Thing 10 - Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commo

Part 1 

What I like most about the instructional input provided for this lesson is the succinct nature of the material provided. Truthfully, when copyright is approached on campus, eyes glaze over and my voice begins to morph into that of Charlie Brown's teacher, "Wah wah wah wah, wah wah, wah wah."

I know that copyright is second only to a visit to the dentist for most people, but the fact of the matter is that we, as educators, need to model the behavior that we expect from our students. As such, students need to be taught about copyright, correct adherence to copyright guidelines needs to be modeled, and students need to be held accountable for meeting the expectations of legally using work within the parameters of copyright law. 

Previously, I had seen the Creative Commons symbol, but I wasn't sure what it meant. After this module, I learned more information about it, specifically that it allows the creator of a work to set forth the  terms under which it can be shared. I also didn't have a full understanding of fair use. It just seemed as though many things were automatically off limits, when in reality they are not.  Also, I learned that guidelines are more stringent when work is shared "off campus" in a public forum or through digital means. 

Now that I know these things, I will be better able to educate our students and hold them accountable for working in accordance with these guidelines. This is especially important given the nature of the work that students will be doing on the iPads. Just bringing this information into awareness and providing an accountability piece to assignments will work to develop their understanding and proper use.

Part 2 

I really like the way that the instructor introduced the lesson, charging the students with becoming copyright lawyers. This sets a real world purpose for applying their knowledge of copyright law. She asked the students, immediately before, to activate all of their knowledge about copyright law. Presumably, this was due to the students already having a lesson with instructional input.

I think that anytime students are challenged to take the knowledge and apply it in a real life situation it creates an opportunity for a much richer and engaging lesson. The instructor in the video successfully did just that. Further, asking the students to provide the evidence that led to their conclusion is a very powerful strategy that ensures students can demonstrate an understanding of the concept and an application as well. Consequently, I feel that this lesson most likely had an impact on her students and they will begin to become more aware of their responsibility to follow copyright guidelines when they create their own work.

I would be eager to implement a similar lesson here at the elementary level. Certainly, it would not be as complex as that lesson. I suspect that only one aspect of copyright guidelines would be introduced at a time, causing the lesson to expand over several meetings. As such, I would be interested in collaborating on this with our Health/Tech teacher in order to most effectively meets the needs to the students in a setting where they are already scheduled to be.