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Monday, April 13, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
INST 5400 - Copyright
My research on copyright issues began with a search on fair use since it is something I was not as sure of as I was other topics related to copyright. The first sentence of the second paragraph from Fair Use Guidelines For Educational Multimedia states, “there is no simple test to determine what is fair use,” a great start to help me determine what exactly fair use is.
Upon further research I realized that a statement that tells you that there is no easy way to determine what is illegal and what is not could be worse, as there are clear criteria you can follow to determine if you are breaking the law or not.
There are four criteria that allow you to determine if a piece of work is fair use. They include: (1) the purpose and character of use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes, (2) the nature of the copyrighted work, (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
According to Fair Use and Copyright For Teachers copyright is “a property right attached to an original work of art or literature. It grants the author or creator exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, adapt, perform, or display the protected work. […] A copyright gives the author or owner the right of control over all forms of reproduction, including photocopies, slides, recordings on cassettes and videotapes, compact disks, and other digital formats.”
Creative Commons licenses, according to Wikipedia, are licenses that allow the creator to decide how the end-user may use the product. . According to CreativeCommons.org there are six main creative commons licenses that determine what individuals may do with the work. They are attribution, attribution share alike, attribution no derivatives, attribution non-commercial, attribution non-commercial share alike, attribution non-commercial no derivatives.
Creative commons can be broken down into four categories with combinations of these four categories comprising the six main licenses. The first is attribution, in which the creator lets others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work and derivative works based upon it, but only if they give credit the way the creator requests. The second is share alike, in which the creator allows others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work. The third is noncommercial, in which the creator allows others to copy, distribute, display, and perform your work, and derivative works based upon it, but for noncommercial purposes only. The fourth is no derivative works, in which the creator allows others to copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.
As a teacher I look for attribution and noncommercial works when I am searching for creative commons works because they are the easiest for me to work with and I enjoy having the option of modifying the work.
My personal experience with copyright issues has been varied, from using Napster in the 90’s to figuring out what the bit torrent is about to having my students research copyright before completing too many Photoshop, Flash, and web design projects. As an avid slashdot.org follower I have read many articles and comments on copyright issues, many articles talking about someone getting in trouble for copyright infringement and comments talking about how the material should be free for anyone to acquire and/or use. Personally I understand how an artist, whether it be a musician or a program developer, should make money from the product they create but I also find it hard to argue with those that say there are works of art that should be free to everyone to use. I do not have any specific examples of the later right now, but I am sure the slashdot.org archives contain examples.
In the classroom, which is my daily work and usually my nightly, I use creative commons works as well as copyrighted textbooks and workbooks. Since I teach six different courses there are all sorts of examples I could give for everything from Accounting to Web Design, but depending on the course I use information from the current textbook I am using (Accounting) or create examples of my own that allow students to see what is possible (Web Design). In web design I tend to use my own images but there have been times when I have searched for images with a creative commons license as well as music with the same type of licensing.
I encourage my students to do the same thing. They always have a hard time believing that they are not supposed to use the newest hip-hop song they bought on iTunes for presentations and having them research copyright issues is usually an eye opener for them. I have found that music is most often the place where students will break, or come close to it, copyright laws but this is easily remedied after having them research copyright and showing them multiple websites that contain loads of music with a creative commons license. I also hope next year to have a room full of iMacs and would love to show students how to make their own music selections with GarageBand!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Even more behind
So this semester turns out to be much more stressful than last semester. I forgot how time consuming getting FBLA students ready for District and State competition is. (IT'S EXTREMELY TIME CONSUMING)
Was it worth it? Yes, even though my grade in this course has plummeted my students did very well at districts, placing 3rd overall (after placing close to last last year) behind the biggest school in the state and another school our size that has won for who knows how many years.
At the same time I spent many many hours working on an Enhancement Grant for my classroom...trying to get iMac's in my classroom next year along with a much bigger smartboard, digital cameras and video cameras, and more. All that work might have been for nothing as even if I do receive most of the money the school district might not let me spend that much (even for items we only have to pay 25% of the cost)....uggghhhh...and I chose to work on that grant multiple days instead of completing my work for this class.
Was it the right thing to do? I don't know if I can answer that question until this coming September (after I find out about the grant and I have my final grade for this class).
Either way what's done is done. All I can do is finish the work, beg for forgiveness (and some points), and get my work done on time in the future.
Was it worth it? Yes, even though my grade in this course has plummeted my students did very well at districts, placing 3rd overall (after placing close to last last year) behind the biggest school in the state and another school our size that has won for who knows how many years.
At the same time I spent many many hours working on an Enhancement Grant for my classroom...trying to get iMac's in my classroom next year along with a much bigger smartboard, digital cameras and video cameras, and more. All that work might have been for nothing as even if I do receive most of the money the school district might not let me spend that much (even for items we only have to pay 25% of the cost)....uggghhhh...and I chose to work on that grant multiple days instead of completing my work for this class.
