Authentic Tech

 

Well, this week's Wimba confirmed that we in education must navigate some murky waters. I had commented to Holly Loganbill last week that I found it ironic that a group of educators so concerned with plagiarism could be so cavalier about copyright. It now disturbs me greatly.

And I know I'm not alone. One could hear the frustration of Suzy O'Day as she attempted on several occasions to ask questions. Until she and others admitted that we don't know many educators who are not in violation of copyright laws.

I ventured into the faculty room last week after hearing a portion of the Wimba session and raised my concern. The resounding retort was that the two could not be compared. Here was the prevailing thought...

In plagiarism, an author attempts to pass off the work of another as his own. What we do is nothing like that.

I asked if anyone had ever copied a workbook page from one of his or her ancillary materials and distributed it to the class. To be clear, one copy of the workbook is in hand - 25 copies are made. Several teachers said, of course they had done that. No one saw that as an issue.

I asked if anyone had ever used PDFs from the web with those little disclaimers on the bottom that say something to the effect of "Use with permission....". Of course they had. Had anyone contacted the original author for permission? No. The two best (worst?) answers were 1) I just cut that part off when I make my copies. 2) I leave it on - the students just think we have permission.

Yes, greatly troubled I am.

I mentioned that using full-length films was probably copyright infringement too. You can imagine how that went over.

Professor Bustillos attempted to clarify these murky waters, but the waters grew deeper and darker for me. Until Jim Farmer posted two good links:

1. http://www.teachingcopyright.org/
2. http://www.mediaeducationlab.com/

The first one is outstanding. I loved the peer-to-peer sharing unit. If you happen to be reading this, please take a moment to visit - there are some great resources.

As for me, I'm developing a full-year, twice per week professional development series for our staff to launch in August. It's a blended learning experience. I'm excited about the possibility of catching our teaching staff up on some good 21st Century skills. You can bet a unit on copyright will be included. As will the advocacy of using sites such as Creative Commons.

Since I never took re-mixing (another topic covered in this week's Wimba) too seriously, I've done some limited research on the topic. One article from MIT mentioned game modding in the same breath as music mash-ups. I had never thought of it in quite those terms. I teach Game Level Design. I see the originality and creative expression required to complete a great modded level. And yet my students use assets created by others and "re-mix" them to build something completely unique. So, while I'd never really thought of it in those terms, I've been teaching re-mixing for the past several years.