I recently read a blog "review" from Will Richardson's webblog entitled "Our Kids As Criminals." The blog link is http://weblogg-ed.com/. In the blog, Richardson posts his comments on an article written by Lawrence Lessig in his book entitled Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. The book discusses the changes the Internet has made on children and how children are not aware of copyright laws. Lessig goes on to analyze the copyright issue as us trying to "wage war" against copyright infringements. Lessig's description raises quite a few debating issues on how to educate our children about copyright laws and what exactly we are teaching them about the Internet.
I decided to comment on this blog by Richardson's because it is truly evident in today's society that our children do not understand copyright laws. Furthermore, it is relatively common for students to be infringing upon these laws throughout their daily technology routines. To me it seems rather contradictory in that we encourage our students to use the Internet and other technological tools to find information rapidly; however, by helping to spread this information through use, we are also encouraging them to act as criminals. We teach our students to find, use, or even create things using the Internet, but are we teaching them how to do so without infringing upon another author's rights? Perhaps this is something we should be including in our "Internet/Technology 101" classes.
On another note, as an educator, I feel as though you can't blame the kids. Even as an adult you have to ask yourself......isn't this what the Internet is for....to learn information and spread it throughout the medium? So, in a sense, isn't the point of the Internet to find ideas (someone else's ideas) and spread them to others?? Thus, any user spreading the information could be called upon the terms of copyright. I guess in real sense, the Internet and its information calls for varying degrees of copyright laws. The question is how do we educate everyone as to what is appropriate for spreading information via the Internet in terms of those copyright issues?
The purpose of this blog is to maintain communication among fellow educators especially those interested in educational technology.
About Me
- Laura Ann
- Hi Everyone! I'm a first grade teacher at Bower Hill Elementary in the Peters Township School District. Take a look at what the critters of my first grade forest have been up to!
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4 comments:
Laura Ann
I think that the questions that you brought up are very true and ones that each of us struggle with as educators. I think that it is hard to teach the children what is fair use and what is considered against the law when most of us are not fully versed on this subject. I think that it is important subject to be educated on and one that we need to educate others on. It is hard when there is such a vast amount of information out there and it is so easily found and used by everyone. I am not quite sure how we should teach this, but I am absolutely sure of its importance.
Laura Ann,
I totally agree with you that it is a struggle for educators when allowing students to use the internet. So many students get on, take the information quickly and do realize the implications of taking of copyright infringement. I think that it is difficult to teach kids about this law when many times I do not feel like many educators truly have a grasp on the subject. While we often are given trainings on using the internet, we are not often given trainings on how to teach students not to steal from the internet. The worst part is, is that many times when students do take other people’s words from the internet, they are doing it in a harmless manner. They do not even realize what they are doing is illegal.
-Hailey
Laura Ann,
I agree that this is an issue that we as educators have not addressed enough with our students. As a math teacher, I am just realizing how big this issue really is. Normally I do not assign projects where the Internet is needed and where copying is an issue. However, I recently assigned students to create a metric brochure where they included the history of the metric system among other items. The amount of students who copied and pasted information into their brochure without even a reference was probably 85%! I was taken aback when reading their brochures. I was also awakened to the fact that I needed to teach my students what stealing from the Internet meant! We have a long road ahead of us!
Laura Ann,
I agree with your comments on this issue that we are facing as teachers. We are encouraging our students to use the internet as a research tool to search for information, facts, and ideas, but they are not taught the proper way to utilize the information. I also agree with the comment on how the world is different and the copyright laws are not up-to-date. I can see your point on not blaming the students because, how can they be responsible for not understanding the copyright laws? Most students find information on the web and think that they are able to use it because they found it. This issue is something that seems to haunt students from grade school though college and never gets addressed. I think there needs to be revisions to the copyright laws so we have a better understanding of the proper way to use the information we find from the web so we can teach our students. After reading your post I was very interested in what the copyright laws for the internet were and searched the web. I came across this site that said, “many aspects of the issues of copyright and the Internet are still not resolved,” but then goes on to say when in doubt, please consult the official copyright guidelines. This is what causes the most frustration for people today; there is still an uncertainty for what is not acceptable on the terms of copyright laws.
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