DD Shift

I am hearing the song… Ok, I’ll admit it… On the Rise by Dr. Horrible.  I know… I said I wouldn’t discuss Dr. Horrible again…

I found this very amusing flowchart at Flickr by TimmyCorkery:

When teaching students about program flowcharting, this would be a humorous, but instructive example for them to review.  We could look at the aspects of the flowchart that are done correctly and also those things that are done incorrectly.  This is certainly much simpler than my creating my own silly flowchart to amuse the kids while teaching them a useful method of documenting programming processes.

With Flickr, I could have the students actually create their own flowcharts, digitalize them, upload them, and then mark the different symbols in the flowcharts to indicate what sort of roles they play.  I didn’t know that Flickr had the ability to add hotspots and tags to make images more useful.  This would give them the chance to reflect back on what they had created and also provide examples for future students.

Further, Flickr allows you to add Creative Commons licensing to your images so that you can let the world know what you want to be done with the images.  Top notch!

I am hearing the Family Guy theme song.

I feel like Stewie stymied by broccoli. I read today that they are putting Dr. Horrible back online for free. Harrumph. We paid for the download. Garr!!

But, then I followed another link and found out there there are several professionally-produced sci-fi shows coming to the internet soon… Will this kill the creativity of the little guy?

Dr. Horrible\’s Sign Along Blog

I am hearing the song “Everything You Paid For” by the The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.

To go back to my original post about who owns the copyright to the materials that a teacher makes for class (in the U.S.):  Under the idea of “work for hire”, anything you create for use in your classes is actually owned by the district in which you work unless you have something in writing from your school or district that says differently.  (Simpson 23).

Simpson, Carol (2005). Copyright in schools: a practical guide. Linworth Publishing.

I am hearing the Time Warp from the soundtrack of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Additional responses to Dr. Horrible:  sidekick anyone?

Dr. Dreadful

Chassy Cat

I am hearing a song which is a remix of the theme from Requiem for a Dream.  The license claims to be copyleft.  Is the artist allowed to do to use this license?  Is that legal?  He/she is doing more than just a bit of sampling in this case.  Is it really recommendable that my students use this?

Here is an article from ARS Technica that testifies to the changing face of copyright and IP.

I am hearing the song “Dr. Horrible is Here” by Dr. Horrible. I’m sorry. This will be the last Dr. Horrible reference.

Question 2: Do you think CC will impact the way students learn and create projects? How?

This will be a long post based on experience in my school.

I don’t think that students who are much younger than 9th grade can “get” the intricacies of the practical applications of intellectual property law. Heck, I don’t even know what to do in every situation, and I’m 35 and I have spent significant time looking into the topic and its relationship to education. It’s not to say, though, that students are not open to understanding the concept.

At the end of the 2006-7 school year, I quickly introduced (and quickly realized I needed to know more) the concepts of public domain, copyleft and creative commons to my students as they worked on their final filming projects in technology class. They were very frustrated not to be able to use their favorite songs in the soundtracks of their movies (which, I found that some movies were later uploaded to various online video providers).

At the beginning of the 07-08 school year, I held an informational session for all of the teachers in the school on this topic. I gave the teachers a pre-quiz to see what they knew. And, much to my surprise, they knew very little. What were they modeling in the classroom, then?

I would love to provide a policy or definitive guide for the teachers, but there are two things that are stopping me:

• I am not a lawyer, and I have found that for some topics very reliable sources disagree on the appropriate practical action for schools. I can’t simply pick up and use a pre-fabricated one from the U.S. because “fair use” laws in Germany (although we agree to the same international treaties) are different for schools in Germany. And, as far as I can tell, German schools do not have a IP policy template that they use (yet).
• Intellectual property law is a continuously moving target in Germany, and I only have 7 release periods per week to cover “all” IT Coordinator issues.

I asked that the issue be turned over to the school’s legal advisors, but I have not gotten a response.

Why the big preamble about policy and teacher training?

Teachers respond to training, and they try to support school policy. Students respond when things are modeled by teachers and staff in the school– even if it is not your explicit intent to teach them that lesson.

