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Media literacy education distinctively features the analytical attitude that teachers and learners, working together, adopt toward the media objects they study. The foundation of effective media analysis is the recognition that: All media messages are constructed.Each medium has different characteristics and strengths and a unique language of construction.Media messages are produced for particular purposes.All media messages contain embedded values and points of view.People use their individual skills, beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media messages.Media and media messages can influence beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors, and the democratic process. Making media and sharing it with listeners, readers, and viewers is essential to the development of critical thinking and communication skills. Feedback deepens reflection on one’s own editorial and creative choices and helps students grasp the power of communication.

Lack of clarity reduces learning and limits the ability to use digital tools. Some educators close their classroom doors and hide what they fear is infringement; others hyper-comply with imagined rules that are far stricter than the law requires, limiting the effectiveness of their teaching and their students’ learning.

Educators and learners in media literacy often make uses of copyrighted materials that stand far outside the marketplace, for instance, in the classroom, at a conference, or within a school-wide or district-wide festival. Such uses, especially when they occur within a restricted-access network, do enjoy certain copyright advantages.

Law provides copyright protection to creative works in order to foster the creation of culture. Its best known feature is protection of owners’ rights. But copying, quoting, and generally re-using existing cultural material can be, under some circumstances, a critically important part of generating new culture.

In reviewing the history of fair use litigation, we find that judges return again and again to two key questions: Did the unlicensed use "transform" the material taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original? Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount, considering the nature of the copyrighted work and of the use? If the answers to these two questions are "yes," a court is likely to find a use fair. Because that is true, such a use is unlikely to be challenged in the first place.

Both key questions touch on, among other things, the question of whether the use will cause excessive economic harm to the copyright owner. Courts have told us that copyright owners aren’t entitled to an absolute monopoly over transformative uses of their works.

Another consideration underlies and influences the way in which these questions are analyzed: whether the user acted reasonably and in good faith, in light of general practice in his or her particular field.

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

Through its five principles, this code of best practices identifies five sets of current practices in the use of copyrighted materials in media literacy education to which the doctrine of fair use clearly applies. These practices are associated with K–12 education, higher education, and in classes given by nonprofit organizations. When students or educators use copyrighted materials in their own creative work outside of an educational context, they can rely on fair use guidelines created by other creator groups, including documentary filmmakers and online video producers.

These principles apply to all forms of media.

The principles apply in institutional settings and to non-school-based programs. 

The principles concern the unlicensed fair use of copyrighted materials for education, not the way those materials were acquired. 

where a use is fair, it is irrelevant whether the source of the content in question was a recorded over-the-air broadcast, a teacher’s personal copy of a newspaper or a DVD, or a rented or borrowed piece of media. Labels on commercial media products proclaiming that they are “licensed for home [or private or educational or noncommercial] use only” do not affect in any way the educator’s ability to make fair use of the contents—in fact, such legends have no legal effect whatsoever. (If a teacher is using materials subject to a license agreement negotiated by the school or school system, however, she may bebound by the terms of that license.)

TWO:  Employing Copyrighted Materials in Preparing Curriculum Materials

fairness of a use depends, in part, on whether the user tookmore than was needed to accomplish his or her legitimate purpose.

PRINCIPLES

ONE:  Employing Copyrighted Material in Media Literacy Lessons

The principles are all subject to a “rule of proportionality.” 

THREE:  Sharing Media Literacy Curriculum Materials

In materials they wish to share, curriculum developers should beespecially careful to choose illustrations from copyrighted media that are necessaryto meet the educational objectives of the lesson, using only what furthers theeducational goal or purpose for which it is being made.

FOUR:  Student Use of Copyrighted Materials in Their Own Academic and Creative Work

Students should be able to understand and demonstrate, in a mannerappropriate to their developmental level, how their use of a copyrighted workrepurposes or transforms the original. For example, students may use copyrightedmusic for a variety of purposes, but cannot rely on fair use when their goal is simplyto establish a mood or convey an emotional tone, or when they employ popular songssimply to exploit their appeal and popularity.

FIVE:  Developing Audiences for Student Work

If student work that incorporates, modifies, and re-presents existingmedia content meets the transformativeness standard, it can be distributed to wideaudiences under the doctrine of fair use.

Educators and learners in media literacy often make uses of copyrighted works outside the marketplace, for instance in the classroom, a conference, or within a school-wide or district-wide festival. When sharing is confined to a delimited network, such uses are more likely to receive special consideration under the fair use doctrine.

Especially in situations where students wish to share their work more broadly (by distributing it to the public, for example, or including it as part of a personal portfolio), educators should take the opportunity to model the real-world permissions process, with explicit emphasis not only on how that process works, but also on how it affects media making.

The ethical obligation to provide proper attribution also should be examined.

