growth of creativity and ideas” (Remix Manifesto). When looking on the Creative Commons website, they had an article posted about how they are calling on organizations to open their patents and copyrights freely available to fight COVID. This could be instrumental in finding a vaccine sooner. By using Creative Commons effectively, credit to the creator is still accomplished while allowing others to benefit from your work. Another great tool from them is the Creative Commons Search Browser Extension. This allows you to search for CC licensed images, download them and attribute the owner or creator! I also added a CC license to my blog, so others can share my content with credit. First you choose what type of license you want from CC, and then follow the instructions on the “Add a CC Mark to a WordPress Blog” and you are done!

My favourite quote from Remix Manifesto is “We are not passive consumers anymore, we create and collaborate”. The is the epitome of how our society is moving forward, and we better get on board.

 

I also had a closer look at our Social Media Competency this week. It was great to see the link towards “What Makes a Good Blog Post”, as since this is my first time blogging, tricks of the trades from the professionals is always welcome. The first point they make it to go look at everyone else’s blog! What do you like, what do you not like? I honestly had not really taken the time to spend a half hour exploring different classmate’s blogs and I had a great time. People are learning about so many interesting things! The biggest take home for me was the pictures and videos. That really drew me into the story they were telling about their inquiry. Hyperlinks are also an excellent way of incorporating a ton of information while still leaving the post as readable. Readers can choose how much they want to delve into each topic. When critically evaluating a topic or technology, they suggested using “CRAAP”  (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy and Purpose). Is your information up to date, do your links work, does it relate to the topic at an appropriate level? Where are your sources, is it reliable and truthful, are you being objective or is this an opinion piece? These are all excellent ways to keep your posts effective and concise.

Another section of Social Media on our forum was a discussion of Podcasts on Teaching and Learning! I love listening to podcasts (as I’m sure many of us do), and often listen when I am cleaning the house, biking downtown or gardening. One of my favourite podcasts as I mentioned on my second inquiry post is “Stuff You Should Know”. The co hosts are hilarious, research their material from reputable sources and take in corrections when necessary. When I started listening to them, I would cherry pick according to what I thought I was interested in, but after a while I just let the episodes run and learned so much fascinating stuff that I would have never picked! One excellent episode I just finished is “How the Electoral College Works” if you are looking for some clarity and understanding on how the US election works.

I would really like to be able to incorporate podcasts into teaching down the road. It gives students another avenue to get interested in class material or to learn more about something they learn in class. I like the look of “Brains On”, as their goal is to encourage curiosity about science and history, but I would want to listen to a few as it looks like it might be geared towards a younger age group. I also looked at “Tumble”. With titles like “The Science of Whiskers” and “Hamster Versus Bacteria” it seems like a great way to encourage casual, out of the classroom learning of science.

 

 

 

Throwing Some New Stuff!

This week I started some new pieces! It was a beautiful sunny day on Monday, and my good friend Sydney came to the studio with me to record a few videos of myself throwing pottery. I warmed up first by making a few flower pots, then moved on to making 6 plates for Goal 1 of my Inquiry.

I bought a new bag of recycled clay from Ann. I prefer recycled clay, it is the result of all the scrap pieces from the studio that Ann mixes together, so it has a nice light brown colour. It is also half the price of a bag that is one colour. You can buy white clay, a darker brown clay and a bright red/terracotta coloured clay as well.

Three pieces of recycled lump clay. Light brown in colour, three heights in cascading order. Placed ontop of canvas covered table.

Three starting pieces of recycled lump clay.

I started off by portioning my chunks of lump clay by cutting them with wire and weighing them on a scale. You can weigh an old finished piece you have and then add a bit to get a ballpark idea of how much lump clay you need. I know that my flower pots typically weigh around 1.5lbs when in the starting stage because I make them so often, but I needed to weigh a finished plate to see that I would need about 2lbs of lump clay for my new plates.

Portioning lump clay with a piece of wire. Clay is a light brown colour. Surface of the table is a brown canvas. Person is using thumbs to press wire down. Studio is in the background.

Portioning lump clay with wire cutter.

The next stage is wedging. The main reason to wedge your clay is to remove air pockets, which gives it a uniform consistency. It also makes the clay more pliable.

 

Once you have wedged all your chunks of lump clay that you want to throw in your session, you can move to your wheel. These wheels are super quick to set up.

Putting the pottery wheel together. The wheel is made of a light yellow plastic, and they snap together on a metal circular base.

Snapping the two main piece of the wheel together.

Adding small white clips to hold larger yellow pottery wheel together. Wheel is light yellow and secured on a circular metal base.

