I finally got through the copyright reading, http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr280a.shtml,
somehow my eyes would always start to glaze over... It think that most of us are good with print materials, fair with videos (it's ok to bring that Discovery video on sharks from home to show...but not Toy Story). However, in my experience we are terrible when it comes to web based material. I have gotten better, but I have never displayed "the copyright notice, and provide copyright ownership information." Nor given a disclaimer.
I now try to use information and images that are through creative commons, wikimedia, or some other open resource. http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/ is another good source that allows usage for educators. There is a huge push in higher ed to create OERs, Open Educational Resources. Our college is trying to create a collection that would eventually be shared. However, it takes time and effort (as we are all now experiencing) to create original, effective media. Yes, it is a grand great thing to create content to share, but it is nice to get paid for the development and I'm not sure our institutions have money to spend on this.
So, it is a daunting task to do the legal/right thing, and the guidelines for web resources are not very clear or simple to sift through. I also think that a lot of resources don't provide an easy way to see if they are open resources, or how to easily ask for permission. I don't think we can even use youtube videos. Does anybody know?
We do have a responsibility to do the right thing in front of our students and to instruct them to do the same. A reason to continue to play and experiment with the tools, but start small in the classroom so that we and students aren't overwhelmed? Or at least not completely put off by the effort it takes?
Nicely worded. It is true that doing the right thing is often a daunting task, and asking for permission is not necessarily a straightforward task. As you said, though, development of quality material takes time, and one would expect to be paid for their work.
ReplyDeleteIt does take time to create quality material and this additional piece adds even more. I wonder, if we have to spend so much more time creating pieces to fit copyright laws, are we going to be less likely to change our instruction in order to grow because it will just take too much effort? I'm in my fourth year of teaching and finally feeling like I'm getting a good set of lessons but want to change my lessons in order to avoid being stagnant.
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