Copyright and Schools

       Did you know about Creative Commons licenses? I know I didn’t until very recently. Creative Commons licenses allow authors and/or creators to share their work according to what they want people to be able to do with that work and creativity (Creative Commons, 2006). It does not have creators give up their rights completely but only refines those rights so they can share and collaborate with other creators. Everything a person creates is automatically fully copyrighted. This means that everything you share or have your students share online is copyrighted and requires others to ask for permission directly from you in order to use. Sounds like such a hassle to me. However, this is where Creative Commons comes in. You can adjust your copyright license to allow others permission to use your work as you see fit. For example, a non-commercial license, allows others to use your work as long as it is not used for commercial purposes. The control or lack of control is completely up to you!

Cheryl23. (2013, April 3).
Young boy computer [Online Image]. 
Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/students-computer-young-boy-99506/             

       As more and more technology is being used in the classroom students and teachers are not considering Copyright laws. We take photos and information from online without checking the permission and licensing rights of those photos. This can cause a big problem if we, as teachers, are not careful to make sure that we are not teaching our students to ignore copyrights. We need to educate ourselves in order to educate our students about the proper legal and ethical practices of technology.

       However, in order for students to take copyright seriously we need to make sure we teach them why it is important. There are many other aspects we can teach students about how to avoid copyright issues, which we should still do but it will mean nothing to them if they do not understand why it is important. To do this, we should connect what copyright means in ways that will relate to them. For example, ask students if they had built a tree house and their little brother kept using it without asking, would that feel fair? Probably not, they would want their little brother to ask permission before using it because they worked so hard to make it. The same is with copyright. People have created many different works but they still want to be asked permission to use their creativity. Once students have understood the importance of making sure there is permission to use online resources then teachers can educate them of how to check the permission rights.

WOCinTech Chat. (2016, March 24) Wocintech (Microsoft) - 181
[Online Image]. Retrieved fromhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/wocintechchat/25721041220/         

I am guilty of copyright infringement. I have definitely used a photo or shown a video in class within checking if I had permission to do so. This was because I was uneducated about how to check copyright and the different Creative Commons licenses. Now that I am educated I have no excuses and must make sure that I use only materials that have permission given. I also now have the responsibility to educate my future students. You must do the same. Educate yourself so that you can educate your students. Copyright matters.

Thank you for reading, please leave any comments you have!

Reference:

Creative Commons. (2006). Wanna work together? [Video]. Retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/about/videos/wanna-work-together/