As some of my readers may know, I am pursuing ISTE certification, which “recognizes educators who use edtech for learning in meaningful and transformative ways.” As part of the program, I chose to respond to the following prompt:Write an honest reflection about your own habits regarding respect for intellectual property. Here is what I said:
I am, and always have been, a believer in the importance of respecting the intellectual property of others. When I was growing up and wasn’t sure what to do, I asked my father, who would invariably (and somewhat maddeningly) tell me, “Do whatever you think is right.” That has stuck with me.
If I want to borrow a fellow teacher’s stapler, I must ask permission. The same thing applies when I want to use an image that someone else created, and I want my students to know that they must have permission when using something that belongs to or was created by someone else, so I make sure that I always call attention to my citations.
When creating presentations, blog posts, or other shared materials, I always cite the images I include, even when I am not required to because the images are labeled as CC0 or Public Domain. This is because I believe that teachers are role models and we need to show students and other teachers the importance of always respecting intellectual property rights. I wouldn’t want students to think that I took something and didn’t cite it. It is better for them to know that I gave credit even when not required to do so. To help them understand, I created a YouTube video and hyperdoc (geared toward the elementary students with whom I was currently working) to teach them how to find and properly cite Creative Commons images.
I also present regularly on copyright and Creative Commons. I have shared information on copyright-friendly resources for teachers and students at ten conferences, and I have more scheduled in the future. In the presentation that accompanies my talk, I have included citations for all the images (gathered mostly from Unsplash, one of my favorite CC0 image-sharing sites) and provided lists for teachers of sites where they and their students can find copyright-friendly media to use in their work. I also include resources in these presentations for them to learn more.
I think I am doing a good job with respect to how I use the intellectual property of others, and I am proud to say that I am confident that I am also doing well in sharing information with other educators about how to do the same. That being said, I know there is always room for improvement, and I will make every effort to do even better in the future.
Four months have passed since I wrote that reflection, and I still think I am doing a good job, but as times have changed (and that is, of course, putting it mildly), I know I need to do more. I have taken some of my favorite resources from the presentation above and turned them into an infographic to make it even easier for teachers to use. I will be sharing it with my staff this week, as well as on Twitter and in the various Facebook groups where I think it will be useful. I hope you enjoy it!
