Copyright and Digital Citizenship

Digital Citizenship. What does this really mean? What is important for teachers and students today is to understand copyright rules. We all have been there. We find something that it is great for our class or speech or lecture...and we are ready to use it! Hey, it is in the Internet, so it is available, right? How come we can't use that video, podcast, music or a map that will enhance my lecture for our students? Here is the issue. There are copyright laws, and you should a) acknowledge where this information come from and b) pay a fee to use (if that is required). HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS LAWFUL OR NOT? You can use this chart that quickly will guide you in some important points that you should know before using something: http: //www.halldavidson.net/copyright_chart.pdf A few days ago, I was an honorable speaker in the Latin American International Trade Forum. They asked me to talk about the state of competitiveness on Latin America. To prepared for it, I used a) Competitiveness Report 2) Current News 3) Some videos. I watched the videos to get ideas for the style, but I did not use it in my presentation...but I did get ideas from it, Should I acknowledge it? I worked on the presentation until 2 AM to have the perfect lecture. I analyzed several Latin American countries and used it to discuss competitiveness.

I knew that tv reporters and several experts will be there, therefore I was careful that all my comments or analysis are based on serious research. I gave the presentation, and it was phenomenal. At the end, several people asked me for the PowerPoint presentation. I said, sure, I will email you the last version (I wanted to make sure I had all slides properly cited). I did not think that I needed to put citations in each graphic but I put only one at the beginning of it to refer all. One person took part of presentation and posted it in a website, but they cut out all information about other countries, they wanted a specific country (don't blame her/him). However, when they reduced the presentation, they deleted the slide that have citations..YIKES!!! DOUBLE YIKES...!!! I can have a copyright issue here!!! I asked them to take the presentation down from the Internet, and I promised them to send then a new file with only their country - with the appropriate citations. No damage was done. What do you think? Have you been in a sitation like this?