creative commons

Can I use it? Can I share it? Is it legal?

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Creative Commons Licences, Copyright, Open Education Resources

These terms may or may not be new to you, but in an ever-changing world, even if you have a basic grasp of what they mean as a citizen of New Zealand, when you apply an educational lens over them, a whole new layer of meaning emerges.

As digital-by-default becomes assumed rather than stated, all educators have the added responsibility to deliver and demonstrate ethically sourced, cited, and repurposed information in our work.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.
Woodrow Wilson

This post is just a heads up, really. Over the coming months we will be delving deeper into the topics of:

Our purpose is to support educators with reading and viewing resources curated to deepen thinking and understanding of what these big three mean to us when we create, share, and repurpose content and resources as educators.

In this post we’re shining our spotlight on resources created by Creative Commons NZ that support New Zealand educators, school leaders, and Boards of Trustees as they shift mindset and practice towards Creative Commons (CC) licencing.

creative commons

Taking the Creative Commons path

“Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand @cc_Aotearoa are the kaitiaki (guardian) of the New Zealand Creative Commons licences that enable the voluntary sharing of copyright material in Aotearoa. They are a Kiwi remix on an international movement toward open access licensing, and are here to support the use of Creative Commons licences in New Zealand.” 1

If heading down the CC path feels overwhelming, be assured, others have walked this path. There are user stories to inspire and support you and policies to use and adapt. From only four schools in 2013 adopting Creative Commons policies, we’re now close to one hundred schools in 2016 — you’ll not be alone in your journey. Albany Senior High, Warrington School, Wellington High School, Tawa Intermediate are a few that can inspire you, and Matt McGregor from Creative Commons NZ can be contacted to check if schools in your area are early adopters you can learn from.

Stephen Lethbridge (@stephentpk) from Taupaki School, wrote is an inspiring case study on his blog that walks the reader through his school's experience and learnings as they embedded Creative Commons thinking into daily practice.

networks

Start as you mean to go on

it’s one thing to know that you need to do something about these issues, but it’s another to make a meaningful and robust policy and implementation of that policy. Really important questions need to be asked. Following are some starter questions along with resources to assist in answering them.

Important questions you and your school/kura/centre should be asking:

And here’s something else that may be of use to you as you think about these issues.

Hot off the press

A Quiet Revolution

Creative Commons have recently published A Quiet Revolution.

This is fantastic and chatty read about New Zealand’s uniquely number  #8 wire approach to Creative Commons across the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums) and Education sectors. The ebook price is sure to delight you!

“The past few years have seen a quiet, relatively well behaved, and entirely legal revolution in Aotearoa: the growth of a thriving Commons of works made available under Creative Commons open copyright licences. A Quiet Revolution tells Kiwi stories as diverse as open source houses, teachers banding together to share resources, government departments making their data available for anyone to use, and artists sharing their work in a spirit of collaboration and community – and shows how something as seemingly dry as copyright licensing can have profound impacts on our society, culture and economy. If you’ve ever wondered how copyright applies to you, how Creative Commons actually works, or why so many people choose to use Creative Commons licensing, then here are the answers.”

The Creative Commons global community helps us all share knowledge and creativity with the world; the power of individuals and groups creating and sharing what they’ve invested energy, ideas and IP creating.

How are you and your school harnessing and contributing to this new era of collaboration and productivity?

In vain have you acquired knowledge
if you have not imparted it to others.
Deuteronomy Rabbah

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old school yard

Remember the days of the old school yard — moving into a new school yard

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old school yard

Walking out of my son and daughter’s school on the first day of the school year, a great song by Cat Stevens popped into my head. The song was “Remember the days of the old school yard” — you know, the one about imaginings, and all kinds of things, and laughing a lot.

My daughter is lucky enough to be in a brand new Innovative Learning Space for the Junior School, this area is an awesome, vibrant, colourful space that even after a short time is evident the learners love to be in.

In my role as a Facilitator for CORE Education, I have had the opportunity to observe learning in action within innovative learning spaces. My experiences and knowledge of the pedagogy behind innovative learning environments has resulted in me being very comfortable with my daughter being in one. When in the innovative learning space, I noticed a lot of very anxious and possibly confused parents. I reflected that a number of them were possibly remembering the days of their old school yard, and struggling to make a connection with the new school yard, so to speak.

