Technology is advancing at a phenomenal rate making our lives more convenient and more connected. As I continue my digital inquiry into Educational Technology it is clear to me that teachers have a challenging role managing, filtering and applying these constantly evolving tools for education. For this blog post I will be exploring the impact of new technology and how this affects copyright law in education.
As international educators I believe we have an obligation to be knowledgeable about copyright laws in the country where we work as well as international copyright laws. With this knowledge we are better prepared to encourage responsible use of online tools. However, this is an easy statement to make and a more difficult one to act upon.
What is apparent is that copyright laws do not specifically apply to many of the online tools that we use. When I began teaching, copyright laws were easier to apply to the classroom. When educational resources were purchased there were often clear guidelines for photocopying restrictions or licensing rules. As the internet is now making it possible to create collectively and share instantly these rules of ownership and copyright are unclear.
The definition of a creator/artist/author is also changing as the increase of mashups and remixes continue to blur the lines of creator/consumer. This is also difficult to define in copyright laws.
What is Creative Commons?
Creative commons is an excellent tool for educators creating and using resources from the internet. In the guidelines it clearly explains some difficulties that have occurred as the internet has transcended copyright law.
Copyright was created long before the emergence of the Internet, and can make it hard to legally perform actions we take for granted on the network: copy, paste, edit source, and post to the Web. The default setting of copyright law requires all of these actions to have explicit permission, granted in advance, whether you’re an artist, teacher, scientist, librarian, policymaker, or just a regular user.
https://creativecommons.org/about
Ownership of photographs
There are currently millions of photos shared online every day. Facebook and Snapchat claim that users share on average 350 million photo’s everyday. Photographs are an excellent resource in education and a great way to celebrate and share achievements. But the ownership of photographs can be misleading and is not always with the subject’s consent as in the case of Alison Stokke which is documented in the Washington Post.
Paraphrasing or Plagiarising?
As primary students now have vast information available at their fingertips it is essential that they learn the importance of citing information. Students are taught how to paraphrase so it is equally important they are taught how not to plagiarise. Awareness is key to avoiding misunderstandings. An open dialogue in a classroom is essential for helping primary students to grasp the difference.
When should students begin sourcing work?
In my current grade 2 class students have an awareness of what sourcing is, and have to identify where any borrowed information has come from. Common sense media has an excellent teaching resource for teaching students how to credit their own work which is a great starting point for understanding ownership.
Students in Grade 5 should be encouraged to cite work more formally, identifying the place and date of the information as well as the title. A simple, clear format for citing can help students to learn how to record the important details from books, websites, blogs and photographs. When referring to websites I followed some directions from Chelsea Lee’s article ‘How to Site Twitter and Facebook Part II’. Below is an example of how to model citation for Grade 5 students.
Again, common sense media has a teaching resource to help students learn how and why to cite resources at an age-appropriate level.
How do copyright laws apply to teachers?
The UK has some clear guidelines about how copyright law applies to teachers, which is recognised as fair dealing (similar to fair use laws in the US). However there is no specific reference to online tools such as youtube, blogs, online publication of resources or student work, and sharing on social media sites such as twitter and facebook. There is however some useful advice which applies to the use of all works. It is suggested that all works:
- are not for commercial use
- are always sourced
- (copyrighted works) shown to students is okay (but not if parents are in the audience)
- produced by the student belong to the student
When encouraging and modelling the responsible use of online tools the best resource I have found for guidance is other educators. Developing a strong PLN in the international community can help international educators stay up to date with copyright issues in the classroom. Hopefully we can help each other to navigate any misunderstandings and pitfalls!
Your last sentence “When encouraging and modelling the responsible use of online tools the best resource I have found for guidance is other educators. Developing a strong PLN in the international community can help international educators stay up to date with copyright issues in the classroom. Hopefully we can help each other to navigate any misunderstandings and pitfalls!” resonated with me. As I continue to grow and expand my PLN through Coetail and other means, I recognize how important it really can be. I have had a Twitter account for years, and have never used it. Every day I see more and more helpful uses for both Twitter and my growing PLN. Great post, thanks for giving me yet another reason to value this small but growing PLN of mine!
Thanks Christy,
With so much information online, and tools that are changing constantly, it makes sense to stay connected and to learn and share from/with each other. Enjoy your growing PLN!
What always amazes me is how quickly students stop using CC images as soon as they think you’re not around to notice! I spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year going over it, using examples that should make it relevant to them, and establishing it as a base expectation, but I was out of school for two months just before Christmas, and when I returned, there were presentations full of google image search pictures… In discussions with them, they were fully aware of the reasons not to do it, but “I couldn’t find the picture I wanted to use on Compfight or ImageQuest!” It’s very common with music as well, especially when we’re making videos and book trailers.
I’ve started citing all the images I use in class and for documents as an example for modelling, even when they’re my own images, and we’ve begun deciding on how to credit our own work in the classroom and online. I still feel like a nag every time they start looking for pictures online, though!
Hi Katherine,
It’s great that you are modelling how to cite images correctly for your students. It is such an effective way to get a message across yet an easy one to forget when preparing resource and presentations. It may take a while for the message to get through but you are showing students how to use images correctly.
It is difficult because the choices of images are vast on google so it is frustrating when students can ‘view’ the images they want but not use them. We can help by contributing and encouraging our students to contribute their images online for others to use.
Great post! It’s nice to hear that your G2 students have an awareness of sourcing. I am inspired introduce the concept to my G1 students, those Common Sense Media resources will help. We use a lot of images in our iPad projects so this is a good skill to have and understand. And how awesome is it to empower them, at such a young age, with this skill that they will need for the rest of their school career!
Thanks Tara. I try to watch how my students cope with citation to make sure that they are understanding what they are doing, and that it doesn’t detract too much from the task at hand. Probably at Grade 1 just identifying if a photograph was taken by them or someone else is a good starting point. Good luck!