…we would not be discussing what kids can’t do in our library.

TechUseAgreement

We’d be talking about how to facilitate, among other web2.0 strategies, student exploration of the following emerging trends;

• Gaming – World of Warcraft broke the 10,000,000 user mark – a year ago. Kids ARE gaming!
• Virtual Worlds –Virtual worlds like Second Life may soon become pervasive. An AUP should  acknowledge this.
• S/W Downloads – we need better guidelines for downloading – what, when, how, to where?
• Streaming Media – better guidelines on use (when, where, how – e.g. using headphones, etc)
• Cloud computing and the Symantic Web (related to the above, but broader in scope as everything begins to reside on the “cloud” and as “smart objects” become ubiguitous) – the Horizon Report, 2009

Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world. In the first place, all of the above require access to bandwidth that we just do not have at this time in Thailand. Even in the US, a Neilsen News report on April 13 that Streaming video had increased by 40% in one year was followed shortly by news of bandwidth caps by big internet providers. “Capping”, is, of course, a relative term. 250 GB of data/month (equivalent of 120 full-length movies or 65,000 songs) seems a lot in an environment where real download speeds are measured in 2-digit KILOBYTES/second rather the the 1-2 megabytes/second Thai home users typically pay for.

Even at our school, where we have something like 40 megabytes/second, it still often takes several seconds for a static page to stream in, and streaming video is often broken up with pauses for buffering.  Allowing students to explore the new technologies with no limits is simply not a practical option at this time.

And then there’s the issue of teen decision-making skills.  We greet around 1200 visitors in a typical day in our main library, and 50-60% of these borrow a wireless laptop for use during their visit. We have 150 chairs in 7 discrete seating areas dispersed over 700 square meters on two floors. Realistically, we simply are not aware of what most students do with the computers most of the time. In this environment, and in consideration of others rights to a “quiet, productive workplace” environment, we feel it incumbent on us to provide guidance in what uses of the area, and the the technology being used in it, are in keeping with this objective. A “Technology Use Agreement” that students sign off on, help us all stay on the same page regarding appropriate use.

Coming out of this course, we have a Proposed new HS Acceptable Use Policy. Since it has not yet been adopted for officila use by the school, we feel we still need a document to help us manage technology use in the Main Library.

Our final cut at a “Technology Use Agreement” for ISB’s Main LIbrary may be construed as focussing on prohibition rather than entitlement, but in our defence, we have attempted to open the doors to new and creative explorative options not available in our existing agreement. Rather than specifically prohibiting gaming, etc, for example, we suggest that students seek permission to engage in activities outside of the normal scope of online activity.

In our prohibitive rather than entitling stance, we are not alone. In the litiginous United States, AUPs can be even more rife with legal jargon and limitation. An example from DadeSchools in Florida is a case in point. This document specifically focusses on limitations and prohibitions, and regularly references School Board Policy which in each instance is a case-study in legal jargon. It, like many AUP’s still out there, could be seen as a document with a built-in self-fulfilling prophecy for failure. Few users are going to plow through the intricacies and exhortations to determine what really can and can’t be done with the tools it references.

We should count our blessings that for the moment, at least, we feel we can cover the ground in our Main LIbrary with a relatively benign, single page isb-technology-use-agreement-final-120509

Of course, the fact that we have not fundamentally changed the Use Agreement we have had in place since the adoption of wireless laptops suggests that should the environment change in the near future, we should – make that we must – revisit the question again.

Perhaps in that newly renovated “Learning Commons” we are working toward, we WILL be able to enable and promote the many creative and innovative ways in which kids could use the technology.

Amen to that…

Essential Question: Whose responsibility is it to teach students to be safe online?

It’s Everyone’s Responsibility (everyone with any connection to “21st Century Kids”, that is).

• Everyone
• Everyone teaching
• Everyone teaching kids
• Everyone teaching kids online
• Everyone teaching kids online safety
• Everyone teaching kids online
• Everyone teaching kids
• Everyone teaching
• Everyone…

(image: a “Duck and Cover” poster reproduced in Wikipedia)

Why everyone?