Was it the right thing to do? I don't know if I can answer that question until this coming September (after I find out about the grant and I have my final grade for this class).
Either way what's done is done. All I can do is finish the work, beg for forgiveness (and some points), and get my work done on time in the future.
Monday, February 16, 2009
INST 5400 - Social Bookmarking/Flickr
Social Bookmarking
I have tried to use social bookmarking for the past 4 years. It started in an undergraduate course I was enrolled in which called for me to create a list of bookmarks I could use in the future as a business education teacher. That class was in the same building I worked in and I happened to be working after that course was over each day it met. I realized after this assignment came up that it was silly for me to have a huge number of bookmarks at home and then go to work (in a computer lab) and not have access to any of those bookmarks.
During the next couple weeks I researched bookmarking sites including sites that only a specific user could view with a password as well as sites that allowed the user to share their bookmarks with anyone. Though I do not remember many of the sites I do remember terrible interfaces and a giant pain in my backside. I chose one that was the least painful to use between the group and used it until I came across foxmarks shortly after its development. Around the same time I heard about del.icio.us and spent a little time researching it, but chose foxmarks.
With this assignment I got (though I didn't have a choice in the matter) a chance to revisit delicious with many updates that have taken place since I first viewed it years ago. Even with the updates delicious will not effect the way I browse or save websites. Why? Because I am perfectly content using foxmarks for my huge number of bookmarks. However, the ease and design of sharing delicious bookmarks versus the ease of design of sharing foxmarks bookmarks makes me wonder if someday I will be using delicious just so family, friends, co-workers, and/or students can easily view my bookmarks. At the same time, as an EDUCAUSE article [68kb PDF] states, "social bookmarking means storing data in yet another location that you have to maintain and update." In other words it's more work.
I believe social bookmarking will effect education and my teaching and learning by making it easier to collaborate with colleagues as well as making it easier for teachers to share educational websites with students. I am not sure if it is because I teach in a small school district or whether the same things happen in larger districts, but I have a huge number of websites bookmarked (bookmarks toolbar, student resources, quotes, and more) that could easily be shared with others if others had an understanding of social bookmarking. At the same time, I currently am not able to log into my delicious account from school because of unresolved server issues that have not been worked out.
I do not believe social bookmarking will effect my teaching and learing life in any significant way because I have been using a social bookmarking program for the past few years. However, as I mentioned before, I believe social bookmarking could have a significant effect in education. I am currently setting up a school website for the business department, which I make up half of, and can imagine linking tagged bookmarks to a section of the site. This would allow students to view certain websites for class as well as allow parents to see what we're doing and give them a chance to better understand my classroom.
As a CNET review of delicious states, "tags [...] are subject keywords such as 'travel', 'chocolate', "ferrets," or whatever other category you create." Cleary tags can be very useful because they allow a user to view like content based on a certain tag. However, as the EDUCAUSE article states, "by definition, social bookmarking is done by amateurs. There is no oversight as to how resources are organized and tagged. This can lead to inconsistent or otherwise poor use of tags." The point is that although tags can be very useful they are only as perfect as those using them.
One thing I learned through this assignment was what the numbers on the right side of each site that I bookmarked stand for as well as what the subscription feature is for. The number on the right side of each site is the number of other users who bookmarked the same site. This feature would not mean much if it weren't for the fact that you can click on the number and view others users who bookmarked that same site. Personally I think it is fun to click choose a site I have bookmarked as a RSS feed and see if others did the same. Another great feature of delicious is the subscription feature. Subscribing to a tag allows you to view all bookmarks other users marked with the tag you subscribed to. Upon subscribing to "design" I came across sites such as "25 Easy Steps to Create A Professional Design" and "30 Awesome Photoshop Text Effects". While I found these wonderful websites I also came across lots of pages of junk, so the subscription feature is not all roses. This feature goes back to the statement from the EDUCAUSE article that basically states that tags are only as good as those that create them.
Overall I am more impressed with delicious now than I imagined I would be. As far as sharing bookmarks goes I believe delicious does beat foxmarks but as of now I plan on sticking with foxmarks as I have not had a great reason to switch to a program that makes it extremely easy to share your bookmarks with others.
During the next couple weeks I researched bookmarking sites including sites that only a specific user could view with a password as well as sites that allowed the user to share their bookmarks with anyone. Though I do not remember many of the sites I do remember terrible interfaces and a giant pain in my backside. I chose one that was the least painful to use between the group and used it until I came across foxmarks shortly after its development. Around the same time I heard about del.icio.us and spent a little time researching it, but chose foxmarks.
