My gut reaction as someone who talks to educators about copyright* is that the pre-1920 photographs are in the public domain since their copyright has expired.  Of course, I suppose that Life would claim they own the digital files,  but since they are simply recreations of the original file rather than significant transformations, I’m not sure that argument would hold out.  The newer photos would be covered by traditional copyright so if teachers and students wished to use them for purposes not covered by fair use, they would have to ask for permission.

I decided to test out my gut reaction by seeing what others were saying.  Search Engine Land quotes the press release:

LIFE’s Photo Archive will be scanned and available on Google Image Search free for personal and research purposes. Copyright and ownership of all images will remain with Time Inc.

But, they also point out that the FAQ page offers a different take on possible uses:

What can I do with the images I find from the LIFE photo archive?
You can browse and view the images you find, rate them, and see detailed information about the photographs. There is also a link to buy image merchandise provided by LIFE.

Poking a bit more, I found Slashdot’s report of the images.  It doesn’t talk about copyright, but copyright is discussed in the comments.  At least one commenter agrees with me about the public domain status of the older photos.   But he also points out that proving public domain for the digital images would involve a costly legal battle.

This gets to the heart of the problem with copyright: it’s all grey area.  The US Copyright Office makes it clear: “The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined.” I generally tell people that their fair use rights end when they post a project to the web.  And the distinction between the photo and its digital image seems a pretty grey area as well.

John recommends that, in order to stay safe and legal, it would be best to use them only for personal use.  And the rational part of me agrees.  But the irrational part is a little annoyed.  Shame on Google and Life for not being more clear about the copyright! These are iconic images and for students and teachers learning about history, being able to use these photos in multimedia projects would be wonderful.   As John also wisely suggested, a Creative Commons license would make this so much easier. Non-commercial uses could be permitted while commercial uses, which is clearly what Life is going for here, could be controlled.  What’s to lose?

*I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my audiences: I’m really liberal and I’m not a lawyer.  I think teachers and students should be able to do whatever they want with materials they find as long as they are using them for educational purposes.

Miami Book Fair Celebrates 25 Years:  I heard this story on NPR yesterday as I drove back and forth across the state.  The founder of the fair is an independent book store owner in Miami and he reflects on how things have changed since 1983.  When asked about the challenge of selling analog books in an increasingly digital age, he comments that he is “selling the past.”

Guest Blogger on Eduwonk:  I credit Andrew Rotherman (aka Eduwonk) with helping me pass my comprehensive exams at William and Mary.  Today, his guest blogger is none other than Margaret Spellings, soon-to-be former Secretary of Education.  She writes about a new report from the Department of Education that details five areas in which federal, state and local goverments can collaborate to support the use of technology in education.

I Think I’m Musing My Mind:  I’m sorry that I can’t remember who steered me to this piece by Roger Ebert but I’ve read and re-read it several times since.  I found myself highlighting several of his key ideas that resonated with me in this thoughtful reflection on his writing:

The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.

Of course I don’t think only about writing. I spend time with my wife, family and friends. I read a lot, watch a lot of politics on TV. But prose is beavering along beneath, writing itself. When it comes time to type it is an expression, not a process. My mind has improved so much at this that it’s become clearly apparent to me. The words, as e. e. cummings wrote, come out like a ribbon and lie flat on the brush. He wasn’t writing about toothpaste. In my fancy, I like to think he could have been writing about prose.

Collaborating with Diigo:  From jdtravers, an excellent video with practical tips for using Diigo to comment on student work.  My own experience with Diigo expanded this week.  I blogged about the Bauerlein article and then used the highlights from Ruben Van Havermaet to explore more about new media, including spending a few hours reading Andrew Plotkin’s interactive fiction game Shade.   And, Jeremy Douglass’s website made me think about what it means to be an English major in the 21st century as I approach the 25th anniversary of my own graduation.

Sterling believes blogs, MySpace, Facebook, e-mail, IM and texting all have potential for improving a student’s ability to write. While some critics worry about how the abbreviated nature of online and text communication ignores basic grammar and spelling rules, Sterling isn’t concerned.

”Creatively abbreviated words like GR8 and issues like not capitalizing after punctuation don’t worry me — and some changes may eventually become standard,” Sterling says. “Students are savvy, and they will learn to adjust the way they write to fit the audience.”