Following good practice, the school offered many opportunities during 2015 for whānau/community to connect and learn about these new spaces, and to help them understand the “why’ behind the shift. However, a number of these opportunities were not taken up, so parents/caregivers were arriving on day one not sure what to expect.

I would like to share some ideas for teachers, that from my experience, support learners and whānau moving into  an innovative learning space.

  • Have plenty of staff on hand — teachers, teacher aides, leaders, possibly even senior students — so there are people available to guide, comfort, support, and direct families as to where bags, books, swimming gear, etc., should go.
  • Have plenty of large visuals with written instructions for where bags, books, swimming gear etc., should go for those parents who choose not to seek out a staff member.
  • Have lots of hands-on activities for the learners to settle into, so parents can leave feeling their child is happily engaged.
  • Create a virtual tour of the space, explaining the features of the areas and how they will enhance teaching and learning, and email this to parents before school starts.
  • Have teachers create a “Who am I”, using video, prezi, presentation, animoto, or other tool to share with parents, to help make a connection with families before the school year starts. This is an an adult example I created in the past, and I would modify it to use with children and whānau — Who am I?
  • Keep parents well informed in the first couple of weeks through newsletters, blogs, information boards outside the classrooms.
  • Offer parents, after a settling-in period, to come in and be part of the learning, to help them understand the innovative learning approach.

My daughter is loving this “new school yard”, and is laughing a lot, having imaginings, and she has all kinds of things to look forward to in the year ahead. These are exciting times in education as we transform from the old school yard to the new.

Resources:

Image source: Old school Vladimir Burakov under CC Attribution-ShareAlike

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CORE's Ten Trends 2016

Ten Trends 2016

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We’re regularly reminded that, in today’s world, the only constant is change. So, how can we best prepare ourselves and our organisations for this change? And, more importantly, how should we be shaping and providing the education experiences for our tamariki to ensure they grow up, confident in facing the changing work that they will inherit from us? Most of the time we find ourselves responding to change.

‘I find the Ten Trends videos and resource material extremely valuable and excellent PD. They provide great inspiration, and challenge my thinking about my own teaching and what I am doing to empower my learners to be successful navigators of a rapidly changing world.’ (Educator feedback on 2014 survey)

Why is it that this change often comes as a surprise? And what can we do to ‘stay ahead of the game’?
Modern educators know the value of staying relevant and connected to the world around us. We might be leading change in schools and centres, developing vision and strategic direction, or helping our communities understand new thinking in education — whenever we need to innovate and problem solve, it is vital that we ground our thinking in research and effective practices by connecting to sources beyond our immediate context.

A ‘future-focused’ approach is to engage in a process of horizon scanning, to identify and understand some of the trends that are emerging, and to reflect on these in ways that help us imagine what some of the future scenarios may be. For nine years, CORE Education has sought to support the New Zealand education sectors and beyond to look at developments on the horizon as a provocation for thinking afresh about what we are currently doing to support our learners.

Each year, CORE Education’s researchers, educators, and digital technology experts pool their expertise and combine their understanding and evidence of the ways that digital technologies are influencing all aspects of education. The result is our list of the ten trends that are expected to make a growing impact upon education in New Zealand in the coming year.

We’ve categorized our trends in five key areas that are used in much of the future-focused research: structural, cultural, technological, economic and process. The purpose in presenting these trends each year is to provide a glimpse of the ‘big picture’ within which we operate in the education system. It is important to recognise that these are trends, not specific predictions. They indicate broad developments across multiple fields that are likely to influence all our work in coming months and years. As such, they are offered to provoke further research, investigation, and discussion to help leaders and educators determine what might affect strategic planning.

We invite you to take these trends and use them as a focus for discussions among your staff, students, and community. We have found that organisations get best use out of this resource in the following ways:

  • Shared reading and stimulus for professional learning sessions and events
  • Reference points for teacher inquiries
  • Provocation for conversation in lead teams as a prelude to visioning and strategic planning
  • Accessible, dip-in reading for staff and communities
  • Reference points for research

CORE's Ten Trends 2016:

Ten Trends 2016 overview

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selfie

Conversations with a Gen Z teen

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I live with a Generation Z teenage boy. Aged 16 and in year 12 at secondary school in New Zealand. He is Māori, ko Tainui, ko Ngāti Hauiti ōna iwi. He loves sport, food, music, and socialising (on repeat!)  Like many teens, my Gen Z has struggled, and continues to struggle through the school system. On the occasion that I am able to entice him into conversing with me (in real time and face-to-face), I always find that he has lots of really inspired ideas and thoughts to share. About life, school, the future, and the world in which we live. So, with his permission, over four blog posts, I will share with you some of my Gen Z teen’s pearls of wisdom.