With this assignment I got (though I didn't have a choice in the matter) a chance to revisit delicious with many updates that have taken place since I first viewed it years ago. Even with the updates delicious will not effect the way I browse or save websites. Why? Because I am perfectly content using foxmarks for my huge number of bookmarks. However, the ease and design of sharing delicious bookmarks versus the ease of design of sharing foxmarks bookmarks makes me wonder if someday I will be using delicious just so family, friends, co-workers, and/or students can easily view my bookmarks. At the same time, as an EDUCAUSE article [68kb PDF] states, "social bookmarking means storing data in yet another location that you have to maintain and update." In other words it's more work.
I believe social bookmarking will effect education and my teaching and learning by making it easier to collaborate with colleagues as well as making it easier for teachers to share educational websites with students. I am not sure if it is because I teach in a small school district or whether the same things happen in larger districts, but I have a huge number of websites bookmarked (bookmarks toolbar, student resources, quotes, and more) that could easily be shared with others if others had an understanding of social bookmarking. At the same time, I currently am not able to log into my delicious account from school because of unresolved server issues that have not been worked out.
I do not believe social bookmarking will effect my teaching and learing life in any significant way because I have been using a social bookmarking program for the past few years. However, as I mentioned before, I believe social bookmarking could have a significant effect in education. I am currently setting up a school website for the business department, which I make up half of, and can imagine linking tagged bookmarks to a section of the site. This would allow students to view certain websites for class as well as allow parents to see what we're doing and give them a chance to better understand my classroom.
As a CNET review of delicious states, "tags [...] are subject keywords such as 'travel', 'chocolate', "ferrets," or whatever other category you create." Cleary tags can be very useful because they allow a user to view like content based on a certain tag. However, as the EDUCAUSE article states, "by definition, social bookmarking is done by amateurs. There is no oversight as to how resources are organized and tagged. This can lead to inconsistent or otherwise poor use of tags." The point is that although tags can be very useful they are only as perfect as those using them.
One thing I learned through this assignment was what the numbers on the right side of each site that I bookmarked stand for as well as what the subscription feature is for. The number on the right side of each site is the number of other users who bookmarked the same site. This feature would not mean much if it weren't for the fact that you can click on the number and view others users who bookmarked that same site. Personally I think it is fun to click choose a site I have bookmarked as a RSS feed and see if others did the same. Another great feature of delicious is the subscription feature. Subscribing to a tag allows you to view all bookmarks other users marked with the tag you subscribed to. Upon subscribing to "design" I came across sites such as "25 Easy Steps to Create A Professional Design" and "30 Awesome Photoshop Text Effects". While I found these wonderful websites I also came across lots of pages of junk, so the subscription feature is not all roses. This feature goes back to the statement from the EDUCAUSE article that basically states that tags are only as good as those that create them.
Overall I am more impressed with delicious now than I imagined I would be. As far as sharing bookmarks goes I believe delicious does beat foxmarks but as of now I plan on sticking with foxmarks as I have not had a great reason to switch to a program that makes it extremely easy to share your bookmarks with others.
Friday, February 13, 2009
A Rant About Why I Can't Get Ahead in Class...yet
It's amazing. The week I try to get my graduate work done during my small amount of free time at work I can't because the freakin login page for del.icio.us is blocked!
Why might I try extra hard to get work done at school this week?
Monday after school - Finishing assignments for last week
Tuesday after school - Helping my class (I'm a sophomore class sponsor) prepare courtwarming decorations until 6. Then doing some work in my classroom.
Wednesday after school - Helping students study for FBLA tests until Men's Rec from 7-9pm. (The ideal time to work on this weeks assignments would have been the time between school and men's rec, but I refuse to drive 30 minutes home and 30 minutes back to work on an assignment)
Thursday after school - My freshman basketball team lost another game. Thankfully only one more game left
Friday after school - I imagine since it's not Friday after school yet I'll go home this afternoon and study instead of sitting on the bench for the courtwarming game tonight.
Saturday - Thankfully it's the last basketball game for me to coach this school year. (I've had enough!) Then my fiance and I are going to St. Louis visit friends and register at a couple of places for our upcoming wedding.
Why might I try extra hard to get work done at school this week?
Monday after school - Finishing assignments for last week
Tuesday after school - Helping my class (I'm a sophomore class sponsor) prepare courtwarming decorations until 6. Then doing some work in my classroom.
Wednesday after school - Helping students study for FBLA tests until Men's Rec from 7-9pm. (The ideal time to work on this weeks assignments would have been the time between school and men's rec, but I refuse to drive 30 minutes home and 30 minutes back to work on an assignment)
Thursday after school - My freshman basketball team lost another game. Thankfully only one more game left
Friday after school - I imagine since it's not Friday after school yet I'll go home this afternoon and study instead of sitting on the bench for the courtwarming game tonight.
Saturday - Thankfully it's the last basketball game for me to coach this school year. (I've had enough!) Then my fiance and I are going to St. Louis visit friends and register at a couple of places for our upcoming wedding.
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