Intellectual Property

The first that comes to my mind when I think of intellectual property is the still ongoing discussion about the right to download music and movies for free. File sharing networks as Napster, Limewire and BitTorrent are names that are familiar with these types of free sharing of artistical works. I must admit that I have tried this out myself for several years ago. I did it to check out new music that could be interesting to buy on a CD. It’s very convenient when you have heard a song, but you aren’t sure what the rest of the album is like. Instead of travelling down to the local CD shop, you can check it out for free in your living room. Artists can get more listeners when it’s for free, and that’s an advantage for the artist. Maybe they can get a bigger audience on their concerts, and make money that way instead? Is this a fact? For most of the artists it’s not 



Well, the argument that the artists could make more money on concerts could fit those who download music on sites I’ve mentioned above. For those of you who have problems with walking down to the nearest CD shop, there’s an alternative. You can for example buy the Mp3 version on Itunes or Platekompaniet. Then you will not commit a crime. Yes, it’s a crime. In fact it’s comparable to walking into a shop and put a CD in your wallet, and go out of the store without paying for it. Many have problems with seeing this aspect, because no one is watching them. They think they are anonymous, and if nobody can see them it’s ok. Another issue is that they don’t feel they are taking something physical from someone. They’re just downloading a file from the free Internet. Yes, the idea is that Internet is for free, but it doesn’t mean that everything on the Internet is for free. For those of you who download the music because you think you have the right to do it because Internet is free to use for everyone, there is something called intellectual property. The artists don’t get money for their work when you download music for free. Is this right? I don’t think so. In fact we have a law against this in Norway: åndsverkloven

According to this law, the artist have the legal right to be the only one to reproduce, publish or to sell his or her product for a certain period of time. So with the law in hand, it's pretty clear that you can't share the artist's product without having a permission to do so. But in the end I think it should be your conscience that stops you from taking money out of the hard working artists' pockets. They deserve the money to keep on making the music you love to listen to. If they don't get a wage for their work it might stop them producing music.

I don't think you would have liked that someone rented out your cabin without your permission, when you weren't using it, and took money for it. Have you ever thought about that...?

Privacy and Data Retention

On Facebook you can achieve an enormous amount of friends in a short period. Maybe all of these friends are not very close, but former colleagues and maybe people you have just met once or twice. Perhaps you don’t want all of them to see pictures of you…? It’s easy to upload pictures and to publish them on Facebook. When you have published your pictures or videos, it’s possible for all your friends to watch them, comment them or to tag them.

Here is a video to help you choosing the right privacy settings on Facebook.

If you have published pictures on Facebook, using the “everyone” setting, it’s interesting to know that when you signed up you allowed everyone to use your pictures. This includes people outside Facebook!
In general it’s common decency to ask the person who’s on the picture if it’s ok to publish it, especially if there’s children involved. For your own sake it’s smart to reflect on what kind of pictures you want to upload. It may not be that clever to upload pictures from the time you were a russ. These pictures might haunt you when you start searching for a job. Many employees google people they are having on job interviews (statistics on googling before job interviews). A more severe thing about publishing pictures on Facebook is what I mentioned earlier about pictures of kids. Pictures of kids are published very often on Facebook, and many parents don’t know what kind of consequences these pictures can have. In fact Redd Barna is warning parents about publishing pictures of their children. To avoid that children are being exposed to a bad person taking advantage of them or pictures of them, you can take some precautions (mentioned in the video above). Maybe that’s not enough...?

To prevent such actions we may need help from the state to do something more drastic. There is a discussion going on about data retention in Norway, and in other countries in the western world as well. Yesterday in fact, this law about data retention was adopted by Stortinget in Norway. This new law is called Datalagringsdirektivet. This means that data can be stored for as long as 6 months. In fact Facebook can store user data  for a indefinite time. People who wanted a new law about data retention think it is a necessary consequence in order to prevent or detect a crime. They think we can stop criminals and terrorists before they act. That’s of course a very good argument, but at what cost...?

