Web 2.0 SRR

The subtitle for this post Creative Commons - is “How I learned to stop obsessing about copyright infringement and share/expand/modify the great stuff I found on the Internet!”.

First things first – I never noticed the CC logo at the bottom of the page. In truth I don’t usually scroll that far, unless i need to figure out how to return to Home; contact the organization/person; or choose to notice that the information I want to use for a lesson or project is copyrighted – and how guilty I want my conscience to be that day.

I looked at some sites I has used in the past, all Jewish educational resources, and saw that all had Copyright -all rights reserved at the bottom. Only when I revisited  Mr. Lindsay’s site did I notice the CC.

First impression -it is a long overdue and much needed strategy for making use of the explosion of great material that educators and students use more and more to spark their own creativity. I could not understand why a person/organization would go to the trouble of putting their ideas and work on the net -where the whole world could see it, learn from it, discuss it ad infinitum -then add , in effect, “don’t print, don’t use any of this in other work -not one word- unless you have permission. Right, like that was going to happen. In my previous job I created professional development courses for educators in Jewish schools in Atlanta. The Internet was a major resource for me, and I often used dozens of sites as part of my research. How practical would it have been to ask permission of each site, wait for the reply, when I often had only a few weeks to prepare lessons? AND, if permission had not been given, could I realistically be expected to forget what I had read?

CC is a brilliant compromise that makes sense. It will open up so many possibilities for students and teachers to be creative and collaborative, building on the creativity and inspiration of people and groups throughout the world. When I can be inspired by the ideas and experiences of others, not only to use their material but to use it as a jumping off point for my own projects – it was brilliant, and I silently thanked those who had the good sense to share their  work so generously.

CC ,it also seemed to me will not appeal to every creative soul. People may justifiably feel “I wrote -created -photographed – made – this, and “no, you can’t just take it and “make it better”

Negatives? does it blur the line between who the REAL creator of anything/everything  is?  Will the clever but lazy student look at CC as a license to take another’s work, change something minor, and claim it as his/her “original” project? Will it ultimately backfire? Clearly I’m being the devil’s advocate, but I do believe we as educators need to seriously address this new set of issues. Just as advances in medicine and science bring new sets of ethical issues, so do advances in technology and access, such as CC and creative authorship.