This request is open to teachers or students. Let your voice be heard! Take ownership of the Intrepid Classroom!

Do a bit of research about DIY and the punk ethics and see what you can produce to show you understand the concept of punk as it relates to your learning and education. Use any tools you have at your disposable both digital and old school, then present your work on the Ning, the wiki, youtube, or your own blog. Don’s ask for clarification, don’t ask for what is acceptable; don’t ask anything just do it. Create!

I set June 26th as a deadline in hopes of forcing people get on task. Guilty of procrastination like everyone else, it is now 11:36pm the night of the 25th, and I am finishing up my project. I have a feeling mine will be the only presentation, but I hope to be surprised.The deadline was arbitrary, so I hope that others will begin to post their work on one of our many platforms.

The term Edupunk has gone through the ringer, but this is all I found it to mean:

inventive teaching and inventive learning. As for DYI, it is a term used by various communities that focus on people creating or repairing things for themselves without the aid of paid professionals.

In short: communities creating and using inventive teaching and inventive learning for themselves without the aid of paid professionals. Education Everywhere.

I wanted to create several video stickers. With the proliferation of video and the ease of embedding video on social networking sites, I wanted to create short video Public Service Announcements (PSA) My hope being that people will “stick” these videos on as many cyber-walls as possible. I want people to share them with as many people as they know on Facebook, embed them on their blogs, stamp them on their Nings. I think of the PSAs as video graffiti.

I have only created one as of now, but I hope to churn these out more often. We will begin the lessons on the subject matter in the  video soon. In the meantime, take a look and raise some questions.

Now I leave you with two assignments, distribute this video to as many people as you can and create a project of your own.

What if we were aware that we are co-authors of this story? What if we actively wrote our part and shared it with others. What if we weren’t confined to write our stories alone? The teacher in me thought PROJECT!

Let’s write an ongoing collaborative story by the members of Intrepid Classroom. I have created a page on the wiki page for this project. The rules are simple: Go to the wiki and add your part. Most of you are good enough writers to know that the story should maintain some sort of coherent thread, but if there are times when you must be non-linear then work you part into the existing plot somehow. You can add parts before or after existing text. If you want to flush out a character you did not create simply add flashback or find some other technique to add information. Feel free to experiment with voice, point of view, time…..whatever. Have fun. No rules, no grades, just write!

I think it is okay to edit other people’s work, but I suggest you do not erase entire passages. If someone edits your work, you are allowed to go back and change things back, but let’s not get into a back and forth. Rememebr once its on the wiki it is no longer yours, it is ours! You can write as little as one line or ten pages. (For those of you who have never worked with a wiki page please read this.)

There is a website called Lulu that will publish our book when it is done. So let’s get to work. Go to the wiki, ask for an invite, and write your part of the story. I hope you don’t mind but I have started us off. I couldn’t help myself. Let’s see where our story will take us….

First, I have a shikayat, a complaint against anyone reading this. Currently only two people are commenting on this blog. I put a lot of work but I guess it’s going to waste. The amazing two people I’m talking about are Mr.R and Julia. Thank you both. I would probably give up if it wasn’t for you. So those of you reading comment and you two amazing people keep on commenting and please send my blog link to anyone you know. Why? Well I don’t are if they think it’s a blog by a wired girl who has an average life. Even if they think so I don’t care just get them to mention that they came; by comment.

This is for you Leila:

Let me start by saying I feel your pain. As a much younger man or was it last week, I felt the pain of not being noticed. I poured my heart out into the world and realized the world didn’t notice, and if it did detect my presence it didn’t seem to care. I feel writing in general and blogging in particular is about communicating and connecting, and it can be very difficult to continually participate in a one-way conversation with what often feels like an abyss. Here is my advice:

We write because we have no choice. It may take some time for you to realize you are a writer; I hope you realize that most people never realize it. Be patient. You are young, observe, live, experience life. The calling will come; I already see it in you. I didn’t hear it until I was nineteen, but it comes to those of us who are passionate and constantly yearning for things we can’t explain. We write because the universe pours too much into our souls for us to handle. We write when awake and we write when we dream. We hear the words as they dance in every song we hear and see them in every face we meet. We write because the world is too perfect not to be documented. We write because we connect with the intangible and spiritual. We write because we appreciate the practical. We write because we are idealist and because we are realist. We write to reawaken magic and put to sleep apathy.

Sometimes we hope that people will read our words and perhaps pat our backs, but when we really start to write we do it because we can’t stop. Writing is bigger than ego and the writer. Writing belongs to the world; we simply catch it and give it form. We scribble on napkins and on the backs of our hands. We write by the way we dress and the way we walk. We realize that life is an on going story that we are writing even as we are living it.

Don’t concern yourself with who is reading your work and what they are or not saying. Just observe, listen, live, love, be young, and enjoy every experience in your life. Each one, good or bad is material for your story. That is the beauty of being a writer, you are constantly ready to work. Some see this vocation as a disease, and in a sense they are right, but once you are infected you have no choice but to continue. Just be glad that you know you are alive, many people in the world have no idea! Spill your guts and tears into words, paintings, music, art. They will never let you down.

I used to think that to be a writer one had to be published, or famous, or paid, but now I see that to be a writer you have to simply write. Rest assured that Julia and I are here and are reading, but don’t concern yourself with any of that. Just write!

• What advice do you have for writers?
• What does writing mean to you?

Please either comment below or write on your blog and give us a link.