• If you ask a student to burn a copy of a movie for you so that you can show it to the whole class (because it is educationally relevant), what are you teaching them (especially if they have to bypass DRM copy protection)?
• If you are a French teacher and you have students go online searching for and printing photos of French cuisine for an in-class project and you don’t require them to cite those photos (you don’t have time- this is just a quick assignment), what are you teaching them?
• If you are a student council sponsor and you want to hold a movie night with a movie that was just released to DVD for the 7th and 8th graders– you don’t charge to see the movie, but you do charge for snacks at the movie, but you didn’t get permission from the correct agency (or, pay the fee associated with a public broadcast of the film), what are you teaching the them?
• If you are chatting with a colleague about exchange music files (you both have similar music tastes) while on duty in the lunch room, what are the students overhearing from this conversation?

These questions may seem melodramatic, but after the IP introduction to the teachers at the beginning of the school year, they come and apologize when they don’t “do the right thing” because of time, or lack of resources, etc. All of the above scenarios have been brought to me at some point.

Fair use, for me, is a tricky issue. Schools enjoy a certain amount of latitude in being able to use copyrighted materials in ways that the general public does not. And, teachers often overstep their legal bounds in the classroom. They are modeling the “wrong” behavior. Students take that example in apply it in their non-classroom lives. And, as they are students, they tend to take a few more steps outside those legal bounds. And, suddenly, we have students being targeted with lawsuits.

Schools need to have strong, clear and accessible policies on intellectual property rights. They also need to have practical guides for teachers. I have actually seen (for U.S. schools) posters with common IP problems and practical resolutions to those problems for posting in the classroom. There’s nothing like that yet here in Germany (in English, anyway).

Teachers need to know what CC and public domain are and where they can find these types of materials– especially for multimedia projects. These concepts need to be broken down to student bite-sized chunks so that students are clear on how they can determine what is usable and what is off limits. Other things that can be done:

• provide a list of links of sites that sponsor CC and public domain works (images, music, videos),
• teach students how to record/mix their own music (there are some inexpensive music-making softwares out there),
• teach students how to scan in images and manipulate them digitally,
• use photographs for projects (careful!! there are privacy issues when photographing students)…

In the 07-08 school year I spent the second half of the school year working IP into the curriculum of the grade 9 technology class. I was surprised at how well the students absorbed the information. In the two, heavily multi-media projects we worked on, the students asked tough questions and really grappled with how to do it “right”. But, it’s tough for them. I was teaching them one thing, but I had other teachers demonstrating other behaviors, and they have examples like this mashup on Youtube, and their peers want them to see the latest video from XYZ, and their parents often have no idea. And, the majority of the works that are out there online are copyrighted, in full.

As a teacher (or for my students), I need quick, easy, comprehensive access to resources. Creative commons has come a long way, but there is still a lot that you cannot get (easily) via this license. Music for soundtracks, in general, is difficult to find. The sites that feature this type of work are badly indexed (if you find a good one, please let me know). There are thousands of images available, and they are indexed well, but there are gaping holes in topics where having images would be extremely helpful. And, I sometimes question the legitimacy of the CC and public domain licenses of online videos. I worry that people are posting items that are really copyrighted. I would love to have my students be able to use some of the footage in their own works (properly cited), but if you look at the clips, they are not always posted by people who appear to be the true “owners” of the works.

I think that the creative commons license is a great step in the right direction, but for the reasons mentioned above, both because of societal pressures and media availability, it has a ways to go before it is a viable , full service solution for educators and students.

I am hearing the song “It’s a Brand New Day” by Dr. Horrible.

Question 1: Who has copyright for items that you create for your classroom? The answer to that question is dependent on where you live.

In the US:

According to the book “Copyright for Schools, A Practical Guide“, the school retains the copyright. If anyone knows how to get around this, I would love to hear about it. Or, if things have changed in the past few years, I would love to hear the about the legislation or court ruling that changes this.

In Germany:

According to the book “Urheberrecht in der Schule“, the teacher retains copyright (Urheberrecht).

