#13 Copyright, Creative Commons, and What’s Coming Down the Web 2.0 Road

Putting the ‘social’ into social networks allows us to freely exchange information. But with the free exchange of information comes the responsibility of how we share it, and how we give credit to the author of that information. Check out this video, “A Fair(y) Use Tale” and learn some history of copyright.



In the school library and classroom, we are often faced with the copyright challenges of when it is acceptable to copy something and how much of an item [book, website, music etc] we can copy. Faced with declining budgets and little time, we are tempted to go ahead and make the copies. But with the advent of file sharing, downloading and RSS, we must acknowledge and teach the ethics of information gathering and sharing.

Creative Commons is a copyright license that allows us to choose to share our intellectual property. This course is designed under a Creative Commons license and is an example of how one can take a piece of information or a product and re-work it to make it fit your needs. By acknowledging the original authors, they have given permission for you to share. Check out this slideshare called What Every Educator Needs to Know by Rodd Lucier (from the Clever Sheep website). This explains how the Creative Commons got started, how to use it, and what sites allow you to access works tagged with the Creative Commons license. It is also a great example of an audio slideshare.


Discovery Exercise:

Read two or three of the perspectives on Classroom 2.0 from the list below. Create a blog post about your thoughts on any one of these 3: Classroom 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you? What does it mean for schools?

Discovery Resources:

* Online copyright comic book developed by students at Duke University Law School
* Creative Commons website
* “Wanna Work Together?” YouTube video about Creative Commons
* California Technology Assistance Project, Region IV cybersafety website. See Piracy.
* The Horizon Report: educational technology trends in higher education. "Must" reading!
* Did You Know 4.0 (update to "Shift Happens" video)

We hope you're enjoying all the exercises you've done so far. Keep having fun exploring and thinking about Web 2.0/ClassroomLearning 2.0