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I would hope that you have been met with an onslaught of communications in the past several days regarding the current SOPA and PIPA bills. As a voting constituent, and maybe more importantly, as an educator, I am writing you to oppose these bills. I’m sure that you have read dozens of letters regarding the need to stop piracy. Yes, it is an important issue. However, this legislation does not appear to be the solution.

For the past decade, the Internet has brought enormous resources to the educational community and revolutionized the ways in which we, as teachers, can prepare our students for the challenges of the 21st Century. However, the core of the values that we have strived to inculcate in our students – to synthesize, analyze, communicate, collaborate, and create – are all threatened by this bill.

On June 23, 2008, Professor Michael Wesch presented An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube at the Library of Congress. In this presentation, he discussed the anthropological impact of Web 2.0 – especially YouTube – and how it is changing the media-scape. This was almost four years ago, and while, as educators, politicians, businesses, and parents, we have embraced the freedoms of this technology, we still have not addressed the fundamental ethical dilemma that it presents: piracy.

Similarly, in November of 2008, Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig is quoted as having said:

“If we had done that [achieve the objectives of copyright] a decade ago, we would have had 10 years of artists getting more money, we’d have fewer competition rules for new businesses to figure out how they can create great new products from these digital technologies but, most important for me, we wouldn’t have a decade of our kids being criminals…. Raising a generation of pirates is “corrosive and corrupting of the rule of law” – Source: Anthony Doesburg: Copyright law seen as stifling creative voice

So, for years, we have been advised that change needs to happen – that the traditional copyright laws are no longer sufficient in a networked, collaborative world. However, despite the warnings, the court proceedings, and the suggestions of organizations such as The Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the only group to have gained significant traction is the media industry looking to protect “the way it’s always been” and their pockets. If the medical, education, or business industries maintained such a position we would have… healthcare reform, education legislation, and Occupy movements.

Rather than impose mass legislation that will cripple the creativity, ingenuity, and economy that have come to characterize the 21st Century, why not educate the public about fair use, creative commons licenses, and copyright law. Why not examine the legislation (the last copyright amendment addressing the “Digital Millennium” was 1998)? Why not require schools, colleges, and universities to teach digital citizenship?

Senator Reed, Senator Whitehouse, and Representative Cicilline, these bills are not the answer.  Join the bipartisan group of Senators Wyden, Moran, Cantwell, and Paul in their opposition of PIPA. Work with industry and academia to find a solution, not a set of regulations that could potentially cripple the future.

Sincerely,

Beth Holland

Resources used to research writing this letter:

• An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube
• How creativity is being strangled by the law: Larry Lessig on TED.com
• US Copyright Office – Title 17
• EdTechResearcher Anti Sopa Letter
• Fight for the Future
• SOPA Blackout
• PBS NewsHour – Wikipedia and YouTube Battle Hollywood in SOPA Showdown

Here’s where the challenge lies. What images best illustrate  open education resources, digital equity, and educational transformation? Since none of these concepts are tangible, I tried classroom, computer classroom, and then 21st Century Classroom. I’m not exactly sure what I expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t what I discovered.

I wish that I could even say the issue was the limited results due to the fact that I looked only for Creative Commons licensed images, but I tried searching all of Google as well. Since “a picture’s worth a thousand words”, I decided to create an Animoto video to show what I found. Plus, we’ve been teaching Animoto in our T21 courses at EdTechTeacher, so I thought I should give it a shot. Anyone else notice an issue? Do these spaces really seem to support 21st Century learning?

Special Thanks to We Are Augustines!

Another cool thing to know…. Animoto comes with a great selection of music licensed for the web, but none of it really fit with my video. Lately, I’ve become a huge fan of  We Are Augustines and thought it would be really cool to use the first part of Chapel Song. While I know that I could have just brought my version from iTunes into GarageBand and created the 35 second clip that I needed, that would have defeated the purpose of making sure that my video was correctly licensed. If one of my students had come to me with this idea, I would have told them to contact the band and ask for permission, so I did. I emailed both the band as well as manager, Arwen Hunt. Sure enough, I got permission. Thanks again, Arwen!

If you like Chapel Song, you can buy it, and the rest of Rise Ye Sunken Ships, on iTunes.

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To meet my students’ learning needs, I used the software to create a dynamic set of self-paced tutorials to teach them how to properly punctuate with commas. At the time, the Twilight Zone had made a resurgence, hence the creation of The Comma Zone.

In a place between phrases and clauses lies the comma zone…..

Using a single floppy disk, I loaded the file onto all of the computers in the lab. Then, I took my students during class time and had them work through a series of accompanying worksheets as they interacted with the slideshow. They could ask questions at any time, and had ample time to complete the work. Those who flew through the exercises could then create their own Comma Zone scenarios.

At the time, this was a high tech approach to teaching. I didn’t enter the situation with the thought of using technology, I just desperately needed a way to ensure that my students could meet the desired learning goal of being able to properly punctuate a sentence. Differentiation, multi-modal presentation, and enrichment were not driving forces for this activity – especially since these were all foreign concepts at that time.

I retold that story today while introducing the concept of Backwards Design at an EdTechTeacher workshop. On the way home, I thought about my students’ learning challenge as well as the technology now available. If I redesigned the whole unit, what would it look like….

1. No PowerPoint - instead, I would use Google Presentation so that my students could also access the file from home as review.
2. No Paper Worksheets – from my Google Presentation, students could take online quizzes and surveys. This would let me gather real-time assessment data. Personally, I like Google Forms over something like Survey Monkey. However, especially if my students are using mobile devices such as iPads or Android tablets, a student response system like Socrative would be even more effective.
3. Grammar Blog - the 21st Century Comma Zone would be posted to a blog. After completing the work in class, or maybe even at home, students could post their own examples as comments.

Actually, rather than spend an entire class period with students working through an animated activity, I would probably Flip the class. My students would access my grammar blog and complete the Comma Zone (or any other similar units) online for homework. During class, they would then demonstrate their understanding of what they learned by creating their own grammar tales, presenting their knowledge to the class, or integrating their new skills into their writing.

Maybe it is worth revisiting the Comma Zone. If only I hadn’t saved that file on a floppy disk!

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sure, it is – in some ways – a twist on much of what appeared in Did You Know 4.0, which is really an evolution of Shift Happens from Xplane, but isn’t that what makes this interesting?

In the past six years, social media has changed how we communicate, how we share information, and even how we learn. Lately, I’ve been looking at the impact of mobile technology on research, reading, and learning. However, the bigger question may be how does mobile, social technology impact research, reading, and learning? Food for thought…

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.