As more and more content is used and shared online, the once clear rules regarding copyright become more and more blurred. Mash-up videos combine songs (copyrighted) with original video or edited news clips(copyrighted) with songs, or mix clips from movies(copyrighted), or…. The list goes on and on.
Lawrence Lessig, author of Free Culture, a book which is available online, (for free and in multiple formats) spoke at U.T. this evening about how the “read/write” web challenges traditional copyright law. Because the laws have been slow to change, a nonprofit organization, Creative Commons, has attempted to address the issue.
Creative Commons, if you aren’t familiar, has established a set of “licenses” that creators can use to designate how their work can be used. There are different levels of use–a work can be designated as useable by a noncommercial site(like a school) or may only be used if it’s credited, etc.
Sites like Flickr use Creative Commons to identify images for various uses. So when a photograph is uploaded, the user can specify which level of use is acceptable to them.
The concept behind it is to allow for the creative “remixing” and “re-creating” that we see students doing and to allow for the interactivity of materials that many of the web 2.0 tools allow within a copyright-type of system.
Creative Commons also has a search site, where students could search for materials that the authors had given permission for them to use noncommercially, or even works they can alter, with permission.
Lessig gave many fascinating examples of “mash-ups” of different content, but one of the well known ones he shared was about Colin Mutchler. Mutchler recorded some guitar music, called it ”My Life” and placed it online, giving it a Creative Commons license.
About a month later, a violist, Cora Beth, emailed him that she had downloaded his work and added a violin track and changed the name of the joint composition to “My Life Changed.”
Arguably, the song is more beautiful with the added violin composition. Colin now has an entire album that was recorded this way, by artists he’d never met, over space and time.
The point of sharing all this?
Our students create content constantly, so as creators and as users, they need to know about Creative Commons licenses.
The open and free way that artists, writers, musicians, and others are sharing their creative works is part of the web 2.0 culture that our students are completely engaged with.
We need to help them understand the distinctions between copyright and this idea of Creative Commons for “open source” or web-created content. We also need to explore with them how copyright law as it exists may need to change.
And all of this brings to mind–how are we, as educators, creating our own “new” and innovative mashed-up content? (And by the way, I wish I could share his presentation here, but it’s not online yet–because the way he puts together his presentations is very stylish and engaging and a great model. )
Pbwiki just emailed me that they have added a new point/click editor to their site that makes it even easier for you to add content to a wiki site.
They’ve included a point and click format similar to other collaborative sites, with easy gadgets for inserting videos, photostories, calendars, stock quotes, chat windows, etc.
(If you have an existing wiki, they’ll email you asking if you want to update it to the new editor).
I’ve found using wikis a very easy way to collaborate on documents with groups of students or committees. You can easily copy and paste Word documents onto the site, but then the document becomes editable for everyone in the group.
Other ways you can use a wiki if you haven’t tried out the technology yet–
Have students collaborate to create an online “text” for your class. They will learn a lot about the importance of editing as they hash out what details should or shouldn’t be included.
Create a guide to accompany a novel your class is reading or have the students create the guide, including maps, commentary, vocabulary, etc.
Have students create a geometry tutorial web page with formulas often used for the class.
Create a site similar to WikiTravel where students create their own webpage on a country or city.
Use it interdepartmentally to collaboratively edit documents.
When presenting a workshop, collect your links, images, and documents on the wiki which you can then use during your presentation.
Businesses like Ebay and Best Buy are using wikis extensively–Ebay’s manual is actually a wiki created by its customers.
Wikis have many positive benefits for the classroom. Students have the opportunity to engage more actively in creating the content for your class. Wikis also allow them to learn to “negotiate” content in that they have to collaborate with others to create the documents.
(Much thanks to Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant for recommending the Ed Tech Journeys blog, where “learning is a journey of the mind, the body, and the heart.”)
How can we help our students use wise behaviors online?
That question has been getting a bit of discussion lately because of a recent article in the New York Times.
I’ve been thinking it would be interesting to compile a collaborative list of online “ethics” questions for students to discuss and consider.
The article has been getting some interesting discussion in the blogosphere, for example at the Science Leadership Academy.
How do we deal with opening boundaries for students to participate while helping them understand appropriate and ethical choices?
Update–:
After I wrote this, I ran across this fitting comment at Ed Tech Journeys–entitled “Kill the Messenger.” Pete Reilly wrote, “Technology is exposing issues that have always been there. This is a grand opportunity to explore the issues and to hear the message. Let’s learn whatever lessons need to be learned. Let’s not turn the technology off. Let’s turn teaching and learning on.”
I highly recommend the rest of his comments, and tend to agree that many(though not all) of the problems we are dealing with currently are just being exposed by the technology, not caused by it.