This code of best practices, by contrast, is shaped by educators for educators and the learners they serve, with the help of legal advisors. As an important first step in reclaiming their fair use rights, educators should employ this document to inform their own practices in the classroom and beyond

MYTH:  Fair Use Is Just for Critiques, Commentaries, or Parodies. Truth:  Transformativeness, a key value in fair use law, can involve modifying material or putting material in a new context, or both. Fair use applies to a wide variety of purposes, not just critical ones. Using an appropriate excerpt from copyrighted material to illustrate a key idea in the course of teaching is likely to be a fair use, for example. Indeed, the Copyright Act itself makes it clear that educational uses will often be considered fair because they add important pedagogical value to referenced media objects.

So if work is going to be shared widely, it is good to be able to rely on transformativeness. As the cases show, a transformative new work can be highly commercial in intent and effect and qualify under the fair use doctrine.

Employees in the 21st century have to manage an astronomical amount of information daily.

There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren't prepared to process the information effectively it almost freezes them in their steps.”

rapidly the information is changing.

half-life of knowledge in the humanities is 10 years, and in math and science, it's only two or three years

“People who've learned to ask great questions and have learned to be inquisitive are the ones who move the fastest in our environment because they solve the biggest problems in ways that have the most impact on innovation.”

want unique products and services:

developing young people's capacities for imagination, creativity, and empathy will be increasingly important for maintaining the United States' competitive advantage in the future.

The three look at one another blankly, and the student who has been doing all the speaking looks at me and shrugs.

The test contains 80 multiple-choice questions related to the functions and branches of the federal government.

Let me tell you how to answer this one

reading from her notes,

Each group will try to develop at least two different ways to solve this problem. After all the groups have finished, I'll randomly choose someone from each group who will write one of your proofs on the board, and I'll ask that person to explain the process your group used.”

a lesson in which students are learning a number of the seven survival skills while also mastering academic content?

students are given a complex, multi-step problem that is different from any they've seen in the past

how the group solved the problem, each student in every group is held accountable.

ncreasingly, there is only one curriculum: test prep. Of the hundreds of classes that I've observed in recent years, fewer than 1 in 20 were engaged in instruction designed to teach students to think instead of merely drilling for the test.

. It is working with colleagues to ensure that all students master the skills they need to succeed as lifelong learners, workers, and citizens.

I have yet to talk to a recent graduate, college teacher, community leader, or business leader who said that not knowing enough academic content was a problem.

critical thinking, communication skills, and collaboration.

seven survival skills every day, at every grade level, and in every class.

College and Work Readiness Assessment (www.cae.org)—that measure students' analytic-reasoning, critical-thinking, problem-solving, and writing skills.

2. Collaboration and Leadership

3. Agility and Adaptability

Today's students need to master seven survival skills to thrive in the new world of work.

4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism

6. Accessing and Analyzing Information

7. Curiosity and Imagination

I conducted research beginning with conversations with several hundred business, nonprofit, philanthropic, and education leaders. With a clearer picture of the skills young people need, I then set out to learn whether U.S. schools are teaching and testing the skills that matter most.

“First and foremost, I look for someone who asks good questions,” Parker responded. “We can teach them the technical stuff, but we can't teach them how to ask good questions—how to think.”

“I want people who can engage in good discussion—who can look me in the eye and have a give and take. All of our work is done in teams. You have to know how to work well with other

how to engage customers

the world of work has changed profoundly.

Over and over, executives told me that the heart of critical thinking and problem solving is the ability to ask the right questions. As one senior executive from Dell said, “Yesterday's answers won't solve today's problems.”

I say to my employees, if you try five things and get all five of them right, you may be failing. If you try 10 things, and get eight of them right, you're a hero. You'll never be blamed for failing to reach a stretch goal, but you will be blamed for not trying.

risk aversion

“Libraries have to accept that the future is now.

Turning the Pages 2.0 and the mass digitisation project to digitise 25 million of pages of 19th-century English literature are only two examples of the pioneering work we are doing.

the changing needs of our students and researchers and how libraries can meet their needs.

We hope it will also serve to remind us all that students and researchers will continue to need the appropriate skills and training to help navigate an increasingly diverse and complex information landscape.”

CIBER developed a methodology which has created a unique ‘virtual longitudinal study' based on the available literature and new primary data about the ways in which the British Library and JISC websites are used. This is the first time for the information seeking behaviour of the virtual scholar to have been profiled by age.

He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).

And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.”

They would be “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.”

emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm.

"I'm in a unique situation where there's a computer at every lab table," he says, pointing out that many teachers do not have that ratio of students to computers.

when the games don't work properly, but most teachers don’t have that level of technical skill, she points out.

"There are little things you need to know," she says, to keep the games running smoothly. "[Otherwise], it's not going to work in the classroom, and teachers aren't going to use it."

"If [the game] doesn't have a focus or clear reason for what they're doing, it really doesn't work," says Pokrzywinski. Adapting games to the curriculum is possible, she says, but it takes time—something many teachers don't have.

Later, I talked to the gentleman who thought the session was negative, and his reason was because he was left out, and didn’t know how to get twitter started.

we can tell as people actually took the time to blog about it

I think our culture is being overrun by big mouths & squeaky wheels. Not everyone wants to jump into the mosh pit or finds it boring to have useful information presented in a structured format.