Copyright and Fair Use

Whenever someone creates original material, from images or books, they gain the legality of ownership through copyrights. The creator is the only one with the exclusive rights of the distribution for their entire material, to use and share as they wish. One can obtain permission to use this material but only if they contact the owner, and pay for the rights to use it. Those that use the material unendorsed, is conducting illegal activity. This limitations can effect educators, as many cases schools cannot afford to buy the rights for all the books educators may wish to share to their students. A loop hole to this rule for educators is Fair Use. Fair Use allows for the copyrighted material to be used for educational purposes without direct approval; but is limited to using only part of the original work, and must correctly cite the author in its use. So for example if wanting to share an educational pertinent song, it can be done through Fair Use, but only 10% or 30 seconds of the song can be shared. As long as the material isn’t modified or commercial value effected, educators are allowed to share parts of copyrighted material that would have otherwise been denied. Also in regards to commercial use this means that whole books or worksheets can’t be copied and distributed. If a school could not afford to buy the rights for a book instead of being denied the possibilities of sharing anything from this material an educator could share a passage from the book. However trying to copy the whole book would be illegal as it would limit the commercialism for the author as many students would be gaining access to their whole material for free instead of lawfully paying for it.

Creative commons license are public copyrighted material that is more accessible than traditional copyrighted works. With material under this it can be accessed freely and shared if accredited properly. For educational purposes, it is allowing for liberty and access to more worldwide information. Accordingly there are different types of creative commons licenses that allow for varying restrictive levels. The icon shaped as a person, or the letters “BY” mean that one can share the material freely if properly credited and liked license information, with these type of license one can also add onto or change the information if they also make note of any changes. The icon shaped as an equal sign, meaning no derivative works (ND) allows for the sharing of information but if personally changed it can’t be shared. The icon of a circling line or letters “SA” allows for the same liberties as BY but those that make changes must create licenses for their changes, under the originals license right. The sign with a crossed out dollar sign means noncommercial, acronym NC, has the same rules as BY, except the material can’t be used for commercial purposes. All commons license have an encircled “CC” signifying their license, and they all also have a BY but the rest can be modified by adding different signs such as which allows for the sharing of material as long as it’s not for commercial use, creator is credited, and no modifications were made.  

Picture of Acronym

Found at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/CC-BY-NC-ND.png

Schools without teacher lectures

From our readings and class discussions we have talked a lot of how schools should change. As the Saber Tooth Curriculum questioned educations purpose, which settled on the idea that it was supposed to prepare students for real life in the job work force. Believing that education should not be tied down to arbitrary rules of how to properly educate but should instead change according to societal needs. In Group Genius it stated that the new focus of education should be in fostering creativity skills. The book justified this by pointing out that employers are seeking for creative workers to create a group genius within their companies. If creativity is the workforce’s future schools should be building these skills. However Sir Ken Robinson discussed how the school system are currently killing creativity. According to the Group Genius collaboration is an important key to improving creativity skills and yet schools are failing to create collaborative environments. In class we have discussed how we can better create an environment that breeds these interactions, such as by creating an ideal classroom. In Sugata Mitra video "Build a school in the Cloud" he proposes a different way to educate students than conventional methods using technology. He proposes using Self Organized Learning Environment’s which would allow students to work in groups using the internet to access videos and other educational resources online. When one needed help a retired educator could offer encouragement so that the student could push forward. He based this model off an experiment where he offered a remote village free internet accessed information via computer  and leave them without a qualified educator to learn the a subject material. Returning he found that the “students” had self-educated themselves even if it was not in their primary language. Using the internet they got access to a lot of information that was usually unobtainable to them. Finding that in reality having a present or knowledgeable educator was not as important as many see, he built his model. By having the students in small groups, he was creating a collaborative environment and according to his results, students were successfully self-educating themselves in classrooms. With all the information at their fingertips, some students grew well beyond their grade levels. Following the idea of the benefits of videos for education is Salman Khan in "Let's use video to reinvent education"  who highlights these benefits. Students in this environment are allowed to pace themselves. Through videos a student does not have to face stigma to ask a teacher to slow down or repeat him/herself when as in a regular classroom this can occur. With a video a student can repeat the video as many times as they feel the need, without keeping the class back. Through videos a teacher can add more easily add visual complements to their lectures than in a face to face presentations. I think this is a wonderful idea, and also believe it could help solve the problems of inequalities in schools, as all students would be presented with the same information. With this idea in mind I showed the video to my younger brother who was trying to learn of osmosis. I pointed him to a Khan video and a few minutes later he had grabbed the concept. I think that it’s safe to say that technology in the classroom can change the way we educate students, and it would seem like it could be the answer for growing creativity within the classroom. I am not sure if I could implement a fully self directed learning classroom, or teach  through videos only with home work done at school; but I do believe that videos can help teach students.