Thing 9

How do you think Creative Commons may affect you professionally and/or personally?



I'm not sure why so many of think of things as written in stone. Why we cling to the ideas of the past and the restrictions those ideas have upon the way our lives have transformed. Nothing stays the same. Our world is in a constant flux. Our society has had this insight for sometime. How our government works. How laws are made and changed and updated. How our Consititution is amended. We change our minds more quickly than we change our socks.



So why not change the way in which we understand and use copy righting?



I'm a third grade teacher and one of the things I point out to my students is the copy right page in each book. I have them look at the date and any other credits maybe on that page. We discuss what it means and how it protects the artists' (author and illustrator/photographer) rights. I make them aware.



At this age I never saw the need to go any further than that. However, with kids being so tech savy today and downloading everything off the net, this maybe a converstaion I really need to have with them. I think that as part of what I do as a third grade teacher will be to make my students aware of CC and how they can use info they find on the net legally. Might as well start them off on the right track.



As for me personally I'll need to be more cogzigant of what I'm downloading and how I'm using it. I've noticed the CC logo on certain websites. I was aware of what CC was because of another workshop I had attended, but honestly I hadn't given it much thought.



I think as I begin to great my Wiki I will need to direct my students to CC and make sure that any resources they choose to use in their work can be.



I think teenagers and young adults today use the internet too freely. They are from the age where there were no restrictions on the web. It was too new. They are of the mind set that if it's there I can use it. I think we need to make the students of today much more aware than the Class of 2007.


Do you use digital images, audio or video clips from the web in your teaching (or professional practice)?

I use images off the web all the time in my teaching. I search for quick videos on topics I'm teaching and have my students view them.

Do you ever share content on the web?

Yes, I do it via Diigo and emailing sites to friends and collegues

Who owns your teaching materials?

Good question - I'd like to say, "I do," but to tell you the truth I try not to reinvent the wheel so if someone has done the lesson already I just use their work and put my spin to it. The books I'm given in are usually the only ones I have. I tend to look to the web to find whatever else I may need. So who owns my teaching materials the school system I work for and the people who share on the World Wide Web.

What are some potential negatives for using CC? Consider the "Best Practices for Fair Use in Media Education" and reflect upon them. Not sure about this one. I'll have to think on it a bit more.

What has been your experience with students using copyright protected media in the past?
I teach 3rd grade and I point out every time that we read a book the copyright page. We talk about why it's there and what it means. This is usually how far I go with speaking to my class about copyright laws. One day we were writing research papers on the different habitats of Georgia and one of my students decided it was easiest to copy what he wanted to say right out of the book. A student sitting near him was watching him and realized that he was breaking the copyright of that book and started explaining why he shouldn't do that. The other child crumpled up his paper and began again this time reading and paraphrasing. Wow - they are listening!

Given what you know now, would this affect how you ask your students to gather media for projects? We don't do a lot of project work in my class. This is slowly changing and I'd have to think on it more. I think I might supply them with a list of sites that is CC endorsed and work from there.

How do you think these new guidelines will impact the way students create projects? It might limit them in some ways but at this time I'm not entirely sure.

How might these new guidelines affect media that you use for professional purposes? I will be more cognizant of where I get materials from and look for the copyright and make sure that I adhere to the laws of the land.