That last bit–writing to fit the audience and, increasingly, the format–is one of the most important ideas for me as I always found it a difficult topic to deal with in the traditional classroom where it seemed as though I was often the only audience.   The article goes on to quote KC Culver, assistant director of the University of Miami Writing Center:

‘Discussion boards, blogs and wikis present a huge benefit: They give students a real audience, rather than the outdated `student-to-teacher’ writing,” Culver says. “Students put more effort into their critical thinking and writing because they want to be the post that gets commented on. In composition, we like to talk about reading and writing as an ongoing dialogue. With the Internet, this becomes a reality.”

The ideas about audience really hit home with me.  I recently submitted an article to a practitioner journal.  When the editor returned it to me for revisions, one thing she mentioned was that it sounded too academic for her audience.  And she was right.  I’ve been doing so much writing for my graduate courses that it was tough to change gears for a different type of publication. I do know that my writing style changes as I move from academic writing to this blog to a discussion forum to an email.  Lately, I’ve also been playing a bit with Twitter…just what can you achieve in 140 characters?

Finally, the article goes on to talk about “new” types of writing, specifically those incorporating multimedia, which I see as an essential skill in the digital age.   By learning to create multimedia, we are better able to read and understand it ourselves.  Again, it was a lesson I had to learn.  When I set about to make my first long (12 minutes!) video, I started with words and wrote a multi-page, single spaced script.  But, as I sat down to do the creating and editing, I realized I simply couldn’t get all those words into the movie.  Instead, I had to trim the script to just one page and let the images and video clips I used do the heavy lifting for me.  It was a new way of thinking about writing for this old-school English major.

Through all of this, I worry that the standardized tests are limiting the way teachers approach writing instruction with all the focus on writing the five-paragraph essay.   It’s not a terrible form to master in terms of the concept of building an argument but it is pretty artificial when we consider all the formats available for students.  In addition, the writing process is turned into a simple formula (brainstorm, draft, revise, publish) that does not help students understand its recursive nature and skips over the whole idea of reading and writing as a dialog.  Wouldn’t it be fun to have a writing prompt like the one Hall Davidson gave us at the VSTE conference last year: tell a story in six words.  Now there’s a challenge to your writing skills!

Mark Bauerline, the author of the Chronicle article, is not fan of the digital age.  He is the author of The Dumbest Generation:  How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30).  I haven’t read the book and I’m not sure I will since at this point in my learning I am looking for arguments from the center.  Plus, I think we can get a good sense of what he believes from his article in the Chronicle.

Here’s the crux of his argument in one sentence: “We must recognize that screen scanning is but one kind of reading, a lesser one, and that it conspires against certain intellectual habits requisite to liberal-arts learning.”  Bauerline sees himself and others as the “stewards of literacy” who must protect students from themselves by providing them with rigorous reading experiences.  (Even as I write that sentence, I’m picturing the student in one of Michael Wesch’s videos holding up a sign indicating that students simply don’t do the assigned reading.)

I have not found such a conspiracy in my own life.  Web-based reading has expanded my practice rather than changing it.  I continue to read books, both fiction and nonfiction, while like Richardson, I have transferred almost all my more temporal reading such as news and correspondence to the web.  My “books” have changed a bit since I purchased my Kindle.  But my practice is similar whether I’m reading an online text, a Kindle text, or an old-fashioned book. Particularly in terms of non-fiction, I always have a pencil in my hand.  The Kindle and Diigo come with a digital pencil in the form of their highlighting and annotation tools.   And, for Daniel Schon’s book that I just started reading last night, I’ve got a Ticonderoga along with a pack of sticky notes tucked into the front cover.  I do find a growing preference for digital reading as it is easier to search my highlights and annotations.  But there is something worthwhile in paging through an analog book, reviewing what I underlined or annotated.  In the hunt for a particular quote, I often find other useful comments.

The pragmatist in me is looking for common ground in this conversation.  Bauerlein points to it in his article when he quotes Jakob Neilsen, a Web researcher who has written extensively on web-based reading habits.  Nielsen says,

I continue to believe in the linear, author-driven narrative for educational purposes. I just don’t believe the Web is optimal for delivering this experience. Instead, let’s praise old narrative forms like books and sitting around a flickering campfire — or its modern-day counterpart, the PowerPoint projector. We should accept that the Web is too fast-paced for big-picture learning. No problem; we have other media, and each has its strengths. At the same time, the Web is perfect for narrow, just-in-time learning of information nuggets — so long as the learner already has the conceptual framework in place to make sense of the facts.

