communities

Central to PYP (IBO Primary Years Program) curriculum is the teaching of units. My class is about to start a unit on communities. It is such a big topic and I am struggling to narrow it down in terms of priorities and relevance to my class of 8 -10 year olds. Below are the questions that will guide our inquiry:

1. What is a community?
2. What contributes to a well functioning community?
3. How are communities the same/different?
4. How are needs and wants different from place to place?
5. How are decisions made in a community/What are people's rights and responsibilities?
6. Why have some communities changed over time?

Feel free to comment here on some of these questions or your own thoughts on communities.

For my part a community is a group where each member contributes to the successful functioning of the needs of it's members. We are all in multiple groups established for various reasons. A communities depends on relevance to the needs of it's members and on the members themselves performing a specific role. I wonder how far you can stretch this idea, ie do whales have a community? What about plants? etc where do you draw the line?

I want the class to focus on the communities they are a part of and their rights and responsibilites in helping the functioning of their communities. Also I want them to have a greater appreciation of all members of a community no matter their position or perceived status in society of their job.

Interestingly with my uni course readings and activities is it becoming apparent that online communities play an important part not just in education but across all areas of life. An example of this is wikis, where members can edit a web space collaboratively. Our reading Lamb, B 2004, Wide Open Spaces takes the analogy from real life of a community that safe guards against vandalism to explain how a wiki experiences less attacks than initally expected of an editable space open to the public. He emphasises the power of a community through the example of wikipedia, "It has such a huge and active contributor community..." (Lamb, 2004, para 24)

So any real or virtual ideas out there to help me?

I found the following on youtube from the Herald School Kindergarten class (Apple 4). It's cute and a simple definition of a community.

copyright

I find this a really tough issue. Being a primary teacher I have mostly tended to see that all my copious photocopying, cutting and pasting of internet images etc have had a educational purpose and thus not infringed copyright laws. Thus I went happily along, until I was forced to face the fact that maybe I was wrong during a moodle course I completed recently.

Researching various links, including the wikipedia article, helped me to be a) very confused and b) find out some very useful stuff.

First the confusing stuff. "In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office." wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright)so in countries that haven't signed this treaty what are the rules? How could this be enforced? in most places it is simply 50 years past an author's death, but in Europe it is 70. There are other exceptions as well but the BIG one is "fair use", how on earth can this be defined?



Now the good stuff. Creative commons is a site where you can copyright your work in detail. This means you can specify exactly what bit can be copied by whom and how often, rather than just a blanket "copyright protected". But it's best feature is the search engine. You can search for stuff that you can use without feeling guilty (or more importantly without breaking the law).

My readings for my university course also lead me to some fascinating examples of the complexity involved in the internet and copyright. Cooper v Universal Music Pty Ltd was a landmark case as "...a Brisbane webmaster, his Internet Service Provider (ISP), a director of the ISP, and a technical support employee of the ISP were liable for ‘authorising’ the infringing activities of users of a website which acted as an index and search engine for MP3 files located elsewhere on the Internet." , (Electronic Frontiers Australia

Media Release - Hyperlinking appeal causes concern)

So watch out with your links, you could be in breach of copyright if the original person to upload something also breached copyright.

So what are the implications in the classroom? What about the kids work? What do I teach them about this? and LASTLY what about all the stuff I link to and embed on my own blog...AAARRGH

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University created this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms.



This video is also an interesting spin on the issue

discussion triggers

I am a bit of a fan of michael Wesch's technology videos. Watch and comment on what you think about the use of technology in classrooms today.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.

My name is Stuart and I am studying a Master of Education at USQ. My current course is Computer Based Resources in Education. For the course I need to keep a blog. Previously I have only really used blogs to find answers to specific questions or tap into some opinions on a particular issue or sports event. Since the beginning of this course I have come across more examples that inspire me personally and professionally. My old uni friend keeps up an entertaining blog called Canza Granfadda Do Dis? which will influence the personal aspect of my blog and Class 2i Reads and Writes, which is a blog written by a Grade 2 class teacher, in which she journals the experiences and her students' comments. This latter blog is a great example of what blogs can do for younger students.
I will journal my ideas and enrich my thoughts with appropriate multimedia and links. Please comment and let me know what you think.

Stuart