Opponents against making a new law about data retention are argumenting that we will get a police state with surveillance of the regular guy (mass surveillance). Maybe they are asking adequate questions about how they are going store the data safely enough. When you publish something on the internet it is stored somewhere. Everything you put out there is available on a server that somebody has access to.  It reminds me of the reality show Big Brother and the movieTruman Show where you can’t do anything without being watched. I don’t think many of us would like that. I think we still want our privacy…

As I have pointed out earlier it’s clever to know about your possibilities for how to block information from people that aren’t supposed to see it on your profile on Facebook. You should also be aware of the possible consequences for you, and maybe your children, of not doing anything with your privacy settings. If you have an open profile many people can get access to private stuff you have published. If you already have experienced that your private pictures have been used without your permission, and you have tried to stop them, you can get good advices on this web site. Facebook may have the settings to protect your privacy, but they don’t automatically fix them for you. At the end of the day you have to find the right settings yourself…

Social Media

In connection with the launch of Web 2.0 we got a more interactive use of the Internet than ever before. Many people produce texts, statements, music and movies and publish them on the World Wide Web.

Here's a video that explains Web 2.0 in an informative way

I have an impression that most youngsters are users of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and MSN. In statistics about members of Facebook in Norway, we can see that many of the younger grown-ups are members (25 - 44 years old). Now we can post our opinions in blogs (like mine), videos on Youtube, share files through file sharing networks, write facts on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and many other possibilities. This wasn’t possible before if you weren’t a musician on a contract with a record company, a journalist or working for a publisher.

I think that the use of social media is a more democratic way for people to speak out their mind. Before this era started, in the eighties and early nineties, we had only a few TV stations and radio channels, and there were a few people on the top who decided who would get a chance to speak or perform.

Now you can make a video of yourself and broadcast it on Youtube. On this video sharing site everyone can see your contribution. Some people are smart and choose a song that is very popular at the moment (for example Lady Gagas “Born this Way”), and people will make a search for that song. Then maybe some people will check at your version of the song. If it’s good you will get good comments on your performance and many “thumbs up”. This will maybe make some “important people” aware of you. This happened to a girl in Winnipeg in the US recently. She was invited by Lady Gaga to perform on stage with her. Take a look at the video of the girl when she gets the message from Lady Gaga: 

With the aspect of blogging you have the chance to broadcast your opinions on what you feel for. If you have an engaging blog you will have many followers, and then you have the possibility to influence a lot of people in for example political views. Blogs can maybe help developing democracy in countries with dictators. Maybe that’s already happening in countries in the Arabic world…?

Short video that explains the concept of blogs (weblogs)



The concept of social media is a good thing in the democratic aspect, as I have pointed out earlier. People can participate in discussions and influence the public opinion, and that’s a good thing. A challenge with social media could be that youngsters are not aware about the consequences of publishing private stuff on the internet. Many don't understand when they publish something online, it's public. When it's online maybe people who wasn't supposed to see your post actually can. Another aspect is that it's easier to be a bully when you're not facing a person, and you also have the possibility to be anonymous. Digital bullying is happening on arenas like Facebook and other social medias. So I can see the back side of the use of social media as well, but this is new for us, and I believe that we can fight back the bullying with making good rules for proper use of social media.

Share or not to share, that’s the question, or ...?

”Together we’re stronger” seems to be an expression that’s not used so much by many Norwegian teachers. I’m thinking of all the possibilities we’ve got with the new tecnology in hand. In my school we’ve tried out this since we started with Fronter as a pedagogical platform, but without significant success. Video example from Fronter on their learning platform.

In Fronter we have different rooms. One of these rooms, at my school, is a room with many folders. There is a folder for each subject (such as maths, science etc.). Each subject is further on divided into different grades. The thought of making this room was that every teacher could, during the school year or in the end of the school year, upload lessons, electronical tests (made in Fronter), exercises (made in Fronter or in Word) and other good ideas. This should be a good idea in the way that other teachers could find resources for their teaching, when they were going to teach these subjects. It wouldn’t cost much work to upload an already finished work. At least I thought so...

For different reasons just a few of the teachers do this. What could be the reason? I think it’s because of the teacher’s urge to be perfect. They don’t want to give away something that isn’t perfectly made, especially when they know that other teachers can see who has made it. But my point is that if you have an electronical product to start with, you can easily adjust it so it fits your teaching, or you can develop it further on.

Let’s say you find a Notebook presentation for Smart Board about geometrical figures at http://www.smartskole.no/ or on your school’s learning platform. This presentation was meant for the 4th graders. You are going to introduce geometrical figures and angles, but on a higher level. I generally think it’s clever to have a brainstorming to repeat what the pupils have learned before.