• Because issues of identity, security and safety touches every individual in the interconnected world that web2.0 has introduced – and we don’t come with a built-in protective shell…
• Because it’s never too early to begin teaching kids about the world they are stepping into. My 22-month old son regularly astonishes me with the depth of his understanding. Although he’s just developing the verbal language to engage in logical discourse, he intuitively recognizes good and bad behaviors and safe vs. unsafe practices. Since he’s not at school yet, it’s my job, and the job of all his caregivers, to help him develop this mindset of behaving safely in the tactile world he still inhabits, and so to prepare him to behave safely online.
• Because personal Safety, in any environment, must become a “habit of mind”, and so we should turn to any and all resources available to promote this habit.
• Because we can’t rely on “the powers that be” to do the right thing when faced with a question of the magnitude that this represents.

In a neat cycle of positive reinforcement, the web itself is a wonderful resource for tools, strategies and resources to help kids develop this overarching culture of personal safety. Some interesting and useful personal safety resources include;

• Power of Parents. A Child Safety and Awareness Program – an age-graded and personnel-specific handbook to strategies for keeping kids safe up to the point where they might be developing an online presence. Sponsored by Duracell and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
• Mecklenburg County Public School Internet Safety Curriculum for K-12.  There are likely many of these available. I’ve chosen this one simply because it’s neatly laid out in the traditional “Scope and Sequence” style that I still find easy to follow.
• iSafe K-12 Curriculum Scope 06-07 - a commercial product by i-SAFE Inc. a self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in Internet safety education. Founded in 1998 and endorsed by the U.S. Congress, i-SAFE is a non-profit foundation dedicated to protecting the online experiences of youth everywhere.”

I’m reminded, though,  that I grew up in the 1950’s, when “Duck & Cover” was the official advice from the US government to address the nuclear threat we were reminded of with every 6 pm Wednesday Emergency Alert siren test.  The “Duck and Cover” strategy was not just woefully inadequate. It was ludicrous. Even at 10, I recognized the futility of hiding my head in the sand if the big one went off where I could see it.

I wonder if exhortations to kids to protect themselves online don’t have some of the same theatre-of-the-absurd elements to them. Is there a value in promoting specific strategies to help protect one from dangers past? What about the frightening potentialities of the future? How can we let kids online at all and still protect them against the constantly evolving web of virtual entanglement?

The web, however, is a fact of life for kids in the here and now. Ignoring the already identified risks in online activity is a sure recipe for personal and societal disaster, and there are already enough coming-apocalypse scenarios to go around. And so, it seems, it’s up to Everyone, to follow the Middle Way regarding online safety for the next generation of virtual explorers.

(the 8-fold Path or Middle Way: Show Understanding in Thought, Speech and Action through Right Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, and Concentration)…

Reuben James Runquist, the octagenarian protagonist of my own Post-Apocalyptic “Road-book” proposes a mnemonic to keep himself on the Buddhist “Eight-fold Path” in the post-apocalyptic world he inhabits.

“Live Every Moment Carefully”

…advice as relevant in the virtual world as at the dawn of Buddhist thought…

 Catechism, and diaspora: from Wikipedia, the Digital Encyclopedia

catechism (pronounced /ˈkætəkɪzəm/; Ancient Greek: κατηχισμός) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching …^[1] Catechisms are doctrinal manuals often in the form of questions followed by answers to be memorized.

diaspora (in Ancient Greek, διασπορά – “a scattering or sowing of seeds“) refers to any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional homelands, the dispersal of such people, and the ensuing developments in their culture.

I’m wrestlying with what to do about VHS and DVD copy issues that keep raising their ugly heads at my school. More and more, it seems to me, the current state of copyright understanding is built on catechistic principles becoming increasingly untenable and the reality of copyright compliance is being further diluted by the rationalization of the new diaspora of “Digital Natives”.  I characterize these as a diaspora in the purest sense of the word, meaning no disrespect or criticism; the term simply recognizes their wandering from the traditional roots of information access, manipulation and delivery and the emerging strategies for the sharing of ideas that no longer lend themselves to a realia-based copyright model.

