intellectual property – elissahalliday

In today’s class, we learned about the non-profit organization called Creative Commons. This website gives users a large range of creative works that they can build upon legally and share. Creative Commons was founded in 2001 and is used by many different search engines such as Flickr and youtube.

To use Creative Commons you go to the CC Search part of it and type in what you are looking for. For example, if you wanted to search for sunflowers you would write that in the search bar and then choose the search engine you want to use. For my example I choose Flickr. You also have the choice of clicking off if you want it to use it for commercial purposes and/ or if you want to modify, adapt or build upon it (see picture below). Since I was not looking for an image I could use for commercial purposes, or a photo I could modify, adapt, or build upon, I did not click off either of these boxes.

Once you have decided what you are searching for and chose the categories you want, you can search for the image you are looking for. From here you get a large variety of photos from different authors. When you select a photo you can see who the publisher is, the views, when it was taken and the rights. The photo I chose has some rights reserved and with these rights, I can share and adapt the image, but cannot use it for commercial purposes. When you want to save the photo you can choose the size you want (square, small, medium, large, or original size). After I looked at how to properly save the image, I saved it by username@searchengine.copyrightcode. For my image, I saved it as Kristine@Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0.

Flickr by Kristine licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Here is a link to the Creative Commons search – https://search.creativecommons.org/

With an increase in technology use over the past few years, social media has become more and more popular. Sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and Snapchat are all being used for creating and sharing ideas/content and for communication. With the popularity of these websites come many safety and privacy concerns, which many people are unaware of.

In our Technology Innovation class, we had guest speaker Jesse Miller come in to talk to us about the concerns of social media with kids, social media and the workplace, and the best practices for privacy online.

A few current concerns of social media with kids is how it is continuing to get younger and younger, it makes them feel special, and there is increased affirmations. There has been an increase in the presence of primary aged students on social media platforms. Without proper knowledge of privacy and safety online this can be a huge issue for kids. Another concern is how it makes them feel special, this makes them want to keep using it and keep adding friends etc. Lastly, children see a lot of the positives of social media such as there favorite Youtube stars making tons of money from creating these videos and they think “I can do that too”, which has its pros and cons but it could lead to a decrease in their academic involvement.

Social media use is also related to the workplace. Social media can be used to search up future employers. This is why your privacy and what you post on social media is a big issue. It is important to balance your personal life with your professional expectations. Especially being a teacher, many students will be searching you up so you want to be cautious of what they will find.

One major focus of social media privacy is digital rights. Before posting pictures, videos, etc. you need the consent of anyone who is featured in that photo. As a teacher, it is important to note that if you are taking a picture of your class you need three levels of consent: the students, the parents, and the school. If a student does not want to be featured in the photo you can use image editing to, for example, put an emoji over their face to keep their privacy respected. To keep your own privacy you should be making sure to read the privacy statements of the platforms you are reading so you know what you are signing into and be aware of how you can make your account more private. You need to have an understanding of what the consequences of using these platforms are.

One topic that Jesse talked a bit about was gaming and the world around that. I did not know a lot about gaming as I am not a gamer myself so this was very informative for me. We learned about a streaming service called Twitch where there are live videos of people playing video games that others can join into and watch. I also learned that there are tons of gaming tournaments that go on around the world where the winner can make up to millions of dollars. This is relevant for me as a teacher candidate as elementary children love video games and gaming is very prevalent in their lives.

Overall social media has a very large presence in many peoples lives and needs to be used with caution and understanding. We should be open about these platforms and have open dialogues with employees, co-workers, friends, and family.