How to work with intellectual property in school?

 

In school we always have been teaching the pupils how to act if they are going to use material from different types of sources, mostly written texts. It is clearly that we have a challenge when we experience the increasing use of the internet. In school we also have an obligation in teaching the pupils how to make several types of multimodal texts. Of course you can make this type of text with your pen and paper, but the use of the computer and the various types of sources you may find on the internet, can provide a more interesting result. Glogster is program where you can make websites containing text, pictures and links to You tube etc. You may call it a digital wallpaper. You can choose whether you want to post your product on the internet, or just in a closed community like Fronter or Moodle. Where you post your work, raises different challenges according to the question of intellectual property.  Some pupils think that it is ok to use all kinds of materiel that they may find on the internet. If it’s out there, it’s legal to use! Others do know that there are rules connected to the use of different sources as written texts, pictures or music, but they don’t know what’s legal or not. And fore sure, it is not easy to always act correctly.

I will try to give you some guidelines when you are going to discuss these issues with your class in school. First of all they need to know how to make å correct quotation. You have to talk about the word property. Pupils probably do understand the meaning of this word if it’s related to something that they own. You have to make them to understand that a written text also is a type of property. You can’t steal a “mans” words

and pretend that they are yours.

The video below about intellectual property probably gives you a better understanding of what I mean!

 

In the same way there are rules connected to the use of pictures or music that you find in different
websites. Second the pupils need to learn how to make a proper list of sources.

If you want to learn more about this issue you can take a look at the video called "Copyright".

 

When the formalities are in order, you have to learn to behave in a proper way when you post something on the internet. There are different rules to follow whether you post your text in a LMS as Fronter or and open website on internet. You are allowed to use others persons texts in a more freely way if they are posted in a closed society..In the school where I work, we have made a link in our homepage to a website called Creativ Commons. We tell the pupils to use this link when they are searching for different kind of material. This because CC is a website where you can find pictures, texts, music and so on that’s  free to use. Of course they have to make a correct list of sources, but they do not have to pay for anything that they find. 

  

As you can see it’s not easy to act correctly. In the end I’ll tell about another challenge. Some of us like to present ourselves by making websites using the technique of bricolage. (The expression is used by the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.) When you make a bricolage, you use elements from other texts, photos etc to make a new and personal expression. You can also for instance use the publishing tool called Piczo to make this type of website. Is it legal, or not? I haven’t the answer, but the question is interesting in this content.

As you can understand, there are a lot of challenges if you are going to behave correctly dealing with texts produced by other people. Nevertheless I think it is very important to learn about these rules because production of such texts is the reality for the young generation.

Why it is important to teach pupils how to act safe on the internet!

Children of today are surrounded by computers or smart phones. Almost every home has one or several computers with internet installed. Children also use computers in school. With this topic in mind, we can easily understand that parents and teachers have many challenges by teaching how to act safe in the digital world.

This video about social networking can give you some good advices about using the internet in a safe way.

A lot of kids are using the internet every day. The belief in their skills in using the internet in a proper way, are often well developed. They are familiar with the life in social medias as Face book etc. As society we need to show and teach pupils a safe behaviour in the use of internet. In the subject social studies we often discuss this theme. We talk about limits of age. It’s a paradox when you are working with kids who are nine, ten or eleven years old and they have their one profile at Face book, when  you know you have  to be thirteen to make a profile. Have the parents approved this? Is it ok to tell a lie to get access to a website that you not are old enough to be a part of?

We also have discussions about the content of one`s homepage. What do you write about yourself and which pictures do you present?  A lot of the pupils do not know that information and pictures laid out on the internet, often remains in “space”, even though you have removed it from your website. Some young people also seem to like photos where they act more mature and older then they really are. Some of those pictures may have a sexual tendency. (This link is to a popular Norwegian website where you post your own pictures.) Is this ok when you after some years are an adult employing for a new job and the boss are searching the internet for information?

