It is has been a while since my family and I first watched the video below. With a 3 year-old and a 19 month old at home you can imagine how much of a hit seeing Cookie monster singing would be. I had constant requests by my oldest to watch the video each time he saw me go on the computer. At first I thought of it just as a fun parody by Sesame Street of Carly Rae Jepsen’s song “Call Me Maybe”. However after reading George Couros’ blog “Where Sharing Exists, Innovation Flourishes”. I began to see it as an example of innovation flourishing. It was a post I read with my 3 year-old.
My 3 year-old sat down with me a couple weeks ago and read this post with me because he was excited by the innovation in it (& Cookie Monster). We were able to talk about sharing and how the songs were changed, so people can have fun and learn about sharing. It really is as simple as George talks about.
“If there is no sharing there is no learning”
Another important note is we had fun sharing and learning together. Learning should be fun. If it isn’t fun then the willingness to learn is not there. I could share with my son about the how, why, and what Dad was learning. In turn we were able to share a conversation on his level that sparked his own questions about the videos. Amongst those included: “Whose that?”, “Why?”, and “Sharing is fun, right Daddy?” We watched different versions of the song, danced along with them, and laughed at how they are different yet are almost the same. It is one of the ways I Choose 2 Matter in the lives of my family and others. Thank you Angela Maiers (@AngelaMaiers)!
Carly Rae Jepsen’s song is a song that my son would have no interest in had the brilliant innovators with Sesame Street had not put their touches on the song. Now he recognizes it on the radio when it comes on in our vehicle. I mean if you watch the original music video you can tell it was meant for a teenage audience.
The message is as simple as share your time and your experiences and you will learn and so will everyone else you come into contact with! It is a beautiful message that is spreading. Before youtube how many people would see funny parodies like Cookie Monster’s “Share it Maybe” or this version “Farm it Maybe” starring a boy named Lil’ Fred?
This boy and his family are not music video producers but are innovators and creators. Imagine the learning that took place in the rewriting of the lyrics, video production, and planning. His and his family’s understanding of the digital world I’m sure increased exponentially through learning experiences he and his family create for themselves in their videos. At the time of this blog post this video has about 660,000 hits. WOW! It is definitely worth your time to watch and share it with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Youtube is wonderful this way. It gives people a platform to question, be innovators, and create learning opportunities for themselves. Lil’ Fred’s talents are not hidden on his farm anymore. He knows he has talents that interest the world and has inspired more parodies by him. Check out his youtube channel. This video will surely inspire other kids to take songs and important ideas and put their own spin on them, so the world can witness and learn from their genius too.
Youtube and other social media platforms invite creative thinking and innovative action that will benefit the world. I know some might think I am stretching this a little with examples of song parodies. However few will argue that our world needs to celebrate people who aspire to create questions, experiment, and innovate to solve some of these issues (famine, war, disease, etc…). Parodies are creative examples of questioning, experimenting, and implementing of someone else’s innovation. It is also fun. This is learning, and sharing this learning inspires more learning. It is also driven by the passions within individual learners. Today it is a parody but could tomorrow be a cure?
cc licensed (BY) flickr photo shared by martedale2
We like it when others share their with us. It is a lesson we learned from a young age. However, what learning are we sharing with others? How public are we making it? These are important questions and are ones we should all ask ourselves. The more public we make our own learning the more opportunity we have to inspire genius and innovation in others and help our world solve some of its great mysteries. We must educate ourselves on how to share responsibly and model our learning in the social media world. It is a world our students live in. We need to connect to it in order to open them up to the learning opportunities available to them.
Through Blogging, Youtube, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook etc… We could be that spark to a person we have never met and that spark can light a flame in someone else! You have it in you to expand your sharing beyond the walls of your school. By doing so you will learn about things you never knew you had an interest in and you never knew was possible in your classroom, school, and personal life.
I thought I would leave you with you with one more cool example of a team of non-professionals working together to create their own learning experience. Enjoy this version of “Call Me Maybe” done by athletes on Harvard University’s baseball team. This one has over 15 million views in just 3 months. WOW!
Enjoy, smile, learn, and inspire! Today is a great Day for Learning! If you enjoyed this post please consider sharing. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Hugh McDonald
Today is a Great Day for Learning 
Excellent post, Hugh!
I think I will share it, maybe 😀
Thank you Gallit! I’ve been thinking this one and writing it for a couple weeks now. I was finally ready to send it out to the world.
Great post, Hugh. I liked the videos, I hadn’t seen the last one. There is a team USA Call Me Maybe video that is good too. I like that these athletic role models are sharing that it is ok to be silly sometimes. I think kids start taking themselves way too seriously, too early. It is good to see people they look up to dancing and singing and having fun.
I have to say that whenever you guys post blogs or ideas on twitter, I check them out and you and Gallit have sparked interests for me in many areas. So thanks for sharing your learning!
Katrina,
Thank you for your kind words! Gallit and I know sharing is fun! I look forward to reading your blog, so I can read about your thoughts, learn from you, and share it with others. 😀
I will be sure to check out the TEAM USA “Call Me Maybe” video. It is an excellent example of how athletes choose to show other ways they work as a team. It demonstrates to young student athletes they can have fun, be creative, and innovative in a variety of activities.
Hugh
Radiant Post Hugh! I will explain in September. I had not seen the Harvard Baseball team one and thought how fun that would have been to make. I also thought of how much fun students would have doing that. Thanks again for the post.
Patrick,
Thank you for your note. I look forward to hearing more about your thoughts in September. I’m thinking we have a video in us. 😀 How cool would that be? I hope you are having a wonderful summer!
Hugh,
I love the way you let blog posts simmer for weeks before sharing your genius with the world. They are always so well-thought out and thorough. This is a great post, as usual.
“The more public we make our own learning the more opportunity we have to inspire genius and innovation in others and help our world solve some of its great mysteries.” I love this! And it’s such an example of how you really GET IT! Thank you for sharing with the rest of us and helping us get it too!
Sincerely,
Denise Krebs
Denise,
Thank you for your kind words. I feel the same way about your thoughtful posts. If I were a young student in the 7th or 8th grade I would love to be in your class. I can only imagine how much you inspire the students you work with because you have inspired many teachers in our school district in Surrey and teachers in our PLN. Gallit and I talk often about how awesome it is we connected with you on twitter and through blogging last year.
The quote you picked out was one that I spent a lot of time on because I wanted to be clear with my PLN about the connection I made with my son and how important it is for us to share so we can inspire this type of curiosity and genius in our students. Often when I have an idea for a post I will log into wordpress and start an opening paragraph or just put in a title. Sometimes I come right back to the post and write bits at a time and sometimes it takes me a lot longer to comeback. Either way I’m happy to be blogging and my goal is to find more reasons to blog, tweet, and share my learning with others.
Hugh