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Jan 21 – from Representative Cicilline

Dear Ms. Holland,

Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I appreciate your taking the time to contact me and express your views on this critical issue.

I share your concerns about protecting free speech and privacy on the Internet. Over the last decade, the rapid expansion of high-speed Internet access has allowed millions of people to exchange information and ideas with one another in ways that were previously unimaginable. At the same time, we have seen repressive regimes across the world attempt to censor websites that promote dissent or democratic reforms. While these governments have had mixed records of success in stifling their opponents, their attempts at censorship have adulterated the free exchange of information.

As you may know, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261, was introduced by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) on October 26, 2011. As written, this bill would allow the United States Attorney General or an intellectual property holder to take action against the owner of a nondomestic domain that promotes or enables copyright infringement. H.R. 3261 has garnered 25 cosponsors and has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

After careful review of the proposed legislation and reflecting on the concerns expressed to me by many Rhode Islanders, I have decided to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act, as it is currently drafted. Although I am deeply concerned that online piracy is a serious issue confronting American businesses and intellectual property owners, as currently written, SOPA presents undue burdens on the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and due process, poses significant threats to the Internet remaining open, safe and secure, and could stifle future innovation that would be counterproductive to the future growth and development of our nation.

Substantial revisions of the proposed bill are now expected, and I will continue to pay close attention to new legislative developments. Please know that I will keep your thoughts in mind should this or any other legislation concerning online piracy be considered by the House.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding SOPA. Your thoughts and opinions on this issue are of great value, and I will be sure to consider them as we continue to review the matter in Congress. Please feel free to use my office as a resource at any time and visit my website at www.cicilline.house.gov for up-to-date information on a wide range of issues before Congress.

Sincerely,

David N. Cicilline
Member of Congress

P.S. Please be sure to sign up for my e-newsletter so we can stay in touch about the issues most important to you. Just visit my website at www.cicilline.house.gov and sign up today.

Jan 25 – from Senator Whitehouse

Dear Mrs. Holland:

Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (“Protect IP”) Act of 2011. I have heard from many Rhode Islanders voicing concerns over this legislation, and I appreciate having the benefit of your views.

The Senate was expected to take up this legislation at the end of January. As you may know, Majority Leader Reid decided not to move forward with the bill at this time so that concerns raised by you and so many other Americans can be addressed. Online theft of American intellectual property is a serious concern, but I agree with Senator Reid that holding off on this bill right now is the best thing to do.

Online theft is a challenging issue because it violates American property rights and harms American jobs and consumers. At the same time, maintaining the integrity of Internet infrastructure, and preventing censorship of speech online, is vital to our access to information in the 21st Century.

I have heard from Rhode Island artists and businesses about significant losses in income as the products of their hard work become available through rogue overseas websites. American copyright and trademark holders create millions of jobs, generate billions of dollars in tax revenue, and manufacture products we use every day – from pharmaceuticals to computer software. Foreign websites dedicated to selling fraudulent products are the most visible part of a massive cybercrime industry that threatens American jobs, and can result in American consumers being seriously injured, whether by fake prescription drugs or dangerous counterfeit electronics.

Over the past several months, I also have heard from many Rhode Islanders about provisions in the bill that would restrict access to foreign websites dedicated to infringing activity. Others have raised concerns about the bill’s possible unintended security and technological consequences. I believe many of the concerns that have been raised can, and must, be addressed. I had hoped to address them in an open Senate process of debate and amendment.

Like you, I am dedicated to maintaining free speech on the Internet. I will not support measures that hinder free speech online, nor will I back any effort that could undermine the structural integrity of the Internet. I will be taking a second look at this legislation, and will work with my colleagues in the Senate to make improvements to it that address these concerns.

Again, thank you for contacting me. As you know, this issue has brought a tremendous outpouring of debate and political organizing across the Internet. This debate has helped to shape my views on this issue and had a clear effect on the legislative process. I am pleased to see so many people take an active role in our democracy. I hope that you’ll continue to keep me informed of your thoughts on this, or any other matter of concern to you.

Sincerely,

Sheldon Whitehouse
United States Senator

Jan 26 – from Senator Reed

Dear Mrs. Holland:

      Thank you for making sure I knew of your concerns with PIPA and SOPA.

      Like you, I believed these bills were too broad and could have damaging impacts on innovation and other important policy goals.  I am pleased that bills were pulled from consideration by the Senate and House of Representatives.

      Now, the task is to ensure that we find a way to balance the real economic costs of Chinese and other international piracy with concerns about security and Internet fairness.  I plan to be part of that dialogue, and I look forward to hearing from you about this and other issues in the future.

      As always, please do not hesitate to write, call, or visit my website, www.reed.senate.gov, for information regarding this or any other matter.

Sincerely,

 Jack Reed

United States Senator

http://reed.senate.gov

 Please do not reply to this email address as this is an outbound mailbox only.  If you’d like to send a message, please do so athttp://reed.senate.gov/contact/contact-share.cfm. Thank you.

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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.