So, who are Generation Z you ask? “They are your sons and daughters. They populate your neighbourhoods, their thumbs spastically banging out two-way conversations composed entirely of over-punctuated and under-constructed sentences. They may even work for you.  Eventually, you will work for them.” 1  Gen Z are the generation after the Millennials. Born anywhere from the 1990s through the 2010s or from the early 2000s to around 2025. 2  They are also referred to as iGen, eGen, Net-gen, and the Digitarians.

Characteristics of Gen Z

  • Have never known a world without the Internet or cell phones.
  • Tend to text instead of talk face to face.
  • Require constant and immediate feedback.
  • Are globally aware.
  • Are independent learners and self directed.
  • Have a sense of entitlement.
  • Are collaborative.
  • Are tech savvy.
  • Expect flexibility.
  • Make instantaneous plans and commitments.
  • Smart! Able to process massive amounts of information and new knowledge quickly.
  • Know that learning and new knowledge can be found ‘everywhere’, and so, may question the traditional hierarchical role of ‘knowledge holder’.

Great infographic about Gen Z here

smart phone
Image sourced from: https://stocksnap.io/

Knowing and understanding our learners is foundational to supporting their educational success. With this in mind, it’s important to acknowledge that many of our Gen Z learners are currently being taught by Generation X teachers. As a Gen X mother, I have discovered the impact that life experience and possibly the generation gap has had on my ability to communicate effectively with my Gen Z teen. Regardless of our generation gap, sometimes I wonder if my teen and I are speaking different languages and live on different planets!

Characteristics of Gen X

(born between early 60’s and early 90’s) 3

  • Cynical, world weary and sceptical.
  • Entrepreneurial.
  • Educated.
  • Ethnically diverse.
  • Pragmatic, practical, and independent.
  • Tech savvy.
  • Flexible.
  • Knowledge seeking and sharing.
  • Self sufficient, do things for themselves, handle problems on their own.

So, with our similarities and differences in mind, it’s important to understand and acknowledge the impact this might have on a reciprocal learning relationship.

The table below shares some general, (but not necessarily universal), characteristics of Gen X teachers and Gen Z learners, and also shares the possible implications those differences might have on learning.

Gen X (Teachers)

Gen Z (Learners)

Implications for Learning

Believe that “if you want something done well, do it yourself”.  If you broke it, fix it!

Believe in problem solving through collaboration

Collaborative learning experiences & problem solving

Are highly educated and see education as the necessary key to success

Believe that knowledge is power but don’t always place the same value on what Gen X deem to be the ‘stuff you need to know and be able to do’

Learning made meaningful to the learner.

Realising potential and celebrating all success and progress

Flexible but not as resilient or embracing of change

Very resilient to change as live in a world where change comes fast and furious

Learners directing own learning & using technology as an enabler

Like to plan ahead, sometimes a whole year in advance and will often make plans for others

Often reluctant to commit to what they are doing tomorrow because things change and can be resistant to plans that are made for them

Studying for a test or exam 3+ weeks out might be a challenge for some Gen Z’s.

Pre-determined learning VS spontaneous learning experiences.

Well versed in learning and memorising information that we might need one day. Used to learning ‘just in case’

Do not rely on any learnt information being correct for a sustained period of time.  Like to learn ‘just in time’

Technology gives access to the most up to date knowledge.

Could be a challenge to engage in content that is not contextualised or considered to be for an immediate purpose.

Check out this great clip – How to Communicate with Gen Z

Gen Z teen’s pearls of wisdom (unedited)

What do you think future jobs will be like?
“Futuristic jobs will be based around technology. You will be able to do interviews on your phone or laptop wherever you are around the world. People from around the world will apply for jobs anywhere. I think there will be robots doing a lot more things like build houses coz someone will invent robots that can do all that stuff. I think people from all around the world will apply for jobs anywhere coz they will have the same skills, and they will be able to just face time people here in NZ whenever they have to.”