There is a place for multiple kinds of reading in multiple kind of formats and our job as educators is to help students practice with all those different types.

I did a presentation on copyright and the Creative Commons that was well-received.  Librarians are often the first line of defense in the copyright wars and they were very excited about the idea of making it easier to use and share materials online.

I also facilitated a panel discussion of filtering.  Internet filters are something educators love to hate and hate some more.  My goal with this session was to find out what different divisions were doing to make filtering as user friendly as possible for their teachers and students.  The panel members represented a wide variety of school divisions in the state and I am so happy they were willing to share their expertise and their stories with our attendees.  John Hendron and Bea Cantor described how Goochland approaches filtering, which includes giving teachers the ability to instantly override a website they need.  Charlie Hinsch from Virginia Beach discussed the challenges of providing filtering to over 70,000 people and emphasized the need for internet safety as part of the program.  Kay Lera from Waynesboro provided a real-world example of the dilemmas as she told us about her ideas for a Voice Thread project and the issues related to giving students access to Web 2.0 tools.  Heather Blanton from Wise County pointed to the need for more than just the filter to combat inappropriate access; strong teacher supervisor is an absolute must.  Thanks to them all!  You can view their presentations and other resources at our wikispaces site.

So, did we “figure out filtering” the way the title suggested?  Probably not.  But we were able to address some of our audience needs and had a lively discussion.  One practice which everyone agreed to was that students needed to have their own logins and passwords as early as possible.  Fourth grade seemed to be the norm.  That builds in accountability for the students and makes it easier to pinpoint problems.

Another  area of agreement was the need for teacher education.  Acceptable use policies and filters are only as good as the people behind them.  Teachers must be vigilant when their students are working on the computers.  In addition, they must provide educationally rigorous activities so students are so busy working, they don’t have time to get in trouble.

Finally, we all seemed to agree that the biggest issue of filtering was that it often took a whitewash approach to blocking sites and sometimes was more about avoiding trouble than keeping kids safe.  Our shared frustration was that we often filter out of fear that one kid will do something wrong rather than thinking of how all kids could benefit from the resources.  John Hendron, in particular, emphasized the need for school to be the place where kids could make mistakes and then learn from them in a safe, secure atmosphere.

But, yesterday, as I headed out to vote and then, later in the evening, as I waited for the election returns, I found I wanted to share with others besides just my husband and the dogs. And, happily, there was my online community.  Over the past year, I’ve made an effort to become a more active participant in that community, and last night, almost for the first time, I could really see that it at work, mostly through Twitter.  During the day, we exchanged voting stories, how long the lines were, how we felt about what we had done.  Many people posted pictures and videos.  Then, as the polls began to close, we gathered to share our anxieties, to celebrate the milestones, and, finally, to take a deep collective breath as we realize what had just happened in our country.

Looking back, I can’t point to a specific moment when I joined the community.  It’s been a gradual process, one that I suspect will continue.  One positive step I’m taking is to do more with this weblog by following along with Teach42’s 30 Days To Being a Better Blogger.  I’ve only gotten through the first challenge, to update my About page.  I was surprised to discover that it was woefully out of date, like from 2006.  My other plan is to do more reading and responding to others both as comments and as blog entries as a way of making connections.

Another step is going to do more with the Ning community I’ve chosen.  I’m a member of VSTEOnline.  This semester, I had my pre-service teachers sign up.  They’ve been doing a great job posting their ideas and questions and interacting both with each other and the other Ning members.  Sad to say, I haven’t done much except monitor their progress.  It’s time to make this community a priority.

It is easy to get distracted by multiple communities, something John Hendron recently wrote about, so I’m going to try to focus my energies.  I’ll still Twitter, of course, since I’m rapidly discovering how much I’ve come to rely on those little updates from my tweets, and just last night welcomed several more friends to my Twitter world.

Thanks to all of you who make up my learning network…some of you know who you are, others have no idea. (But I’ll be sending out a few thank you notes so you may find out soon.)  Together, we are living, learning, and growing together!

But, it also underscores the importance of artists being able to draw on exisiting works.  The genius of Shakespeare was his ability to take existing stories and add both new twists and poetical language to make those stories his own.  If he were alive today, I think he would approve heartily of the notion of a creative commons where people contribute their creative works to the greater good.

