Changing Copyrights

This week our assignment was to do a little research on changing the nature of copyrights. What we were to do was to find three scholarly articles (peer-reviewed) on the subject, summarize, and cite. Ironically, because it seems that the vast majority of any relevant articles are copywritten, I was only able to access one in full text. Here is the article I've found:

Pandora's Digital Jukebox
Bebawi, Antony & Owen, Mark. (1999). Pandora's Digital Jukebox. Managing Intellectual Property Issue 88, 51. 6p. Retrieved 29 September 2007 from http://wave.lccc.edu/validate/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=2385318&site=ehost-live

This one was all about the changing music industry, and how much of the music released - not just today, but ever, in the history of recorded music - is all finding it's way online. The article is from 1999, so the concepts were still pretty new at the time, but I think it's still relavant. The recording industry is still trying to figure out, exactly, how the "digital millenium" is going to play into their business (and their profit margin), but this article does a good job of pointing out some of the very real, and some potential problems, as well as some potential solutions.

Tagging

Tagging can be an extremely useful tool for anyone looking to do research on the internet. Websites such as del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) allow users to keep track of articles and websites that pique their interest, as well as "click through" other people's tags, which has the benefit of seeing what articles and information come up under the same term, as well as what other terms can be used to find related information.

Tagging is also commonly used on websites that are based on user created media, such as YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) or Flickr (http://www.flickr.com), and even on some social networking sites, like Live Journal (http://www.livejournal.com). Granted, on these social sites, tagging isn't used in any sort of research capacity, or even finding related information. On sites such as youtube and flickr, however, tags are used to allow you to find related content, such as videos dealing with similar subject matter, and similar photographs.

Using tags for research is the most practical, and useful application. Other terms can come to light just from looking at the tags placed on an article, which gives the person doing the research an idea of other terms which might be even better for finding the desired information. It also makes the person doing the tagging think about what information it is they are putting out there, exactly, and which ways this information can be used.

My childhood is littered with memories about being down on the docks of Cape Canaveral, Florida. My father is a sea captain, and being in such close proximity to the Kennedy Space Center, I watched Shuttle launches from the sea and from the land. There were a couple of occasions when, simply standing in the house, a rumble would fill the air and the floor would start to shake as a shuttle launch we had forgotten about would take place, and the whole family was delighted and surprised to witness such an event.
I was four on January 28th, 1986, and I was watching from outside as the Challenger took off. It was exciting; I was starting school the following fall, and therefore, I looked up to teachers with fascinated admiration. That Christa McAuliffe was to be the first teacher in space was just incredible to me. At four, space shuttles were part of my life, and it seemed impossible that this woman would be the first teacher to go there. I figured everyone, eventually, would get a turn to ride in that great big shuttle. We hadn't forgotten that day, and we stood outside in the January air (which, for Florida, was very cold; compared to the weather the rest of the country was having, I'm sure it was pleasant) and we watched the shuttle take off through the air, only to become bits of fiery glitter and smoke falling back towards the ocean. I didnt realize at first what exactly had happened. I knew this wasn't normal, but it was still a beautiful sight. I didn't understand at the time that the "pretty smoke show" was not only abnormal, but also tragic.
Twenty one years later, I understand more of what happened. Not only that that pretty glow was an explosion which killed seven people, but also why it even happened, at least partly.
An enormous part of what caused that disaster was a lack of communication, and that lack of communication was bi-directional. People heard what they wanted to hear, and just as dangerously, chose their words in such a way that the danger of what could possibly take place was grossly underestimated.
It all boiled down to an O-ring, and the fact that this O-ring was not considered safe to use in temperatures as low as they were in Central Florida that morning. No one wanted to be the one to speak up and say "Hey. This is a Very Bad Idea." - it's somewhat understandable that no one wanted to be that one jerk out there. There was a lot of money invested in this project, and a lot of publicity. So people took chances, and lives ended terribly because of those chances. The really horrible part about all of that is the fact that no one knows exactly how terribly those lives ended. No one really knows exactly how the seven astronauts aboard died that day - there is only speculation. Was it instantanous, as we'd all like to think, and pray that it was? Or was it a long, slow tumble back towards Earth, as asphyxiation set in and gave those seven time to realize that they were going to die? We probably won't ever know the answer to that. Personally, I'm not sure I want to know the answer.
May you seven rest in peace.

When I was initially about to write this post, and I was sitting down thinking about what I’d write, what my feelings on technology and education actually were, I found myself focusing mostly on the positives, and finding very few negatives. Granted, I was thinking mostly of my own experience with using technology for learning, and some of the tools available have been indispensable to me personally. In the early months of 2006, I became very, very sick, and there were no explanations from doctors as to what was going on. Some of the symptoms I was having were greatly reduced eyesight, and very limited dexterity in my hands. The use of magnifying devices, text-to-speech programs and the ilk were incredibly useful to me, as I was in school and could no longer rely on my own eyes and hands to read and write. The internet in and of itself helped me to learn what tools were available to me. However, I then had a conversation with a friend that not only helped me to see what was likely the intended target of all this talk of technology’s beneficial uses in education, but also some of the potential drawbacks.

Multimedia applications such as pictures, videos, and sound clips, networking websites, live chat programs, and Wikis are but a few of the useful (albeit potentially harmful) tools that technology has brought us, tools which give us immediate access to any type of knowledge we happen to be seeking at that moment. To “Wiki” something has become a verb in the same manner to “Google” something has, only instead of getting a static webpage, when you look something up on a wiki you get a dynamic and interactive website in which anyone and everyone can throw in their two cents. While this often lends itself to multiple sources assuring that the information is correct, one also can look up the same article two days in a row and find completely different information. Because literally anyone can log in and edit the article, this means that you could be getting information from a professor at Harvard, the CIA, or some guy named Carl in Indiana.

Another problem with this immediate accessibility to information is the problem with retention. From speaking with friends and family on the matter, I think that this is more pronounced in those of us that grew up with the internet, knowing that the information we seek is just a couple of clicks away, therefore it is easy to remember something for just as long as you need it to take the course, win the bet, or impress the man or woman of choice. As soon as the information is no longer needed, it seems like our brains tend to discard the information to make way for something new, which will be just as quickly discarded. Personally, I remember things that I had to go to the library and look up in physical books from middle school, but something I may have spent just as long researching last week on the internet is already gone from memory, because it has outlived its use.

Technology can’t be, and isn’t, all bad when used for education, though. Besides using technology to help those with disabilities, technology can also provide something more tangible to help students interact with the material. Students can also interact with each other, providing them with different perspectives on the same material that the individual has learned. Barriers that may have been encountered in a classroom setting – such as shyness, judgment of others based on appearance or other factors, or even just poor social skills – are often overcome in this virtual world, because relative anonymity provides the student with a feeling of safety. Of course, this type of interaction has its drawbacks: Because there is no way to determine another person’s body language or inflection in a virtual world, there is the potential for a lot of miscommunication. The anonymity which can be liberating can also lead to people deliberately providing misinformation or just being jerks simply because they can, without fear of any tangible repercussions.