I must confess, I expected this week’s readings about intellectual property to be boring. I thought we would be examining and talking about a bunch of laws. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how thought-provoking and informative this week was! I found myself excitedly discussing the TED talks video about “Laws that Choke Creativity” with my husband last night, and I forced him to watch George Bush and Tony Blair singing “Endless Love” to each other. The video really got me thinking about how the present college-age generation views and builds art and information, and I appreciate the humor in the TED talks video (with the exception of Jesus singing “I Will Survive” as I found that rather offensive) as well as in the 59 ½ minutes segment.
What really sparked my thinking was Lessig’s explanation of the two extreme viewpoints regarding intellectual property: auto take down vs. no respect at all for copyright laws. As online instructors we navigate a rocky road – what information is freely available for use, and what information will steal from the “artists’” market? This question reminded me of a recent example from my online class. Students have previously been able to access practice quizzes and resources online from the publisher of the textbook I use. In the last two years, however, this information is made available to students only if they purchase registration to the website. Ridiculous! I still refer students who have purchased used textbooks or who don’t want to pay the website access fee to the website for the previous edition of the textbook.
The do’s and don’ts outlined in the TEACH Act were very helpful. I used to show some full-length videos in my face-to-face classes. I also used to show full-length videos from PBS that I obtained on YouTube. I probably should have known that it wasn’t legal to show these obviously pirated videos. Though I haven’t made full-length videos available to students in my online classes, I’m glad that I now know it is not legal to do so.
The necessity of providing web accessibility is a topic of great discussion these days, and colleges emphasize the importance of making audio closed-captioned for the hearing impaired and including text that describes graphics in order to remain ADA compliant. I adhere to these standards as best I know how, but in all honesty I have never looked at my whole class to assess its overall accessibility. I have relied on Blackboard for most of this.
It’s to the great benefit of education that instructors are contributing open content. It saves so much time when I can conduct a search on a topic and find what a colleague has written and to offer information to my students in a style other than my own. When I was developing my class content and activities, I relied heavily on what other instructors provided and then adapted them for my class. When I referenced students to another instructor’s website to take a virtual field trip that instructor had assembled, my department chair gently reminded me that it would be appropriate to contact the instructor and ask if what I was doing was ok with him. The instructor not only said yes, but he was flattered that someone would reference his material!
My only real disappointment this week was with the free online textbook sites. What instructor wouldn’t like to save his/her students some cash on the outrageously expensive textbooks we assign? But the free etextbooks I located in my discipline were either ancient (one was even dated in the 1700’s!) or were on topics that are not relevant to the issues we presently face.
Finally, I tried to use PersonalBrain but the program took so long to download that I just gave up and went to Lucid Chart. I really like the fact that an electronic program can help store and organize not only ideas but also website addresses, images, etc. Right now I am working on a book, and I’ve got a bunch of random pieces of note paper with ideas on them in a book bag. It always takes me a while to remember where I was going with these thoughts before I can start writing. I think a mind-mapping program could be very useful in this regard.
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