Post #10: I Can See Clearly Now, with Copyright Clarity by Renee Hobbs and implications in my teaching practice.
This book introduced the laws and examples of copyright infringement and what entails "fair use" to avoid any of the legal pitfalls associated with copyright infringement in teaching environments. The useful examples of what is and what is not copyright infringement help illustrate how it can be used successfully in the classroom.
For our BiteSlide.com project, one of my tasks was to find three famous scientists of our assigned decade, 1901-1910. One of the scientists that I selected was Nikolai Tesla, a Serbian who emigrated to the U.S. in the late 19th century and was a prolific inventor of original devices and theories. Since he was was more concerned with the scientific endeavor than the business side of making money, many of his patents were illegally used by others, at his loss of opportunity and for their profit. The most famous of these thieves was Guglielmo Marconi, so-called inventor of radio. However, he had illegally used 17 devices, each covered by a Tesla patent. It wasn't until 1943, years after Tesla's death that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision that gave Tesla the credit for the invention of radio. But who cares at that point? Name recognition and money had already been given to the wrong people, while Tesla died in poverty and obscurity. Tesla, stoic and above it all as usual said, "It does not bother me that people steal my ideas, it bothers me that they have no ideas of their own."
In my practice, I do follow the "Fair Use" guidelines about transformation, use in an educational setting, one-time, not for profit, to develop my own lessons. I give credit in many instances where I have not transformed the material. For the students we use the website, TurnItIn.com, to check for plagiarism of submitted, supposedly original student work. We depend on the Media staff to train the students about proper use. As a physics teacher of mostly seniors, I am not going to teach them the details about what is and what is not copyright infringement. We kind of subcontract that out to others, but I have my other content constraints which I am judged on more strenuously. So the bottom line, you do what you can with what you have. "And upon your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness," -- Carl Spangler, Greenskeeper, Bushwood Country Club.
The whole copyright issue for me has always been a hazy area. I am not doing anything for profit, nor do I want to sell anything that I create. I just want to design things that are fun and enjoyable for my students. At my grade level, we are more concerned about teaching the students about plagiarism. We spend the last two quarters of the school year teaching them how to research and give credit when using information from a book, website, etc. Creating this Pecha Kucha for my class was interesting. I really tried to bring it down to the point where I thought my students would understand it. It is one thing to teach them not to copy down a statement from someone else and use it as their own thought. It is a completely different thing to teach a nine year old about copyright infringement. I guess in our world of even growing technology, I should begin teaching them now so that by the time they get to you they are Fair Use connoisseurs.
ReplyDeleteThat's the plan to survive our ever-increasingly litigious world. The sooner they start to learn about it then by the time they graduate high school they might be fully aware of the implications. Just got to start somewhere, I just don't want it to take up a lot of my instructional or planning time, when this should be done by media services.
DeleteNice comment. I will tell you that my group (9, 11, and 12th graders) are not really all that sophisticated either in terms of Fair Use. There is a lack of … empathy for someone who has created something. There is a feeling that if it is on the net it is all up for grabs. As I stated in my blog, the idea of downloading music or movies doesn't seem to bother them because they want it, its online, and therefore, it must be free. It is difficult to discuss the idea of copyright when my students have an amoral view of it.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem, they think everything is free until somebody steals something from them. This is a very entitled and disposable-minded generation of students. Having a comfortable life doesn't mean that's the way it's going to stay.
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