Week 6, Thing 15: Creative Commons, Copyright and What's Coming

When working on my coursework last fall, I had developed a blog about public domain.  Through the preparation of the blog, I found Creative Commons and was drawn to it immediately.  Again I am reminded, through the video introduction and another tour of the site, what an amazing resource this is!  People are having great ideas all the time.  Ideas that could be shared, could be refined, or could be adapted to a new audience. Copyright doesn't always allow us to do that, but with the Creative Commons licenses, materials can be protected but also available for public use and even manipulation.  The information on how the materials can be used is available by clicking on the Creative Commons license itself, which then links you to the description what rights the owner is preserving and what he/she is allowing.  By using the searching tool at the Creative Commons website, users can find materials (through Google) that are able to be used freely or with only some restriction.  For teachers, this is a little known site that could make a huge difference in the classroom.  Often times, we plead ignorance in the case of copyright.  But here, we have full disclosure of what is available and how we can use it.  With more and more material not only available online, but also created online, this concept of copyright will only get more hazy.  Creative Commons will help us navigate through the haze.