Intellectual Property

What is Intellectual Property?

     WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) define the term like this:
      Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works,
      and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.

The film below gives a explanation to the term

As a teacher we can't use whatever we like when making activities for our students which we publish on the internet or in the LMS, even though it's closed for others. Pictures, videos, songs - everything we would like to use in our teaching has a copyright.

Copyright means that all rights are reserved to the person who invented the song, painted the picture or took it with his/her camera etc.
As a teacher there are webpages which contains sounds, songs and pictures we can use. http://www.pdclipart.org/ is a page like this with a lot of cliparts. http://www.multimedia.skolverket.se/ is a swedish page that we often use for music and sounds.

A big part of the students way to learn today is by the internet. We often work with the topics like how to behave on the internet, what to post and what not to. Another imporatant topic is to understand that texts and pictures on the internett belongs to someone. Eveen though you as a young student can borrow a picturein you presentation for the class, they need to know about the rules of property.

Can we trust The Data Inspectorate to protect us in The WWW?

"The Data Inspectorate
shall facilitate protection of individuals
from violation of their right to privacy
through processing of their personal data"http://www.datatilsynet.no/

 

I Norway we have The Data Inspectorate which is kind of supervision to help protect individuals. But can they protect us all the way on the "big" world wide web?

I guess not. We all need to be a bit careful about the information we give about ourselves and others. The Data Inspectorate gives us advices and information about how to behave about privacy. As a teacher and a mother I have to teach my kids and students to be as careful as necessary participating on the web. We have to remember that information on the web is accessable to so many people. It's hard to get.

A video on you tube can be seen by so many, and it's hard and maybe impossible to get rid of. That is something to think about when you may publish a video when you're noe beeing "you self". 

 

As a teacher in Norway there are programs to use when you're teaching about this topic. "Du bestemmer.no" (means you decide) is such a program.

"You decide" is a cooperation between the Norwegian Board of Technology, the Norwegian Data Inspectorate and the Centre for ICT in education. The aim of the project is to increase young people's knowledge of privacy and to raise their consciousness about the choices they make when they use digital media such as the Internet and mobile phones.

http://www.dubestemmer.no/en/About_You_Decide/

"You decide" is a free program for teachers and pupils. You can order small books, films and  information to use in the class. The pupils get to see what really could happen if their not careful or not aware of their responsibility. It's not just about the internet, but all digitals mediums.

This video is from a meeting between the teacher, the student and the parents. It's just a little reminder for the students to remember everybody can read and see what they post on the internet and other places.

I think a very important part of teaching kids in digital mediums is to teach them about privacy and possible consequences of their acts.

Using blog for the purpose of professional communication

A blog is a easy way of communication. It's pretty simple to create a blog, it's free and then it makes a possiblilty for everybody to expose them self or their message to everybody who wants to read.

If you want to exchange opinions, experiences etc. with people all around you need a fora to plce your statements. You can make a homepage, use a LMS or as I will write this topic about; use a blog.

http://animasjoniskolen.blogspot.com/ is a blog made by a teacher with a special interest of makinge animations. She has developed a great blog within the topic, and there is a lot of information and also you can learn a lot by reading and following her blog. I will range her blog as a educating one.
Blogs like Trines matblogg http://trinesmatblogg.no/ is another blog about one special topic; food and recipes. Her you can also learn a lot about making food, and get inspiration.
There is blogs with all kind og themes, most of them maybe not very educational in a professional way.

But if you want to share your professional experiences there is absolutly a possibilty. As a teacher you could blog about you activities in the classroom and share them with others reading your blog. Some blogs also contains links to You Tube or other sites where you can get informartion and activities to use in your own classroom. Or a closer explanation if you find it necessary.

This video above is a good explanation of how to use the program Jam Studio. It's made by a teacher called Per (who also has a very good blog http://percoach.wordpress.com/ ), and he has used this program with his students and tells about his experiences.

I can read Per`s blog, and if I like, use his activities or get inspired by them. If I, and everybody else who read and use something in the same topic, comments and give back their experiences it will be a pretty good "bank" with tips etc. to develop your teaching.

This is just an example of all the opportunities blogs can give.
If you sell cars, I think, if you write a blog about your workdays, that blog will be interesting, inspiring and give other car salesmen many tips in their profession.