                                               Example of sharing ideas on www.youtube.com 

So, in that manner you could use the the 4th grade presentation as an introduction, and you could develop it further on fit the older pupils levels. As a gesture for the principle of sharing you upload your presentation to for instance Smart Skole, or on your pedagogical platform. Then maybe a 8th grade teacher could use it and develop it further on. This is one of the advantages with the use the new technology. Instead of each teacher holding on to their paper based folder, we all could share, and develop more exciting and better products for our pupils. That's the purpose of sharing!

Is the use of computers in classroom just an old way of teaching, with a modern wrapping?

I have experienced that the use of computers was looked upon as a robot-like way of learning by many of my fellow teachers. The computer gives you a question. The pupil answers. The computer gives the pupil a feed – back, whether it’s right or wrong. Many teachers have in the recent years criticised the use of computers in classrooms. Some teachers that I know argument with that it is not progress, but just another version of the well-known IRE pattern. The IRE pattern (Power Point, page 47 - 48) was known as the typical way of interacting with pupils in Norwegian classrooms. It starts with the teacher asking a pupil about a topic, just to check if the pupil knows the right answer. In this pattern, the pupil’s answer is evaluated by the teacher. Then the teacher replies with a short comment as "Good," or "No, that's not right." Then the interaction ends. Some teachers saw some advantages with the use of this computer learning activity, such as the pupils were getting a feed – back right away, and that they didn’t have to evaluate the pupils’ tasks. In that manner they would get more time to guide the weaker pupils.

This kind of teaching isn’t the only way to use the new technology. After web 2.0 arrived, there has been an explosion of possibilities for people to interact, collaborate, share their views in blogs, share their products on YouTube, discuss online on different chats, make statements in forums or just contribute on an encyclopaedia like Wikipedia. Why not take an advantage of this technology, and use it in our classrooms?

A visual explanation of web 2.0

I think we should. Many schools in Norway have access to a learning platform were pupils and teachers can save their work, and work with it later on when they're at home (there are of course many other possibilities, but that’s not the main issue in this postJ). In my school, in Oslo, the pupils have got a much better access to computers during my period as a teacher (10 years). This was possible with getting money from Oslo kommune from the project InnsIKT. At the school I am working at we had 3 laptops in 2005 and 15 old stationary computers. Now every teacher has their own laptop, we have Smart Boards in every classroom, we have 15 stronger computers for multimedia use, around 150 laptops and in average 5 stationary computers on each base. In average we have 1 computer for every third pupil. So I think we have the tool to make progress.

The pupils can for example make different wikis on their school’s learning platform. Let’s say the pupils have an assignment about the planets in our solar system. The pupils work in groups. First they start a topic in a forum, in their interactive classroom, on their learning platform. Here their group could start getting links to information. Then the next step could be to discuss what they should bring into their wiki. When they have finished and opened their wiki, the other pupils can visit it, read about their planet and maybe add some important information to their wiki. If the group creates a feed back place attached to the wiki, the group hopefully will get many responses, and not just one from the teacher.

Here you can find an introduction for the use of Wiki on the learning platform Moodle

At the same time they have collaborated and broadened their mind through discussions with their fellow pupils, without being told: “that’s correct/that’s not correct”. With this way of using the technology it’s easier to reflect, discuss and to construct their own knowledge on a subject, instead of being afraid of raising your hand in the classroom, and being corrected in front of all the other pupils. I think it’s easier to speak out your opinion, and therefore more democratic. In the classroom the pupil often doesn’t decide when to speak. This is just a simple example to show how easy it can be for a teacher to get the pupils to collaborate with the use of computers, and this is a task that easily could be worked on at home as well as at school.

Clearly I don’t think there is only one way of using computers in teaching and learning. I have given some examples of another ways to use computers than just the robot – way type I mentioned in the start. With web 2.0 I think we can get a more interactive use of computers. I think it would engage the pupils in a more natural way. When the pupils grow up and get a job there will not be a teacher looking over their shoulder, or asking them to raise their hand when asked to. They will not get corrections on everything they produce or say. They will hopefully collaborate with their colleagues, give feed – back to each other, back up and help each other. And that’s point with our teaching. We are preparing them for the life as grown – ups, and in adult life you have to collaborate with your fellow colleagues.