K-12 Online Conference Review #2

This presentation was called “Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age”.  I picked this presentation because I have been hearing a lot about how copyright is tricky in this day and age.

At the beginning of this presentation the speaker goes on about how teachers have always copied material without asking permission, such as a comic in the beginning of class, or making photocopies of a text book without permission.  The reason it was kind of ok was because it was happening just within the classroom and no one was finding out about it.  Now with the internet and classroom blogs it is becoming a problem.  This problem is that teachers and students are using material off of the internet without asking permission from the creator.

In order to solve this problem, there are now creative common sites that allow you to use material under certain conditions, such that you must link the creator back to their work.  There are also completely copyright-friendly websites.

I have learned a great amount from this presentation.  I now know how important it is to always link back to someones work.  I believe that creative common websites are an amazing tool that will help anyone out that is scared of copyright regulations.

I found this picture interesting, because it is a collage completely made out of creative commons images.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/30/100230924_6be71ea5df.jpg?v=0

Uploaded on February 15, 2006
by musha68000

K-12 Online Review 1

The first presentation I watched was K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds – Panel. It was presented through voice thread.

The reason I chose to watch this presentation was because I have been hearing a lot about teen second life  in education lately.

This presentation went into a lot of detail of all the places you can explore and all the things you can experience in second life.  It also went into a lot of detail about teen second life and how there are many activities you can do with students within the second life world.  Some ways they showed in this presentation was creating an island for the students and having them recreate a scene and act as characters, to have a conference, to build something from history etc.  There is an unlimited amount of ways you can use second life towards education.

I found this presentation very interesting and easy to follow, but very long.  It has made me think about how easily you can use this technology in any way, for any subject within the classroom.  One thing that is awesome about second life is that a teenager can create someone and be whoever they want to be.  Identity is very important at this age, and gives teenagers the chance to try out different identities and be who they want to be.

From watching this presentation I beleive I may create an avatar in the near future.