Wordplay aside, Web2.0 has rendered “Fair Use” assessments questionable at best and unworkable in practice (although they have always been almost so). A few of the new questions that arise in trying to apply traditional Fair Use guidelines to a digital piece might be;

• Character of Use – In an open-source environment, how might we assess the character of use? Once a work is posted to the web, for example, it can be viewed widely, printed, excerpted, edited and referred in many ways by different users.
• Nature of the copyrighted work – a typical digital document includes a variety of embedded file-types making it difficult to assign a simplistic “nature” to the work.
• Amount and substantiality of the portion used – how can we accurately determine what part of an attributive posting is covered by Creative Commons licence and what is considered proprietary material? How should we assess the percentage of a source being used? Should we measure the percentage of storage used (considering the disparate data-requirements of text vs. sound vs. image or video), the percentage total elapsed straigh play-time coopted or the estimated total interactive user engagement?
• When material is being freely shared over the open web, how can we intuit harm to the Market Value of a piece? Does this suggest that there is no harm, or are their other indicators of “market value” that should be evaluated? (user reviews? blog citations and comments? Hit counts?)

In my library, which is still heavy to “web1.0″ media offerings (non-interactive information delivery packages) several scenarios dominate, being;

1) The teacher who wants us to archive a favorite VHS (no longer available) onto DVD so he/she can continue to use it with his/her laptop and Smartboard.
2) The teacher who wants to create an edited version of a DVD for brevity or censorial purposes (adult content, language, etc)
3) The student who wants to use an extended video clip in a powerpoint, or a commercial music piece to back up a personal video.
4) The administrator who plans to use library videos for rain-day entertainment in the cafeteria.
5) The parent who wants to borrow library videos for what appears to be primarily entertainment purposes.

The first four situations are, in my mind, clear violations of traditional copyright (as I understand it, from an “informed layperson’s” perspective), and I’m constantly finding myself trying to explain or justify our position. But I’m beginning to wonder how much time I should be expending trying to convince people that their requests are illegal, immoral or simply inappropriate due to their questionable nature. Maybe it’s time simply throw in the digital towel and say, “Go for it.”

 If that’s not a viable option, what are some alternative suggestions? I’ve tried posting copyright guidelines, running articles in school publications on Fair Use, offering copyright update sessions on ProD days, and presenting at conferences. Of course I’ll continue to to trot out my current box of trick. But I need some new tools, some new props, perhaps a whole new approach. I’m open to suggestions. 

The situation gets even muddier as we enter the arena of new media formats and delivery systems. this post has rambled on for far too long, but Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog posting  If I can’t get it legally is it OK to steal it? raises many of the questions regarding media like game soundtracks, theme music and cellphone ringtones. 

Doug doesn’t answer most of the questions either, but perhaps if more rational people continue to talk about these issues, once they get to whatever legislative systems are invoked to deal with them the new agreements will have become part of the lexicon of shared understanding that will help to move things forward. Meanwhile, it’s the wild west revisited when using new media in the emerging virtual (and physical) realities we’re increasingly living in.

What are you doing about Library1.0 lending issues in a Web2.0 world?

Are you still trying to observe the spirit of the DMCA and/or the TEACH Act? Or have you set your sights on Web (and Library) 2.0 and are you spending less time obsessing over “Fair Use” and concentrating on “appropriate” (i.e. educational) use? What’s a morally conscientous but future-oriented teacher-librarian to do?

We’re currently in the throes of discarding our thoughtfully selected (over almost 20 years), meticulously cataloged and carefully managed collection of VHS titles that were, five years ago, one of the highlights of our library. Every visiting group (local universities and schools wanting a taste of what “western” school libraries look like) was ushered into our “Special Collections” area (4500 VHS tapes, 1500 music CD’s, 1000 in-house archival videos, a growing collection of DVDs…) 

There’s a story in itself, in view of Ross Todd’s exhortations that we stop obsessing over collections of “stuff”, but that’s not the issue here. The question is whether we should limit, or even deny use of our replacement collection of DVDs to our school community.

