Copyright

"Funny Hacker Stock Photo". [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/funniest-hacker-stock-photos-daniel-solove 

Inkles, Paul. (2011, September 25). "Business Baby Pointing"  [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/e2QMS5

            This week, we were required to learn how to properly cite photos! So the above photographs were my first attempt at citing and embedding photographs onto a blog. The first is a generalized stock photo, and the bottom was taken by an actual artist (so thanks for the use of the funny picture Paul Inkles)! 
Next Up is my thoughts on some pretty cool articles we read about copyright and citations .... 

             One of the first things I learned from these readings was that everything has copyrights that are attached to it, and we have to be cautious of that in the tech world. That being said, that does not mean that one cannot use the material, just that the proper use of citations needs to be implemented. I remember my first lesson on citations in high school, they took us all down to the library and the librarian droned on for hours about MLA style citations and the official handbook and how we were all expected to use it perfectly thence forth. It was exhausting and impractical. I only properly learned how to cite once I got into university and was forced to teach myself, so I am really looking forward to learning tools on how to teach this effectively. 

Creative Commons is a concept I knew about but did not fully understand, just like citations. The video was a really cool summary of how easy it is to protect the content any artist creates. Everyone deserves to define the rights of how other people can share and manipulate their work. The other amazing thing is that it is completely free! That opens the Internet up to so many aspiring artists who want to share their work without risk or fear of it being stolen. It also made me wonder about things like memes, are they protected under the “fair use” that comedians often use when receive complaints about discussing other people? “Fair use” allows for copyrighted material to be used without obtaining permission from the own in specific circumstances such as parody, criticism, news reporting or research. That further complicates the ideas presented in the article. Content can be used without copyright, but only for certain reasons, but that still reinforces the need for citations to avoid the confusion over who actually owns the original work. Also, after further reading into the “Exploring Copyright” section in the “Copyright for Tech Enhanced Teaching” guide I realized it expands on the fair use law. Teaching is not protected under that law, which is another interesting revelation. Creative Commons is the answer to the public wanting to explore sharing content without losing ownership of creations, and allows teachers and students to have more freedom while exploring online. 

From reading and learning about all of this, I think it is most important to teach students about resources such as Creative Commons that they can use to protect themselves. That being said, the students would first need to have a comprehensive and complete guide to understanding why we cite and have copyrights associated to ideas and art. I would enjoy trying to plan a lesson around this topics, especially because of my aforementioned horrible past experience with learning about citations. I would definitely try and use interactive tech tools to guide my students to deeper understanding. 

Overall, this was a good lesson in copyright and copyright laws. Citing is extremely important and sometimes the lines get blurred, but the tech world has come up with some handy solutions such as the Creative Commons and different techniques of citing to allow people to continue to share media.