Copyright Clarity...Let's Break These Chains that Bind Us

It was actually SO freeing to read this book!  And so timely, I might add.  I felt so empowered, yet my heart raced this past weekend on my way up to Jersey for a family trip.  I ALWAYS make family trips educational and this one was no different.  We stopped at Washington’s Crossing Park in Pennsylvania.  There is a very small museum and very large rock commemorating Washington’s crossing of the Delaware on the night of December 24, 1776.  Beautifully maintained grounds!  We arrived just after the start of a 15 minute documentary.  I waited until the next showing...I want to see every last scene...so we toured the museum.  Or at least I did, the 5 and 7 year olds could have cared less.  Thank goodness for an understanding husband!  So 25 minutes later I plopped down into a comfy seat in their very large auditorium and waited for the “ranger” to push play on the small television.  But before he did, I asked “Do you mind if I video this...copyright and all?” He was appalled that would ask such a question; it was deplorable that I had asked such a question in fact.  In my shaky voice after just a couple chapters into Copyright Clarity I said, “Well I’m reading about fair use and how it pertains to situations like this.  No problem.”  In that instance I meant “no problem, I wouldn’t video it” for fear of being in the wrong.  But the second he walked out of the room, my camera was up and videoing the short film.  (Much to my disappointment, the video sucked and it isn’t something I’d want to show my class anyway.)  But it really got me thinking and I’d like to know what you think.

If the video wasn’t in the gift shop for purchase...I checked...is this something that I could show my students for background building purposes?  I can’t take them on a field trip there.  My purpose I would assume is similar (educating my students as they were educating visitors), the nature is the same, and I would have probably shown the whole video.  I’ve done similar things at the Gettysburg Museum.  Again, I look at it as building background knowledge because it’s in a format that students connect to -- its visual! And not MY voice narrating it!  If good conversation/discussion follows, am I in the clear?  It’s not transformative as far as I can tell, but I think based on Dawn’s lecture tonight, showing the video is an affordance winner.  I can’t recreate the battle, but the video can.  Thoughts? 

On another front, the sister-in-law I went to visit in Jersey is also a teacher (formerly of FCPS).  We started talking about this issue.  At the high school/college where she teaches, she was told they couldn’t use anything that was copyrighted.  She teaches sports medicine; she and her colleagues were trying to locate a picture of a skeleton that students could label for an exam.  They couldn’t find anything sophisticated enough that wasn’t copyrighted, so they ditched the questions they wanted to ask.  I think we all understand this frustration.  I can’t wait to lend her the book...and I can’t wait to have a conversation with my very open minded STBS.  (I mean that sincerely. He’s great!)

On that note, I’m looking for some ideas that might be transformative.  I teach social studies, anybody got one?  I thought about having kids search pictures of historical times that we had studied and modern times and having them find connections in some way.  Or matching a historical picture to a modern day song and explain why.  What ideas popped in your head as you read the book?  What will bring learning to life in your world? 

What to Believe?

As a 6th grade history teacher, there are times when I feel like the history I teach is incomplete and I look to spice the curriculum up a bit.  I did that a couple of year ago when studying slavery.  I came across what I thought was cool information about the use of quilt patterns as a form of covert communication between enslaved people.  I found quilt patterns and explanations of the meanings of the patterns and the kids thought it was unique.  For years I shared this information with my students.  Then recently I came across another source that said this was a far-fetched idea.  To think that enslaved people would have had the supplies to create such a thing and for the ideas/patterns to be widely dispersed to be used as part of the Underground Railroad was too good to be true.  So I immediately stopped sharing those slides that I had created.  

Looking back on that experience, I know that I never investigated the truth behind either side of the story.  I either took each for truth when I read them, or didn’t bother to question and research more to figure out the truth.  (Again, who has the time?)  But I know that I need to start. I need to be the promoter of what is true to my students or I’m just as bad as those continuing to teach that Columbus found the new world.  Of course it is never my intent to perpetuate what is incorrect.  My intent needs to be directed more to questioning the validity of the information and source.

But I need the skills to do this!  (And I need FCPS to get off their tushies and add pertinent information to our resources representing other perspectives!)  Page 78 of The Information Diet says, “it means a moral choice for information consumption.”  I can easily get behind this idea.  I like the idea of the truth -- most people do.  I like the idea that one is making a moral choice to pursue this information.  There is honor in that and teaching students to make that moral choice as well.  I have to start by leading by example. 

“Good process leads to good progress."

“Good process leads to good progress.”  This was a quote I found on my husband’s FB feed this past week. (Yes, I hijack his account and follow his friends and acquaintances.)  I thought it was appropriate for this week’s reading and assignments.  Consistently throughout the weeks of class Dawn has talked about a process that is meant to improve the effectiveness and scope of our teaching.  Whether or not we stick EXACTLY to the process, in the long run, I don’t think truly matters.  I think the fact that we are all considering another process period, albeit typically a more complicated process than we might be used to, is good progress for all of our teaching.

The article (The Creative Spirit of Design) acknowledges that “there is no best way, and no one way of proceeding” when tackling the problem of design.  McDonald quotes Davies (1978) in saying that “the order, and manner, [in which design skills are used] depends upon the character of the problem , and the aim in mind.” But nonetheless, the use of design SKILLS are used.  I think this is the progress that we can’t discount.  Being willing to try the new is important.  And not just ANY new; new thinking and processes with new authentic considerations.  And we’re CREATING new as well, according to the article.

Under the creative spirit of design, designer teachers are praised for their creativeness in looking at problems in the classroom and using their imaginations to try what might be untested to solve them; thus always avoiding that which feels like routine.  Addressing a problem means the designer teachers have to be creation-oriented and create ways to test and solve and evaluate their solutions.  And then the designer teacher has to be willing to work with and incorporate other disciplines and specialists into the solution, thereby connecting fields that were previously unconnected.  How powerful this could be for students at the end of it all!

A connection I made with the article is the suggestion that good instructional designers need to be flexible and adaptable.  What? Teachers need future ready (21st C) skills too?  Why of course we do!  That’s what makes us badass in the first place.  But I think this is a different kind of flexibility than the daily flexibility we are required to use in our jobs.  This is a flexibility that I think has to be ignited in some of us, me included.  There needs to be a flexibility in our design thinking -- thinking of the unusual, the previously unthought of or attempted, trying it out, evaluating, and moving on.  Maybe the flexibility comes from looking outside our own discipline for learning techniques?  But maybe that flexibility also comes from flexing some of our own design abilities previously untapped so we become great designers.