Fairly Using or Fair Robbery?

When I was a senior in high school, physics class was always the highlight of the day. The teacher, an eccentric individual with a certain passion for the insane, was known for putting on quite the show. Between building K'Nex roller coasters that spanned a classroom, to launching rockets on the football field and throwing flaming tennis balls down the hallway, he certainly gained a reputation for doing things differently.

In one of the last days of school, he decided to treat my class (made entirely of seniors itching to graduate) to a movie, something related to physics but still entertaining; The Hurt Locker. At this point the movie had just come out on DVD, and my friends and I never actually had the chance to see it, and so we gathered around the small TV screen to watch. After reading the articles and watching the movie on what determines fair use, I now question the legality of what my teacher did, but also reconciling the question; if it is illegal, is it really that bad of a crime?

Fair use as best I understand it is the idea that copyrighted material and intellectual property can be used in some cases without permission, usually meaning not having ti pay for rights to the material. The big cases when this is acceptable are for use in news coverage, critical analysis, parody, and of course, education. Anyone who has ever gone to school knows what this looks like; copied pages or select passages from some other book, playing a clip from a documentary or some historical speech, or even showing a full movie on the grounds of educational need. Speaking strictly in the educational realm, this allows teachers and districts to save money while still using a comprehensive set of materials in their classroom. If a teacher only wants to use a chapter or two from another book, why should the school spend hundreds of dollars on an entire set of the books for a mere 15 page article used for one lesson? Granted, that section will most likely be used more than just the one year, but that doesn't the justify spending the money on numerous copies of the book.

At the same time however, as a writer myself, I understand the value of my intellectual property and would hate to see a short story of mine being used without proper consent or reimbursement of some kind of my entire work was taken wholesale. For example, if a teacher were to use a poem of mine or a part of a short story in her lesson (assuming of course my writing career has taken off!) I have no objection. However, if I were to publish the comic book I am currently writing and a teacher were to copy the entire book and distribute copies to her students, I would feel infringed upon, considering the going rate for a 32-page comic never exceeds 4 dollars, unless we're talking about a special edition or incentive cover, which is a story for another day.

The long and short of it is, I understand, and I don't all at the same time. While I will agree that violating terms of use on programs or peer-to-peer sharing is an offense that needs to be monitored and policed by the district and self-enforced by each teacher, using fair use allows to create a more comprehensive list of material to be used in lessons. If a teacher were to buy every book for which they took a page out of or used a segment from an anthology, teachers would be drowning in debt and have personal libraries that may very well rival the school library. The idea of intellectual property is an issue constantly in flux, and one that needs to be monitored and tracked as it changes. That said, while I wold never steal someone's full intellectual property or use it for my own gain, if my students can learn something more from a passage in a book I own for a lesson, I don't see a problem with it.

Screencasting Research

For my screencast lesson, I decided to show off how to conduct research using an Internet Database. Not only is this informative and helps the student to better understand what a database looks like and how to use it, but when used in conjunction with some other pedagogy in the lesson, it creates a seamless research environment.

The students will inevitable need to use internet databases to find peer-reviewed history literature to help write papers or work on their larger research project, and JSTOR is by far the easiest and most in-depth history database I know. Students would watch the screencasts on a library day or even at home the day before a trip to the computer lab, to better acquaint themselves with the system and point out important tools, like tracking citations, converting files into PDF format, and also using what is given to help put together an appropriately formatted bibliography.

After watching the video, the students would then come into class and begin compiling the research, me having modeled the procedure for this task in the screencast. I would have them do this in class because  I would want to make sure students were staying on track and were not confused on what sources to use and how to access the software. While this could be done through E-mail communication, it's easier to address these larger problems in class because more likely than not there are numerous students with the same question. Going through the entire research process as a class instead of just interacting through quick messages encourages a more collaborative effort between the students, allowing for group research or sharing of articles that might be relevant to someone else's research.

While the screencast is certainly not one entire lesson, when put in this framework of modeling then guided practice while clarifying any loose ends makes using an internet database a smooth and not so mysterious process, something that students have often complained about. Using an internet database should not be hard or shrouded in mystery, but should instead be as natural in research as searching library stacks for a book. In this way, students can utilize research tools and methods in all mediums.

Screencasting Class

Last week I created the back to school night presentation, and it allowed me to create a means to communicate 21st Century Skills to parents, also while framing it in the context of a history or social studies class. Now, by introducing the screencast element, the walls of the classroom are only further expanded here.

The powerpoint, by its very nature, is short and abbreviated. The most that anyone can get simply out of a presentation is some bullet points and ideas which in all honesty might leave a parent with more questions than answers. By adding the narration, even if it is only a five-minute narration, the presentation is expanded and more detail can be added and the larger picture of the class can be explained. In addition to this, by posting the screencast on a blog or some website that parents and students can check, it allows people who can't come to back to school night to also enjoy the presentation if they so choose. While I wouldn't want to replace back to school night by putting this online because I feel that making more personal connections with students and parents is important, I think that if people can't attend back to school night, they shouldn't miss out on the opportunity to see the information, and not totally miss out on it.