Thing #9 -Creative Commons

In thinking about how CC could "affect" me professionally and or personally, I guess the biggest issue would be not licensing my work and having it used or modified. I'm not at a point where I would be doing much of that YET. It would more probable that I have used pictures that didn't belong to me and as I type this I wonder how often I have actually "borrowed" a photo I found on the web, without thinking of asking anyone. A potential problem would be finding out that a student has presented work where they have done that. Creative Commons is a great resource, I've never heard of it before this course. It looks as though it's being added to constantly, like Wikipedia. I have also never recalled seeing the CC logo anywhere on the web and now I will be scrutinizing carefully to see one. I used to see the name of artists lightly coded across pictures they uploaded ensuring their copyright would print over anything the user tried to use or print.


I think that CC will impact the way kids learn and create projects because we will be able to teach them how to appropriately gather information and this will encourage them to research better, respect a code of ethics, and value the hard work of others. Once they have worked hard on a project, a piece of writing or digital project, and protect it or share it, they'll know how it feels, I think it'll be pretty cool. It will encourage better original work out of them as well.

I guess have shared content and right now I cannot really guarantee that I have done it in the most ethically manner. I've always had good intentions, just sharing, but maybe not always appropriately assigning credit where due. What an eye-opener.

Potential Negatives for CC? I think until we learn how to use the guidelines to the best of our abilities, we may be too cautious and less creative or tend to overlook when guidelines have been violated. I'm sure there are things I have not thought of, but as of right now, I'm not truly certain. That's one to ponder.

I have not really experienced students misusing copyrighted media Internet-wise, only in the classroom when they are trying to incorporate their "interpretation" of certain famous characters into their original artwork. I don't ever let them for a myriad of reasons.

In the future the best thing to do would be to incorporate it into the syllabus from the beginning, maybe as a contract. All colleges are doing that now, I don't know what high schools are doing, some might be too. So they may as well get in best practices now.

These guidelines will impact the way they create because they will become more thoughtful about their actions, more self-motivated to create something from inside themselves instead using what they cannot have permission for and turning in relative clips of junk.

It will affect the media that I use in that I will be extra careful what I do and how I do it. Being a member of the art world I have always been aware of fair use of images and works, but as far as the Internet goes, I'm sure I have and will make mistakes. At least I am aware now.

Twitter and Education Thing #3 Pt 2

I found this RSS very interesting. I've never heard of twitter until my husband told me about it and showed me his account and how it works. I'm not much one for blogging or tweeting(twitter's name for messages). But I am starting to see the value of the service if I can get over my unease with the whole process. You always want to put the correct message up and it will be seen by lots of people. You have to dive in and conquer the fear. I have a couple suggestions if you want to use twitter as a resource. Here goes-Having a professional user name, a short accurate one-line bio, choosing a twitter picture and designing your twitter profile.

Professional Name: You have two choices- professional or personal. You want people to be able to find you easy by your relationship with them.

One-Line Bio: You only get 160 characters in order to describe yourself or a project you maybe working on. Put some thought into this portion of the set-up. Use 2 to 3 word phrases until you use up your 160 characters.

Twitter Picture: You need to post a picture that portrays you as both professional and personable-exactly what your tweets should be doing for you.

Designing a Profile: Since there is little room to be creative in your bio, you can make the profile an extension of you as well. We don't want to use any of the templates supplied by twitter. Instead you can upload a background that can be an extension of your company or career that you couldn't fit in your bio.

Whether you use these or not you should check out twitter. It has lots of professionals and is very different from other social media sites like Facebook and Myspace.

I'm starting to come around with the idea (don' tell my husband) but haven't committed. I do believe that if used as a resource we could really gain a lot of knowledge from around the world. This seems to almost go hand in hand with Web 2.0. Let me know your thoughts.