Mini Maker Faire for Ed?

Like many of you, I just got back from ISTE. It was a good conference, and I had tons of great conversations with lots of folks. But like many formal learning experiences, it left me wondering, “Couldn’t we make better use of this time and money to drive more authentic learning experiences?”

Prior to ISTE, I’ve been thinking a lot about authentic, passion-driven learning and Bud Hunt’s brilliant new Center for Make/Hack/Play.

And in the last year, I’ve gotten involved in a lot of maker activities on a personal level.

Last night this all came together in a dream. It was of a make/hack/play space at ISTE.

So what would a mini maker faire for educators looks like? Does it even make sense to separate this out as an “ed” maker faire?

Now a group of us are brainstorming this idea here. Join us.

WA is hiring an OER Program Mgr for K-12

Washington state’s Office of Public Instruction is hiring an OER program manager for their new OER initiative.

According to their office:

This is a new position created to support implementation of Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill (E2SHB) 2337 passed and funded by the state Legislature during the 2012 Legislative session. E2SHB 2337 provides resources to OSPI related to developing a library of high-quality, openly licensed K-12 educational courseware that is aligned with the newly adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English language arts and mathematics.

The position will provide leadership and vision for OSPI’s OER project, communicate to school districts and other stakeholders, and lead in developing a library of openly licensed courseware aligned with the CCSS. The position is funded initially from July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013. Continuation beyond June 30, 2013 will be based on continued legislative and/or private funding for the work.

More information is available here.

The murkiness of fair use

I know that there is a wide divergence of opinions on what constitutes fair use.

I understand that many would like to stretch what is included in fair use or even do away with copyright altogether. I’m not unfriendly to those viewpoints, but I don’t think that in my sometimes role of providing information about copyright (and of course, open content) that that is the right viewpoint for me to espouse. We can all read the text of the law. Saying it should say something else is fine. Saying it does say something else seems unhelpful.

Perhaps because I am a rules-oriented type of girl, I tend to have a fairly literal interpretation. I stand by my assertion that most folks interpretation of fair use is much broader than what the law itself says. Some (well, at least one) have accused me of misinformation. While I don’t agree with that characterization, I am keenly interested in being accurate.

So, as I write a new piece on open content, I’d like some feedback to make sure I am being fair and accurate on this issue. I look forward to a spirited discussion. :)

[excerpt – DRAFT for comment]
There’s an endless supply of free content on the Internet. How is open different from everything else that is free? In the United States, any content that is not public domain (by virtue of its age or designation as such by the creator) is copyrighted, whether or not it is indicated as such. Generally, in order to reuse or redistribute copyrighted content, you must obtain the creator’s permission.*

…

* The exception to this is the murky area of fair use. While the purpose and character of use (e.g. nonprofit, educational) is one consideration, the law also considers the nature of the work (e.g. parody), the amount and substantiality of the use, and the effect of the use on the potential market use. Various organizations have translated this ambiguous language into defined ranges of acceptable use, but the law itself is gray. As derivative works are often being shared on the Internet (and leaving the classroom walls), fair use becomes less clear.
The point of this discussion is not to promote any particular interpretation of fair use, but to discuss alternatives to it, namely, open content.

“What if it’s not really open?

I talk to folks a lot about open licensing and Creative Commons. Most folks have no familiarity with these topics, but I’m happy to say that the awareness level is rising. One question I’ve gotten several times lately is “What if you use something that is marked with an open license but it really isn’t?” (e.g. an uploader has posted something that they don’t own and that is actually all rights reserved).

Interesting question.

Like most questions related to digital content, there is an non-digital analogue. :) We know how to recognize pirated movies or books through physical signs — they often don’t look like their authentic sources. This can be true for digital piracies as well. Here are some tips to help you make sure the content you think is open really is:

  • Get your open content from reliable sources. Sites like Wikipedia closely monitor content that is posted under an open license to make sure it is truly open.
  • If something looks like it probably isn’t open licensed, don’t use it. (If, for example, you find a purportedly open licensed video from a commercial movie like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” it probably isn’t really open.)
  • If the creator and the uploader are obviously two different people, be skeptical.
  • When it doubt, double-check and ask.

Mostly this comes down to having good judgement, a 21st century skill if there ever was one (timeless even, one hopes).

And I suppose for the still concerned, no one is going to find too much fault with you if you resuse a resource that was posted as open but in fact wasn’t.

Making ebooks – quick and easy

** UDPATE** New handout on creating ebooks with Calibre

In my 4T Virtual conference session today, there was a lot of interest in how to make ebooks with open content, so I’m writing this short post with more details. (We’ll also be doing this at ISTE 2012 this year, so stay tuned for more resources and handouts on this.)

Here are steps for one, very easy way to do this:

  1. Create your ebook content in Word (or LibreOffice…or even in Google Docs, exporting to a Word doc afterward), including images, etc.
    Make sure your images are your own or open licensed for sharing, and cite your sources!
  2. Export the document to HTML (filtered) by doing Save As… with a Save As Type of “Web Page, Filtered.”
  3. Download and install Calibre, a free, open source ebook tool.
  4. Open Calibre, click Add Books, and add your HTML document.calibre
  5. Your book will then appear in the list in the main part of the screen. Highlight it and click Edit metadata to add a title, author, cover, etc.
  6. You can continue going through the wizard, or close it and select Convert books to select your format.
    EPUB and MOBI (Kindle) are two of the most popular formats.
  7. Your final ebooks will be in a folder called Calibre Library in your documents folder. You can also click Path: Click to open to navigate directly to that folder.

In the interest of getting this post up quickly, this is brief. If you have questions or need clarifications, post here or drop me an email. Hope this is useful.

And thanks again Liz Kolb and her team for putting together this great online learning opportunity!