Mine? Mine? Mine?

Who owns what we create?

I mean as teachers - if I create something on school time who does it belong to? Is it mine? I made it. Or does it belong to the division? We did make it while being paid by them. (For that matter when exactly does school time end? I am paid on a salary not by the hour.) If I leave am I obligated to leave a copy of what I created? Do I even have the right to take it with me?

If an architect designs a building - it belongs to the company they work for. An engineer's work belongs to the firm. Who does my work belong to? Do I even have the right to offer it up as Creative Commons work? (Like virtually all of my work is?) What is the story with university research? Does it belong to the researcher - the university - or is it a shared copyright?

I know that there are special exceptions in the Canadian Copyright laws for education but how far does it go?

I don't know. But for the record - (to any of my bosses) - you can use anything I create, just keep me happy enough and we won't have to get into the discussion of whether I can take it with me.

Photo Credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/pugno_muliebriter/1384247192/

Warm and Fuzzy Sharing

Well, I finally got around to it. This blog is officially licensced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. I mean that I had always operated under that kind of sharing philosophy but I guess that I never told anyone else. Okay - for the record - I am sharing.

Oh, and since I haven't made any money off of this blog please don't show me up by finding a way (unless you ask nicely).

Looking for Pictures

Well the title describes it. I am looking for a picture database. Blog entries always look better with pictures to spice them up. The problem is that thanks to some new found morality I would prefer to not break any copyrights (and most of my pictures are of my son). That leaves out the Google Image search, and Flickr, and most of the other picture sites. Anyone got any suggestions?

Since When Do Lawyers and Insurance Companies Get to Run OUR Show?

In Perpetual Fear of the Sue Sue Sue

Here is a post written by Vicky Davis. She talks about how we (as teachers) are always afraid of being sued. The lawyers and administrators insist that we be 100% compliant with the legal requirements.

What do we do with 100% legal requirements when we're lucky to get 85% in
the classroom? We know how rare (100%) hundreds are in the classroom, however
the legal professionals (and our administrators) require that we are 100%
compliant and 100% perfect.

How practical is it to be 100% compliant? Can we eliminate every possible risk? No. We can minimize it but not eliminate it. Anyone with an 80% in my classroom gets told they are doing a pretty good job.

Now I think that Vicky Davis was aiming her article towards copyright infringement. Plagiarism has been a problem since the first caveman copied another caveman's paintings. Vicky didn't just moan and complain about the problem she offered some solutions.

Automated citation building wikis and blogs that extract the links from the blog or wiki page and automatically post the citations in the proper format at the bottom of the page.

Computers have to tools to quickly and easily do this. Teach the students the legal way to use somebody elses ideas. We often indirectly take credit for someone elses work not because we are thiefs at heart but because we are lazy. So make the process easy.

Let me leave you with one last quote.

We have work to do. The nature of lawyers is to say NO. The nature of
administrators is to say NO. The nature of a good teacher is to advocate for
her/his students.

In the end it is about student learning.