Saturday, October 10, 2009

Week 6, Thing #15

Copyright. What a sticky subject. The video was cute but after a minute or two gave me a headache. I actually closed my eyes and just listened. I know as a teacher, I copy all kinds of stuff for the classroom. I appreciate when I grab things from the web if they have the little disclaimer at the bottom that they may be used for educational purposes though that is not always spelled out.

Creative commons was an interesting video as well. I think it is important for students to understand the idea of sharing and the rights that they have to their own work. They "borrow" stuff all the time and I feel that most of them have very little idea what the term copyright even means. An example would be in my art classroom when a student wants to bring in a logo or a picture of Nemo and make it into a stained glass window. When I try to explain that it is a copyrighted design and they need to make their own version, they think I am crazy. Some really interesting "discussions" have ensued.

I read the five perspctives and the one that struck me the most was from Michael Stevens, "Librarian 2.0 gets content This librarian understands that the future of libraries will be guided by how users access, consume and create content. Content is a conversation as well and librarians should participate. Users will create their own mash ups, remixes and original expressions and should be able to do so at the library or via the library’s resources. This librarian will help users become their own programming director for all of the content available to them."

As a teacher in a public school, not yet a librarian, I think that this idea will be the hardest to sell. In many ways, the educators hands are tied by the "safeguards" that are installed for the students. At my school, which I think is pretty typical, there are so many things that are blocked when using the web, it makes it almost laughable that the school claims it uses technology. We can not use or access any blogs or wikis, there are many companies that are blocked, cell phones are forbidden as are mp3 players or ipods. That pretty much eliminates a great deal of the 2.0 tools that are out there. The entire educational community needs to wrap its head around the ways that kids today function. I feel that schools are on an entirely different operating system from the students. We are becoming a foreign land to them and if we don't start adapting to the tools that they use and the way that they seek and process information, we are going to loose them. This is true for the library, the social studies department, science, English, just about everyone. We need to embrase, not block the 2.0 world and find a way to punish those individuals that abuse the tools, instead of locking everyone out.

Just my two cents worth.

1 comment:

  1. the way uou used delicious is how I see it being useful. If you think of the books in the library as past potential library users, or think about books in a univ. library being written by faculty, the idea of a conversation is just along a spectrum of communication.

    ReplyDelete