Why would we deny access to our collections? To provide full access to our collections – for our primary users (students and teachers).  But if we do so, are we denying full Library2.0 access to ideas (and opportunities to create new ideas from these)?

On the other hand, is the the whole issue academic? Are DVD’s passe in a Web2.0 world anyway? Is it time to simply abandon “realia” media collections  altogether? Should we just open the gates wide and deal with access issues IF they arise?

As an international school where our students have minimal access to the public libraries,  Borders-quality bookstores and commercial video outlets that populate most neighborhoods in the developed world, we’ve always felt a responsibility to offer our collections for “community” use.  This manifests itself in regular (often daily) use of our facilities by a small cadre of unemployed parental “spouses” who live in the gated community in which our school resides, regular circulation of adult-interest print (e.g. travel and geography titles, along with adult-interest fiction) materials – and, of course, what I’ve called the “Saturday morning Video Club”. These are the parents, who stock up on video titles every Friday. the sheer number of titles they borrow and the timing of these loans suggests that they are not used in an instructional setting, but rather, as an “educational” alternative to the limited cable-tv offerings in Bangkok.

So why is this a problem? A couple of years ago, I published the following in our PTA publication, “the Touchstone”.

Recently, a number of Main Library video titles have not been available on request by teachers during the school day. Following a review of our policies, I have decided that the policies are fine but enforcement has “relaxed” over the years, so have asked Main Library staff to strictly enforce the “Overnight Loan” policy for all video material loaned to anyone other than a classroom teacher.  The policy has been in place for several years, but regular users may sometimes keep titles for several days and may have asked to borrow  items during the school day rather than at the end of the day, once the chance of a classroom request has passed.

From March 1 onward, I have asked staff to provide videos on strict overnight loan to non-teachers for parental review or student extra work on the following basis;

1. Titles may be borrowed following the regular school day between 2:05 and 3:00 (following which we have only one staff member on duty and close down the Special Collections area (including videos)
2. All titles provided on Overnight Loan should be returned between 7:00 and 7:20 the NEXT school day.
3. As we have only a single staff member on duty on Saturdays, we cannot offer video service on Saturday 

We would also like to remind patrons that while ISB’s Main Library holds an impressive video collection, each title in the collection was purchased “with instructional intent”, meaning that it is not our primary purpose to provide weekend entertainment for our students. There are many video outlets available in Bangkok providing this service.

We value the wonderful collections that ISB has built to help every one of our students achieve to his or her potential. Please help us to ensure that these materials are available at all times for their intended use.

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The American Library Association provides the following guidelines for non-instructional use of school-purchased videos.

1. Loan/Rental of Videotapes
Libraries may loan/rent videos to patrons for their personal use. This is true even if the video is labeled “For Home Use Only.” According to (ALA) “a library or school that resells, rents, or lends a copy of a copyrighted videotape, which it owns, is not infringing on the copyright owner’s rights.” Some guidelines to follow when loaning/renting a video to a patron:

·         Libraries should not obscure (i.e., cover or deface) the copyright notice as it appears on the producer’s label.

·         Libraries should not knowingly loan a video for use in public performances. If a patron inquires about a planned performance of a videotape, he or she should be informed that only private uses of it are lawful.

·         Libraries can charge a nominal fee for use of videos…”The fact that a fee is charged is irrelevant; the right to distribute a copy includes the right to rent it — for a fee or deposit or otherwise.”

Check out the ALA “Fact-Sheet” site containing this at;

http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Library_Fact_Sheets&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=24635

The question at hand – Should we continue this policy, or are we justified, given the new access to commercial media, internet sources and social networking options, in locking up our DVD collection and making it available exclusively for teacher preview, instructional use and student review (in-house).