Here’s some good news:  all of Shakespeare’s writings are in the public domain and available at Gutenberg so you and your students are free to draw on them for your own work.  When I was still teaching English, I had my students write their own stories and poems based on Shakespearean themes.  Now, I would open that assignment to include audio and video productions as well.

And for your reading pleasure, here’s one of my favorite sonnets, mostly because of its ironic tone:

CXXX

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,–
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

While I will be sending a few analog postcards, I’ll mostly be using online tools to stay connected with home, from posting photos to my flickr account and skyping with my husband and other friends and colleagues.   There may be some twittering, too.

The other 21st century addition to my trip is my Kindle. I have one analog book with me–a biography of Shakespeare–and then I’ve got the Kindle. I spent all of 99 cents for the complete poetical works of Wordsworth. I’ll be visiting Dove Cottage and wandering through Tintern Abbey. I spent just 5 dollars for the complete works of Shakespeare for the Kindle, too. We’ll be spending a day touring Stratford Upon Avon. Normally, books would be a problem for me: which to take along? But with the Kindle I’ve got lots of reading at my fingertips. I’m interested in seeing if the connection works in England.

I’m mostly excited about my Google map:

View Larger Map

I’ll be hoping to add photos and maybe a little video to it as I go along. So, feel free to follow along on the virtual tour.

This semester, I added Voice Thread to my course and I’m glad I did. They are all tied to the Standards of Learning, Virginia’s standards. Most of my students are planning to use them as part of their student teaching experience.

Here’s the list with the links:

Simple and Compound Machines: http://voicethread.com/share/207443/

Weather Instruments: http://voicethread.com/share/207433/

Who Eats What: http://voicethread.com/#q.b207433.i1089152<

Magnets: http://voicethread.com/share/213467/

By the way, here’s the one I created for them. It reviews the different tools we have studied and asks them to think about how they can be integrated into the classroom. Please feel free to add your comments:

I’ll end with a thank you to my Twitter buddies who had excellent ideas for how the students can easily allow their students to comment on their threads. I am reminded of the power of my professional learning network and I hope my students are coming to see its power as well.

Only one ear bud allowed, during independent work only, as a privilege that could easily be revoked if I decided a student wasn’t working diligently enough. I thought it would be a one-time incidence of rule tweaking, but it worked so effectively that it became a Friday ritual that we all looked forward to. I appreciated the tranquil environment and productivity of my students during a time that could easily be lost to early weekend syndrome; my students simply enjoyed listening to their music.

Of course, you can probably  guess the end of the story.  When she went to a veteran teacher for advice about her Friday experiment, she was told that it was against the rules, mostly out of concern about what they might be listening to.  So, she stopped the practice and lost something in her classroom:

The death of iPod Fridays saddens me. I’ve had to return to the old management standbys: cajoling and threatening. I’ve tried other rewards (granola bar, anyone?), but none hold the same allure that just thirty minutes of the freedom to listen to the music of one’s choice did. And ironically, without this music, Fridays haven’t been as quiet since.

It was her comment about the allure of the thirty minutes of freedom that really hit home for me.  This was a simple way to give kids some personal space and allow them to make some choices about how they learn best.  She did not require that they listen to PEDs but allowed them to if they wished.

The comments to the piece are interesting.  They range from supportive to dismissive. One commenter provides links to research related to using music.  Another describes using PEDs successfully in an alternative setting.  Yet another gets at my original qualms, calling PEDs “pacifiers.”  Finally, another makes what I think is an essential comment:  “Unfortunately the administration felt it more important to enforce the ‘no electronic device’ policy rather than encourage success in the classroom.”  While I know that it’s hard to make any definitive statements about education, it seems to me that we are coming to recognize that everyone works and learn differently. So, zero tolerance policies, especially about something that might impact instruction, just don’t make any sense to me.    If I reflect on my own use of media, I know that I enjoy listening to music when I am working but not always.  Sometimes, especially when I am doing academic writing, I like the silence. But when I’m doing flash programming, I prefer watching videos as they seem to entertain some part of my brain that otherwise might distract me.  Being able to choose is important to me and it seems an easy compromise to make with our students as well.

A little freedom and personal space, is that so bad?

*Personal Electronic Devices