These days my mind, more than ever, or more than usual, has been munching on the idea of what it means to be an American. Obama’s win and its implications are obvious things to consider. Frankly, I’m just glad the elections are over (with him as the winner of course). What really got my noddle going was a video we received from the Creative Minds Academy, in Jos, Nigeria, and to be more specific, the interview of the president of the Project Happiness Club, Isaac. Happy Kids

His brief comments reaffirmed something I’ve been exploring on my own, which is that America is a state of being. In other words, one does not have to be born, or live in America to be American. I know that when someone is compelled to take on enormous challenges with Isaac’s poise, an essentially American spirit is present. And the ‘pursuit of happiness’ is as large of a challenge as they come…

…It’s in the American Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are create d equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

When Isaac explains that happiness is a fundamental unit of life on this earth, just as violent riots are beginning to brew, which will eventually take the lives of hundreds of Nigerians, something truly amazing and American is happening. It’s also happening in India, Nepal, Canada, and across the US. I wish I could tell Isaac yes I agree with you, my brother!

But…wait a minute I can! His school is closed right now as order is restored but it will reopen next week and Isaac will read this blog post and perhaps a few more from you. This is the pursuit of happiness and this is Project Happiness.

Rolando

A new study funded by the MacArthur Foundation describes some ways that being online can be good for teens.

…we found that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age.

According to the MacArthur Foundation:

The researchers identified two distinctive categories of teen engagement with digital media: friendship-driven and interest-driven. While friendship-driven participation centered on “hanging out” with existing friends, interest-driven participation involved accessing online information and communities that may not be present in the local peer group.

We introduced digital media within Project Happiness in order to achieve several goals:

• Emphasize story-telling as an essential way of sharing experiences and feelings
• Enhance students’ abilities to coherently explain and illustrate what they’re learning (in other words, enhance their skills in written, visual and auditory expression)
• Preserve stories for future reference

Please visit our SCHOOL Project pages to see some of the video and other arts produced by Project Happiness students around the world.

The George Lucas Educational Foundation, a good resource particularly for teachers, has an article that has provoked some discussion about when it is or isn’t appropriate for someone to record students and then post the recordings online. Keep the Lens Cap on: Internet Security and Privacy in a School Setting

If there’s a musical performance at school and a parent video tapes the performance, can they put it up on YouTube without any worries? What if the parents of one of the students on the tape doesn’t want their teen to appear on YouTube? What about the copyright on the music that’s being performed?

Thorny issues with lots of potential ramifications.

We held a “benefit dinner and auction” and a private showing of Project Happiness, the film, on November 15th at the Letterman Theater in the Presidio of San Francisco.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel (newspaper) wrote up their take on this premiere.

We’ll point you at photos from the event in a few days.

We launched a new activity a couple of weeks ago and we hope it will build up over time. Called Faces of Happiness, it’s an interactive process by which the Project Happiness community can create an online photo mosaic based on four key questions and on “your” reactions to them thru photography.

You play using email and your digital photos. We suggest that you play from a mobile phone, but you can use regular email if your phone doesn’t do photos.

Visit Faces of Happiness to play.

Or just go take a look at the photo mosaic.

It may not be your nightmare, but it’s mine. I’m the guy who maintains the Project Happiness websites. And whenever someone includes music in their video, I have to be concerned about whether the music has been properly checked and whether you have the rights to use it on the Internet. “Music wants to be free” they say - and yes, it’s true you can download music and then include it in your video without paying for it, but what happens afterward? If that music belongs to someone else and hasn’t been licensed (special fees - money!) for use in your video, then the owner can issue a DMCA “takedown” request, which we have to honor, and that means taking your video off the website. All your work was wasted. (And you’ll call me a jerk or something worse.)

We can’t even consider your video for public display without considering where the music came from.

How can you avoid this from the start? Simple - use podsafe music in the first place.

Have you ever used podsafe music? Please let us know where you got it and how it worked out for you. We’re going to bring up a page at Project Happiness that points to some of these resources, and we need your help and experience in locating them. Just ping music@projecthappiness.com to let us know. (Or post a comment on this article.)

Some examples to get you started:

• Podsafe music network - I haven’t used ‘em but it looks like you download for a small fee ($0.99) and then use the selection in your podcast without worrying about further royalties [also see PMN article on wikipedia]
• Stockmusic.net “Pay once. Use forever” - pricier, with a wide selection
• Podsafe Audio dot com
• Comparison chart of podsafe providers

The George Lucas Educational Foundation [GLEF] provides online information and inspiration for teachers.

Social Emotional Learning [SEL] is an important part of what’s going on in schools and is being widely discussed in the educational community. It’s also at the core of what’s happening in Project Happiness.

GLEF has a huge digital media focus and provides all sorts of online video resources and inspiration for teachers in K-12 schools. Many of these will be of interest to teachers and parents involved with our project.

One that we’d like to feature today is entitled Smart Hearts: Social and Emotional Learning. You can find lots more GLEF resources online.