Lit teachers, don't despair

On yesterday morning's windy walk, I caught our neighborhood red-tailed hawk on her raptorial patrol. The first few lines of Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem "The Windover" came to mind when I saw this creature...

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding 
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding 
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing 
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding 
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding 
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! 

I was introduced to this poem in either high school or college and don't remember being particularly impressed by it. But yesterday, more than forty years later, the sound and images came back. Imperfectly. Probably misinterpreted. But strongly, adding depth to my walk and my life.

English teachers, librarians, poets - don't give up. It just takes some of us a little longer to get it.

Image source 

BFTP: Fair Use Scenarios

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past.  Original post November 15, 2008. In the past week or so, I've had two questions related to Fair Use of copyrighted materials - and I find myself as confused and coflicted as ever....

The principles and limitations [of Fair Use] are designed to guide your reasoning and to help you guide the reasoning of others. "The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use" Center for Media & Social Impact

It's long been my contention that you can't "teach" values. The best someone can do is create situations that help people define or refine their own values derived from information, conversation and reflection.

To this end, I've always used "scenarios" anytime I work with others on questions of ethics (and online safety). Scenarios form the heart of my book Learning Right from Wrong in the Digital Age.

The quote above from the professors at the Temple University Media Education Lab strikes me as great reason that some new scenarios need to be written that deal with fair use and copyright. Can such scenarios help librarians, teachers, and students reach "a level of comfort" using copyrighted materials within educational fair use guidelines?

Here's what one* might look like:

The PTO at Johnson Middle School is creating a "video yearbook" for students and families that document the school year. One parent wants to add a few news clips from network television and excerpts from popular songs and movies of the year along with the original video of school activities and events. "We want our children to remember not just what happened in school this year, but what happened in society," she opines. The PTO will sell the videos for just enough to cover the cost of production and fund a class field trip.

1. What is the copyrighted material? Who owns it?

2. Does the use of the work fall under fair use guidelines? Is the use transformational in nature? Can this be considered "educational" use?

3. What is your level of comfort in helping create such a product? Are there any changes or limits you might like to see that would make you more comfortable with this project?

What do you think? Would this be a valuable resource? How might the idea be improved? Any particularly knotty situations on fair use that scenarios should be written?

* Links to additional scenarios created

• Fair use scenario - Miguel and the DVD
• Fair Use Scenarios - Ms Nickie and the movie
• Fair use scenario - Tony's podcasts
• Fair Use Scenario: Broadcasting Obama
• Fair use scenario - Kathy and the IWB
• Fair use scenario - Mr. Opus and the digital cameras
• Fair use scenario - Ms DaVinci and the wiki
• Fair Use Scenario: Gloria's audio recordings
• Fair use scenario: Doug's digitizing strategy
• Fair Use Scenarios - Tunes and YouTube
• Fair use scenario - Mr. Jones and YouTube
• Fair Use Scenarios - Lucy's History Day Project

Egger's The Circle - Google as Big Brother

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH - Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

SHARING IS CARING

SECRETS ARE LIES

PRIVACY IS THEFT - Eggers, The Circle

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

 
Effective dystopian novels take current trends and push them to an extreme. In his book The Circle, David Eggers doesn't have to push too hard or too far. The future he envisions is mostly here now. And that's just one of the reasons this book is frightening.

The story starts as 24-year-old Mae Holland begins working for the Circle on its large campus in California. The Circle is an none-too-subtle pseudonym for a Google which has swallowed Facebook, Twitter and a few other social networking companies. Run by a triumvirate of disparate leaders - the hoodie-wearing nerd, the kindly old social engineer, and the avaricious monetizer, the company is doing eveything it can to record, collect, and use data to both make society safer and "less messy" - and make a lot of money in the process. Their projects include nearly invisible cameras placed everywhere, planting tracking chips in children (that also include their international educational "ranking"), and having all public officials go "transparent" by wearing a live camera 24/7. As an employee, Mae is evaluated in real time not only on her customer service performance, but also on her social status with in the company and her influence she has on others' purchasing decisions.

Eggers isn't dramatic in his lessons about the decline of privacy. Politicians and watch-dogs who raise concerns about the Circle being a monopoly have child pornography and evidence of links to terrorist organizations found on their computers. Mae, when she knows others are watching, skips eating her favorite foods or having a second glass of wine, knowing that her followers are watching. As social networking seems to take over her life, a friend comments, "You comment on things, and that substitutes for doing them." Her parents and old boyfriend who resist social media are characterized as anachronisms.

At the beginning of the book, I was disappointed that Eggars made his protagonist rather dim. But I slowly realized that Mae is not stupid. She is naive, impressionable, and, has a value set more in keeping with today's youth. Mae needs the approval, the immediate gratification, the attention, the stimulation, and the faux affection of her "followers." She is not forced to give up her privacy - she is gently and logically persuaded. She is a sheep being led to the butcher, not attacked by wolves. And she echoes today's Everyman in her lack of concern over personal privacy.

The book does make a case for many potential benefits of monitored society: reduction in crimes like theft and child abuse. Better medical treatments and educational systems. A more democratic, less corruptible political process. Bailey, the social engineer, is on a mission he genuinely believes will improve the world.

The great question this book left me with is "Why do we as humans value privacy so highly?" One doesn't need to be a criminal or a pervert to still not want all of one's life in the public eye. The need for privacy is at a gut level, an inalienable right, and must have some primitive survival component behind it. But what are the tangible benefits of choosing what to share - and what to keep to oneself?

After reading this, I feel I owe an apology to Miquel Guhlin and Steve Hargadon for being an apologist for Google and others for their data collection and use practices. Perhaps I've been a bit more of a sheep than I'd like to admit. Rather than as one character put it "How do we get the inevitable sooner?", we ought to all be thinking a little bit more deeply of the implications of a know-it-all, share-it-all society. 

Read The Circle. It may not be in the classic status of Orwell, but it's an important (and enjoyable) read.

Oh, ironically this review goes out via a blog with links to Facebook, Twitter, Google+. Please like it!!!

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For an excellent review that compares 1984 and The Circle, read Nocera's A World Without Privacy, NYT, Oct 14, 2013.