Two of the most philosophically fuzzy issues I deal with on a daily (this weeks its been almost hourly) basis are online privacy and copyright.
As Will Richardson (2011) points out in his article titled Publishers, Participants All , “we need to help students understand more than just the safety and ethics of participating online; we also have to give them opportunities throughout the curriculum to find and follow their passions and publish meaningful, quality work for real global audiences to interact with.”
As students build their Google resumes and make steps toward positive digital footprints at ZIS the conversation always seem to have ethical overtones. Since the emergence of computer and information ethics in the 1940′s by Norbert Wiener at MIT, the “automatic age”has presented opportunities for dubious moral activity.
Lawrence Lessig points out in his talk Law Can Choke Creativity. He points out that digital technologies democratize the ways in which information can be shared and have changed the way kids think. Embedded within this conflict is a all out fight between copyright law and opensource/openshare culture.
This conflict is such a key piece of the conversation with students! When students are creative in their efforts to display evidence of content knowledge this always comes up. When teachers are creative and innovative in their efforts to teach content knowledge again this comes up! Time and money (even at a school like ZIS) always comes up. To build understanding students need to engage with content. Remixing and creating content are ways in which students authentically build meaning! When done legally there is almost always a buzz kill effect!
I believe that it is almost a moral imperative for educators to model creative opportunities to engage with content knowledge and to do so legally. If we don’t model it for our students who will?
The use of Creative Commons licences go a long way towards helping educators with this difficult task, perhaps Lawence Lessig with his creative and innovative thinking that lead to Creative Commons licencing is just the exemplar we educators need to strive for!
