Respecting Creative Work: Professional Development

Instructional Plan: Professional Development for Teachers and Paraprofessionals

OBJECTIVES: Teachers and classroom professionals will learn the basics of copyright and Fair Use guidelines; they will engage in an activity that will pre-test their knowledge regarding copyright and fair use; they will receive instruction regarding copyright and fair use; they will receive instructional materials that can be posted in classrooms and handed out to students.

CONTENT TO BE TAUGHT:

• Begin with the Fair Use: Beg, Borrow or Steal? online quiz.
• Discuss questions with participants; discussion should center on what was perceived as the correct answers as opposed to the true correct answers;
• Facilitate discussion regarding student projects that demand media usage:
• What do students need for media projects?
• What can student create on their own for media projects?
• When do students break copyright laws or fair use guidelines?
• How do we help students avoid breaking copyright and fair use guidelines?
• What repercussions can students expect if they break copyright and fair use guidelines?
• Explore online resources:
• Creative Commons
• Flickr
• The Copyright Alliance
• Common Sense Media
• Power to Learn
• Explore lesson plans from Common Sense Media:
• Unit: Respecting Creative Work:
• “Rights, Remixes and Respect”
• “Copyrights and Wrongs”
• Unit: Research and Evaluation:
• “Retouching Reality”
• “Collective Intelligence”
• Collaborate and share existing lessons and activities from classroom instruction.
• Review materials and content available for use in the classroom

SCHEDULE

• Ideally, this would be best suited for a 4 hour professional development session early in the year; four-hour sessions are scheduled over the course of a year during term breaks and pre-service session before the school year. This topic would be best presented before the school year, but could be presented at any opportune time
• Our district devotes every other Wednesday afternoon for professional development; currently, 90 minutes is reserved for district-wide PLC gropus that align with specific courses, and 90 minutes is reserved for building specific issues. This topic could be divided up into three 90 minute sections and presented to colleagues at both the building and the district level.

VISIBLE OUTCOMES

• Teachers and paraprofessionals will have access to documents for use in their classrooms
• Teachers and paraprofessionals will have a record of their knowledge regarding copyright and fair use based on the results of the online quiz and face-to-face discussions
• Teachers and paraprofessionals will have a collection of online resources at their disposal for teaching ethical use of intellectual property in media projects and activities