Ah, its not what you think:

I got up at 2:30 A.M. (+8 GMT, Shanghai Time) last night to have a Skype meeting with Craig Roland and Karin Gunn and her class at West Port High School in Ocala, California. Craig tells me that I managed to pull off a coherent response to the students' great questions. I'm sure he's being generous, as I was very foggy and groggy, but I'll take what I can get.

We spoke about our upcoming Rotoball Project- how it came to be, what would be ok to include, and how the students can do something new and original. One student asked me whether it would be 'ok' to use copyrighted images. Great question. I told her that the use of copyrighted images in schools is complex and I didn't have any 'set' rules. I explained that in two videos submitted last year, we had two animations of 'pac man'. I allowed those in - and indeed, they were both good entries. However, I also pointed out that they lacked some of the originality of other pieces which were more unique in their interpretation of the project.

I also talked about how some rules are set in stone (the ball has to go from left to right so that it moves seamlessly throughout the project), but some were more open. For example, one of my co-bloggers here Cesar Reyes has his class doing the project in Maya. Its not rotoscoping, but I'm more interested in connecting students through collaborative art than adhering to relatively meaningless rules.

We also talked about life in China, how on my street we have both a Coldstone Creamery and a wet market (a traditional marketplace where local vendors come to sell produce and meats). Karin will be bringing some of her students to China in June, so I hope I've generated some enthusiasm for them (although perhaps they'll be less enthused about Coldstone than I am).

Special thanks to Craig for organizing this meeting, and to Karin and her students for their interest and enthusiasm for the project. Westport High School will be our 20th school to join the project this year! We've nearly doubled our participation from last year, and I can't wait to see all of the final work.

You can read Craig's take on our meeting here.