Securing wheel with clips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trickiest part of throwing pottery in my opinion is centering your clay on your wheel. This takes a ton of practice, and I was not consistently centering my clay for about the first six months of throwing. To start, you throw your lump clay as close to the middle as possible, but with some force so that it suctions onto the wheel. Add a bit of water to your piece, wet your hands well and crank up your wheel speed pretty high. Next, you anchor your elbows on your thighs, lean over your wheel, and bring the clay up into a column trying to keep as steady as possible. Push your thumbs slowly down until it is at the desired height. At this point you are mostly centered. To finish, push down from the top with one hand, and push towards the center from the side with your other hand with equal pressure. Knowing when it is properly centered is a feeling and just takes practice. If your piece is not centered, it is much more difficult to throw, as your clay is unevenly distributed. This makes it hard to make a symmetrical piece and the chance of it shearing off increases, as half your piece will be thinner. I’ve linked a great video by Earth Nation Ceramics that talks about how to center clay like a pro. This next timelapse video is an overhead view of myself centering a lump.

 

Now we are at the fun part, pulling! After my clay is centered I slow my wheel down quite a bit, as the faster I go at this stage the more likely I make mistakes. The better you get the faster you can go when pulling your clay up and out to the desired shape. When making something like a mug, flower pot, bowl, etc you start by pushing one finger into the center of your centered clay, down until you are about a half inch from the wheel base. Push your finger slowly outwards until you have enough room to work. Now you are slowly pulling your clay into its desired shape. Keep pressure on both sides of the piece as you pull. Make your piece as high as you want first, and then increase the diameter. It is much more difficult to bring up a wide piece than fatten out a tall skinny piece. Earth Nation Ceramics has another great video on how to pull. This flowerpot timelapse below is a bit more complicated because I am throwing it with a dish attached to the pot. A little piece of the clay around the outside is pushed down so I can shape a dish later and have it attached to the main pot.

 

Be careful not to make it too thin, or something like this will happen!

 

Mistakes happen in pottery, and its all about having fun and practicing. I turned that pot into a small bowl instead, and I save the piece that sheared off. Once it has dried out a bit, I can rewedge it with some other leftover pieces and start a brand new piece! After you have finished pulling your piece and you are happy with it’s shape, it is time to remove it from the wheel and place it on your cork board to dry out a bit. First you remove any water that is in the bottom of the piece. If you leave water inside your piece, over the next day the bottom of your piece would disintegrate back into watery clay, leaving you with a gaping hole or the collapse of your whole piece. Add a lot of water along the wheel to the outside of your piece, and then take your wire cutter and carefully run it along the surface of the wheel underneath your finished piece. You have to do this a few times, until you get water between the pottery and the wheel, to slide it off the wheel. Carefully pick your piece up holding it from the bottom and place it on your cork board. Done!

 

When throwing a plate, the method is a little different and much quicker. You still need start by centering your clay on your wheel. Then using the edge of your hand by your pinky finger, you slowly and firmly push down on a radius tangent until your plate is close to the desired size and thickness. A small tool called a rib is then pressed firmly to the plate back and forth at least 5 times from center to edge to smooth your plate and remove any air bubbles. After you are happy with the thickness and size of your plate, you can add a raised rim by pushing your thumb along the edge of your plate to the desired height.

 

I made three normal flower pots, one pot with an attached dish, one small bowl and six dinner plates in my two hour session on Monday. Next week, the pieces will have dried to the “leather hard” stage. I will be able to finish the pieces with a variety of tools to be ready for their first trip to the kiln.

Image of Allison at Yunomi Studio. Pottery recently thrown is in the foreground, including a plate, 3 pots and some wedged clay lumps. A large window showing a sunny day is in the upper third of the photo. Allison is wearing a camping themed apron, red long sleeve shirt and blue jean overalls. She has brown curly hair and is wearing glasses and a blue face mask.

Midway through the afternoon, with a few finished thrown pieces.

Editing Video and Audio:

This week while preparing this post I learned a lot about editing video and audio, and I found some great resources to help. I used iMovie as I use a MacPro laptop. To convert my videos to a timelapse, I found a great article by Pro-Lapse to explain the process. A video from Maria Schlossberg showed me how to take a picture from my video in a freeze frame. VideoZeus explains how to merge video clips together, as I wanted to take a middle chunk out of one video but make my timelapse the same speed on both sides. Finally, I wanted some funky jazz music for the background of my videos! After learning so much about Copyright and music from the movie “A Remix Manifesto“, I chose to find an open source music site. Free Music Archive was inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement, and has thousands of songs to pick from a variety of genres. You can “tip” your artist if you want to pay, and every artist has a bio and links to their page to learn more. I chose this song by KieLoKaz.