Fair Use Revisited

     It is the role of the teacher as a leader to provide an access for communication, both with other educators as well as students, as it pertains to using and understanding 21st Century tools.  Utilizing various social networking sources is great means to share information and resources on websites, links, apps, and a variety of other resources as well as information, that can benefit teaching practice and pedagogy.  When accessing information on the web, teachers as well as students need to give credit as to where original ideas came from.  Accessing a slideshow on a news report for class use, or even during a staff meeting is a great way to model fair use.  Credit needs to be given to the original creator of the slideshow, but who decides to share his or her product with the internet community for transformative purposes.

Here is the link to my previous blog on Fair Use and the Creative Commons.

http://timstevens111.blogspot.ca/2014/02/fair-use-and-creative-commons.html

       In this post, I discussed the importance of students citing their sources when they obtain information from the internet.  Furthermore, I discussed the importance of utilizing the licensing features of the Creative Commons when they wish to share their ideas on the internet, but still maintain the credit for their original ideas.  In this day and age, referencing resources is so important, because of the speed and ease at which we can share information.  Before the internet, sourcing materials was done in regards to books, magazines articles, scholarly articles, and other informational sources.  It was easy to do and easy to see where information and original ideas first came from.  Now, it is extremely difficult to keep track of sources, as these sources of information have become less linear, and more of the web that is the internet.

     When discussing the resource of the Creative Commons with my staff members, I was not surprised in the least to see that no one, including my administration was familiar with the website.  I myself had not heard of it until recently, earlier on this year.  It is a shame, as it is something that can be extremely useful to the entire educational community.  We all use the internet to access information and resources for a variety of reasons, and especially in this age of social networking, more and more people are sharing their creative works with the internet.  The Creative Commons provides simple licensing for its users, so an individual may share a creative works throughout the internet, but still maintain credit for the original idea, as the works continues to be accessed and passed on from one user to the next.

      It is important that leaders are modeling fair use of content, as I have said for many years while teaching, we need to lead by example for our students, and other educators alike.  When we are accessing information from any website, that information needs to be cited.  When we are taking an idea from a project that was found online, that idea needs to be sourced.  When a clip from a video or slideshow is used to support a new idea or project, that clip or video needs to be referenced.   Leaders must lead by example, and source all original ideas and information, and teach others how to do so likewise, whether it be through P.D. or social networking sources.  The original author deserves that fact, as it is not only right thing to do, but it is law to do so.  We wouldn't want it any other way if it were our own ideas being sourced by other users.

      One final thought as it pertains to copyright and Creative Commons use; we would all want to ensure that if our ideas and creative works are being reused over the internet,  they are being reused within a means that we are comfortable with and that still respects the intent of the original work.  I'm always reminded of those Rick Mercer photo shop challenges, when an original photo is photo shopped in a way to make the focus individual appear in a more humorous depiction.  As funny as those after images are, I've always wondered how the subject of the picture feels about this new image.  Think of the Creative Commons as a sort of photo shop censor.  Your original works will only be re-shared in a way that you are comfortable with, rather than in a way that you just may not agree with or appreciate.