Karl Fisch at Fischbowl, created a video called Did You Know? earlier this school year, and shared it with his staff at Arapahoe High School in Denver, as well as posting it on his blog. Scott Mcleod of Dangerously Irrelevant, a professor at University of Minnesota, modified it slightly (with Karl’s permission).
The video was posted on other blogs, and today I received it in an email from a teacher and our principal here. It’s now circulating via email and in the corporate world.
Karl works at a high school. His video is now being viewed worldwide.
Compared to the last presidential election, where the new web 2.0 tools were mainly part of a grassroots movement, the use of Web 2.0 tools like YouTube, Blogs, etc., is now a mainstream part of a campaign.
TechCrunch draws our attention to a new site, techPresident, which is tracking the web 2.0 trail of all the presidential candidates.
You can see which ones are using MySpace(and how many “friends” they have), who is on the site Second Life(John Edwards), see Flickr photos relating to the candidate, and see who is using YouTube.
And for those of you who attended our Project Tech workshop yesterday on RSS(thanks to Will Richardson’s excellent instruction without which I couldn’t have shared this), you can also grab RSS feeds from the candidates’ pages, all in one location.
Why does this matter? If our students are participating in a democracy where the social networking tools they use are being used by mainstream entities as political campaign advertising, isn’t it critically important that we are teaching students how to evaluate sources, distinguish fact from opinion, and watch for bias and commercial uses of the web?
As these web 2.0 tools enter the mainstream, they are not only tools that allow “regular” people the ability to have a voice, they allow advertisers and candidates to approach us through many more channels and means. How do we help students as advertising and content begin to “merge” more and more?
Podcasts listed there are organized by grade level and by subject area, so it’s easy to browse for programs to share with your class.
Some examples:
Podcast Bangladesh -Follow a journey to school in Bangladesh, learn a few words in French or listen to a class debate. (Scroll down through the blog to see the different podcasts)
podictionary –Explore a word in this once a week podcast. (moving to a new site soon) (already moved)
Ulivewhere? –Interviews with people who live around the world; site includes suggested books for that region and gives a summary of the podcast.
Snacks4TheBrain! is a biweekly podcast for k12 students from the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach. (Click on the “pickle player” to load an episode).
The French Podclass teaches French and includes a movie and music break of the day.
(You can preview most of the podcasts within the EPN site. When you click on the title of the podcast in the directory, it pops up a list of episodes on the right. If you see a “pod” symbol to the left of an episode, click on that to hear the podcast.)
Another easy way to find podcasts is to use Google–search “podcasts” and the subject you are interested in.
Of course if you have Itunes, you can subscribe to podcasts or put them on your iPod, but if you are new to podcasting and just want to check some out, try the sites above.
I’ve been trying to assimilate some themes in what Will Richardson talked about on Tuesday and things I heard at the TCEA conference as well. Some reflections in no certain order–
How our students learn is changing. How we learn is also changing. (In a presentation at TCEA, Ysleta ISD called it “PJ PD”—Pajama Professional Development—because you can take professional development courses online in your pj’s.)
Will Richardson shared MIT’s Open Coursewhere, where every course at MIT is available online. The Open Courseware Consortium site links to open sourceware college courses around the world. (Five universities in the U.S. offer courses compared to 222 in
China)
There are a lot of opportunities for global connections for our students. These connections can make things more real and bring world events closer. Our students are programmed to “wait and learn” (and are we also?) How can we change our classrooms and our own professional development models to reflect more active learning styles?
Passion is important.
The importance of students as editors is growing. They need to be able to edit Wikipedia, edit their own published work, edit for appropriateness, etc., because with sites like Lulu.com, they can print their own books.
Students can get “learning” from lots of places, 24/7. So do we. That changes our mission, doesn’t it? Because we no longer have to carry the responsibility of being the sole purveyors of information, but we do need to provide guidance, community, and feedback. We have to become more literate in how to manage all this “stuff” and we need to help students learn to manage all this “stuff” as well. And that is going to be a challenge.
It already is a challenge. And in terms of libraries, I think more than ever our role involves helping others manage all this “stuff,” providing support, feedback, collaboration, guidance, and community. What challenges or thoughts did you take away from the sessions?
Lawrence Lessig, author of Free Culture, a book which is available online, (for free and in multiple formats) spoke at U.T. this evening about how the “read/write” web challenges traditional copyright law. Because the laws have been slow to change, a nonprofit organization, Creative Commons, has attempted to address the issue.
Creative Commons, if you aren’t familiar, has established a set of “licenses” that creators can use to designate how their work can be used. There are different levels of use–a work can be designated as useable by a noncommercial site(like a school) or may only be used if it’s credited, etc. 