If I were going to make a conclution in this post it would be that blogging about professions can be really helpful for others with the same profession or interests. Keep blogging:)

Multimedia, a great help for kids with learning disabilities.

This headline is my experience as a teacher. I've been working as a teacher for eight years, and I think the developing due to ICT has been huge these years. My first year as a teacher we were a whole team of colleagues (7-8 teachers) using one computer. Now, almost 8 years later, every teacher has her/his own computer. And almost all of us use it all the time.

When I'm reflecting about using the computer when we teach, I think kids with learning disabilities is having a better day at school. I'll state the reason for this statement with my own experiences and meanings.

Kids can have different kinds of learning dissabilities, so I can't put them all in a box. But if I think of kids who attend to be kind of hyper, kids who are slow readers and young kids who are not as mature as the other their age, my experience is that using multimedia when I'm teaching makes it easier for them to get the information.
It could be a powerpointpresentation, a notebook-file at the smartboard or other multimediatools. The combination of text, in small portions, pictures, films and sounds help the kids learn the topics with all their senses. If you compare this with the kids reading their books, anwsering some questions in an other book (like it used to be) - everybody sees the difference. And it is pretty obviously that kids having trouble sitting still reading, will gain in the mulitimedia learning world.

I use multimedia often when I'm introducing a new topic to the kids. Mostly we talk about my kind of presentation. All the pupils are attending. Because of pictures, sounds, and the text coming in little by little they're usually following closely. They don't want to miss out on anything.
The presentation we can look at later while we're working with the topic, if there is any questions or discussions. We might find the answer there. And sometimes we use it in the end, finishing up, using it to enumurate. I can also make multimediapresentations as a quiz at the end, using some of the same pictures etc. to see what the kids have learn.
And regardless to the topic, if there has been pictures, animations, films etc. in the introduction they all remember that spesial thing.
So my experience is that to include all the kids (pupils in the class) without having to make plans with different levels, a good multimediapresentation will do.



As I'm writing this a big question appear. What about all the kids who are having teachers who are not using multimedia in their work? Of course you can't use it all the time, but I know some teachers who might write and making schedules on their computers, but that's all. Well, that question could be answered in an other blogpost.

When to start?

What do kids learn from social networking? Jørn asks this question in his blog. http://jbeict.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-do-kids-learn-from-social.html?showComment=1329725389085#c543362177522472935

I would like to answer this question using my experiences, pros and cons.

I think for many people, teachers and parents included, social networks these days are associated with facebook, msn messenger and twitter. Jørn's "conclusion" is to start in an early age. With facebook? No, I don't think so. With closed forums in the classroom, like moodle? Yes, I think it is a good idea.

Sometimes I get friend requests at facebook from my pupils. Some times as young as 2nd graders. As a principle I never accept request from students who attends at the school where I'm working. When they start at junior high, I don't teach them anymore and then I think it's ok. I'm not the one updating my status often, but I think it's required to split profession and privacy.
Well, the point is. What are these young kids doing at facebook? If their friends at theese social networks are they teachers...? As a teacher I would never thought of sending messages related to school by facebook, twitter or msn messenger. And I'm not interessted in telling these kids about my dinnerplans etc. Of course I can tell them about my skiing trip in the weekend, but then I'll do it at school on Monday! I don't need to tweet them that.
In the same way I don't think young kids need to share thoughts and experiences by using sosial networks. I think they should put some clothes on, walk out the door and go tell their friends.

By the other side, when to start?
When I'm doing my pros I like to use some of Jørns points. At his school he says, they start in an early age to use a learning management system. And that I think its a great idea! We do the same at my school. They learn to log in the first week at school and then they have started. Of course they don't write blogposts the first year, but they are in the system. Using the links, listening to topics, watching movies. And it'is all organized by the teachers. There is a controll by the pupils' use of the network!
I don't think parents are sitting beside the children all the time they are using the computer at home. The don't have the controll at all time.
But at school we should have. LMS's are great tools introducing the pupils to social networking. Most LMS's have all opportunities for making blog posts, forums, discussions etc. By learning to use the safe versions, and by us theachers and adults givning the pupils good guidance in safe internetuse we have started on a long, but important "road" for the kids.

Use the LMS for safe social networking:)

My first blog post ever

My very very first blog post.

I've read some blogs, but never tought about starting my own. But here it is - all thanks to the studies:)