Another important issue to discuss in class is harassment of other persons on the internet. Some kids write and post pictures on websites that are meant to hurt the feelings to someone else. We all know how easy it is to manipulate pictures so that nobody can see it’s a fake. People who have been exposed to this type of harassment, often says that the worst part of it is to experience how difficult it can be to make such elements disappear forever. Digital harassment is not a big problem only in Norway. We have to fight this problem all over the world. As a part in this work, the EU has created a forum called “Safer Internet Forum”.

In October 2011 the title of the meeting was:"Every European Child Digital Safely – Emerging Challenges and Youth Engagement".

On the agenda for this conference several of the issues were the same that I have pointed out in my blog post. This tells me that it is very important to take this work seriously and continuing teaching how to act safe in the digital world.   

E-culture in school, a challenge or an opportunity?

Our society has changed both dramatically and rapidly when we think about the opportunities the use of ICT provides us. As grownups it can be a challenge to understand and take part in all the new possibilities that we have by surfing on the internet. As a teacher you meet these challenges every day in school. Some of the pupils have probably a lot more experience related to ICT than you as a teacher has. How does school cope with this challenge? Either you can ignore it, or you can take the technology and new types of communication serious. After my opinion the education system have to take the new ICT-generation serious and try to make use of the possibilities it gives. The most important job in school today is to educate the pupils to become skilled readers and writers. The ICT-society provides new types of literacy’s. If the pupils are going to find information on the internet, they have to both write and read at the same time. They have to be able to follow links and understand the structure of the website they are using. When they use the internet, they are no longer just consumers, but very often producers too. This is because there are so many possibilities to act interactive by using digital media. You can participate in your own commercial or you can for example get advice from the “psychologist” Eliza. It`s also possible to build your identity by making films, blogs, websites and so on.

The video below shows how easy it is to be "familiar" with famous persons.

It`s also possible to share your work with other pupils from schools all around the world. The e-culture opens up for more co-operation between pupils. The Norwegian system of education also has stressed the importance of making young people able to participate in the digital world. In the national framework (Kunnskapsløftet) the use of digital tools is mentioned as basic skills in every subject. As a teacher you therefore have an obligation in preparing the pupils to be participants in the digital world.

If we all know what we are doing, and why, ICT can be a way of communication and self-realization. The web is democratic. If you have the tools you need, everyone can be a part of the e-culture in space. In school we need to be an active part in the social and cultural development of the pupils and it`s necessary that we teach pupils how to behave in the interactive world. If the teachers and the pupils work together, I think both parts can benefit if we utilize the possibilities that use of digital media can give.

In this post I have tried to give you some ideas in which way it is possible to make use of  ICT to make new types of texts while working with pupils in school. It is important that the teachers are up to date in using digatal medias. There is no way back, so start working and go for it!

Do we always create more effective workers or pupils by using digital media?

Formerly when people arrived their working place they usually started to work immediately after that the working bell had rung. Their job lasted for many ours each day and there weren`t so many possibilities to have a brake during the day. How is the situation in our digitalized world? Mostly all of the workers or pupils in the school have access to the internet by using pc or a smartphone. We all know how easy it is to read papers, add to social communities or just surf on the internet when we rather should be working with something else directly connected to our job.

By watching this video you can decide by yourself if this is good behavior while working.



I think we all should be more critical about how we use the “new” technology during the working day. Some of the job leaders share my thoughts and they mean that the digital use among the workers is a large problem. The main reason for that is because it will steal working hours, and for a company it will become very expensive too. Some of the leaders have gone so far that they have threatened the employees with closing down parts of the local pc- network. In some companies there also have been discussed whether the employees should be allowed to use private phones during the day or not. In school we can see similar problems. There are pupils, and some teachers, that far to easy sneaks into “wrong” pages on the web instead of doing related work. As a teacher this tells me that the school has a big challenge in teaching pupils how to act in the real work life. There are so many positive elements and learning activities related to using social media in school that we have to increase our use of them in the future. I hope that the school will continue and be even better to take advantages of the digitalized technology, but we also need to have a discussion about how, when and in which way we are using it.

By watching the video below you can get information about how expensive "wrong" use of digital medias can be.  
                                                                                                                                                                    

If we use our phone or laptop when we are allowed to and become more critical for personal use while at work, then I will maintain that we have taken a step forward to create more effective workers and pupils.