This information is based on research that I did last year in preparation for a staff trainings and educational conference presentations that I made in the last school year. I no longer have the books in front of me, so I cannot give you the exact page references.

The book, “Copyright for Schools…” is an awesome book written by an educator for educators to become acquainted with many of the different issues surrounding copyright in schools. It also comes with nice templates that you can use in your school (photo release forms, student work release forms, example policies)… The only weakness of the book is that it was published in 2005. The laws for copyright are continuously modifying themselves– especially in the area of digital media– so this book is a great snapshot up through 2005, but you will have to do some legwork to catch up with the latest developments.

The book, “Urheberrecht…” is a very conservative book on “fair use (die Beschränkung der Rechte des Urhebers)” in schools in Germany written by a lawyer. I used it as a starting point for research into German copyright law for schools. It has the same weakness as “Copyright for Schools…” in that it is a static manuscript documenting a moving target, but it also offers a solid (albeit very, very conservative) summary of issues that have been dealt with already in schools.  But, it is very nice that it attempts to put German copyright law into layman’s terms.

Haupt, Stephan (2006). Urheberrecht in der Schule. Munich: Verlag Medien und Recht.

Simpson, Carol (2005). Copyright in schools: a practical guide. Linworth Publishing.

I am hearing the theme song from Underdog.

Here is a nice, short video called “Font Conference” that demonstrates both good and bad filming technique.  I have to admit that I laughed out loud when I watched it.  It might be a good thing to show students during the  technology filming unit to demonstrate:

• Use of stereotype in humor (not always funny – why or why not).
• Creative use of common settings to create a totally different atmosphere.
• Show that you can create something in 3 minutes with a definite beginning, middle and end
• Look at timing and detail – how often does the font name play a role?  How much time does a font name need to be on the screen for you to really absorb it?  Did they do a good job with each one?
• Use of specialized knowledge as humor — does it work?  Why or why not?  Is it good for the general public?  Why or why not?
• Camera angles:  especially with Times New Roman.  Why did they film the way that they did?
• Camera shots:  when shooting people, did they always do it “correctly”, or are we missing any body parts in places that make you feel uncomfortable as a viewer?

I’m hearing the song “A Man’s Gotta Do…” by Captain Hammer, Dr. Horrible and Penny.

Perhaps a pre-quel? Brilliant!

I am hearing the song “On the Rise” by Penny and Dr. Horrible.

I have to say that I am disappointed, although I do understand Whedon’s position on Dr. Horrible. There will be no continuing episodes for Dr. Horrible. And that, my friends, is horrible. It is, from my frog perspective, irresponsible.

If you stop Mr. Horrible here, the story is a parable. And, it is a parable of the x-generation kind (not the next-generation… they aren’t old enough (or egotistical enough (yet) to “get it”). I won’t give you the moral of the story. I want to avoid spoilers, and you have to figure out the moral yourself. The prognosis (as an x-generation slave) is not good. And the message hits home.

But, we could look at it as a morality play. This leaves room for growth. Penny is Charity. Captain Hammer is Justice (ahh justice). Both of these “celebrated” virtues leave room for improvement; Charity is blind (but not chaste) and Justice is a vain, corporate tool… ah, but I digress. Which virtues (and vices) will Dr. Horrible meet in the next episode?

Or, this story could be epic; an epic of Parzival-ish proportions. Dr. Horrible has joined his round table (the evil League of Evil)… all he needs now is a sage villain to teach him the ways and a quest (and plenty of characters along the way). I believe Dr. Horrible longs (demands, even) to be epic. And, those characters that he encounters on his quest, they are futter for future spin offs.

Oh, and Penny is not all that weak, after all. Her character is significantly more developed than Captain Hammer’s. And, as Charity, she is far more reflective than I had first expected. And, her fate was necessary to drive home a point. But, she was not a dim-witted female–look at the subtext. She was simply a victim of her virtue.

Perhaps Whedon won’t create the next episode, but who is to say that there will be no new episodes? “Online” is a tricky frontier…

And, this is the best thing (hands down) that I have seen from Joss Whedon. Thank you to the writers’ strike!!