What do you think it will be like to be Māori in the future?
“People might not know if they are Māori coz our language is dying. People might just think we are just another brown person who doesn’t know their language or heritage.”

What do you hope it will be like?
“That we all get our land back, and we could rebuild the old Pa sites, and then our old people could go back there to live without having to buy houses that are all separate from each other. Like a Māori retirement village! I wish our culture would be cherished in the future like a taonga. I wish we would hear our language more, and that all New Zealanders could speak Māori. It would be real cool if there were heaps of jobs in the future where it was compulsory to speak Māori. Then people would need to go and learn it.”

What’s the hardest thing about learning and why?
“It depends. There are some things I like learning. Some things you are just not interested in learning, and so it’s harder. Sometimes, it just takes too much effort to try and understand.  It would be awesome if we all just had USB ports in our heads and we could just download what we want to know.”

What’s the hardest thing about learning at school?
“It depends sometimes on the teacher that you have and if they like you or not. Also sometimes I think the teachers feed off negative energy — if they know that you don’t like them or you are not really interested in the subject, then some just don’t really care if you learn or not. The teachers that really help you and get to know you are the best, and that’s when I can learn, and then I send them positive energy back. The best teachers don’t just talk to you about school stuff. They are interested in your life and who you are.”

What do you wish your school and teachers knew/understood about you as a learner?
“That I don’t just automatically know or understand everything they teach me. I need someone to come up to me and ask me if I need help. I wish they knew that I like to learn by watching videos, or listening to people explaining things. I like to be shown how to do things, telling me things don’t always work for me. I’d like them to make learning fun, and be excited and pumped up about what they are teaching. If they teach like they don’t love it, or are interested in it, how are we supposed to get engaged in it? It’s always really good when teachers help us learn stuff by connecting it to things we are into, and that kids our age like doing. It’s also great when teachers let us use technology to our advantage. We’re used to using it everywhere else, and we already know how to use it help us learn.”

Unpacking these Gen Z pearls

What my Gen Z teen has articulated to me in his unique way is:

  • He sees his place in the future job market in a global sense.
  • He’s concerned about the future of his language, culture, and identity, and sees it as everyone’s responsibility to revitalise and normalise Te Reo Māori.
  • He knows learning is hard at times, but he has clear ideas about how he learns best, and what will help him to learn.
  • His perception is everything. Whether his teachers like him or not is not necessarily the issue. What he perceives about those learning relationships absolutely is. What  he believes about his relationships has a direct bearing on how he learns, and, in turn, his academic success.
  • He really just wants to feel that his teachers like him, believe in him, want him to achieve, and will help him to do so.
  • He wants to be inspired by teachers and he believes his engagement in new learning is directly linked to the way in which content is delivered, assessed, and how he engages with it.
  • He sees technology as an essential enabler to his learning — simply a ‘given’.

selfie
Image sourced from: http://gratisography.com/

Implications for teaching and learning

Taking all of this into consideration, I pose some provocations for us, as educators, and parents to consider.

  • How are we preparing our kids for a global job market?
  • What are we all doing to ensure the survival of our indigenous languages, cultures, and identities?
  • How do we gather student voice and use it to inform our teaching practice and learning programmes?
  • How are we empowering our kids to direct their own learning?
  • How can we inspire our kids to learn and to make school content relevant in the minds of our tamariki of all ages?
  • How can we continue to strengthen our relationships with kids? Between school and whānau/the community?
  • What opportunities are we offering our kids to use technology to aid their learning?

I know I’m biased but in my opinion, my Gen Z Teen is a genius! I share his wisdom with you all in the hopes that we might gain insight from the generation that will lead us all into the new millennium.

 

References:

Footnotes:

1 Retrieved on 2/2/16 from: http://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/generation-gaps/generation-z.htm

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z

3 Compiled from: http://www.jenx67.com/who-is-generation-x and http://rocg.com/?post=who%E2%80%99s-your-daddy-marketing-to-different-generations

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mixer

A musical metaphor for personal professional learning

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Metaphors are frequently used in education to explain a concept, to aid in the understanding of new ideas, and for clarifying complex frameworks, systems, and so on. Teachers naturally use metaphors to make new and unfamiliar concepts more meaningful to learners by connecting what is already known to what is being learned. The role of a teacher itself has been likened to being a coach, juggler, artist, and gardener. Because we attach value to the metaphors that matter to us most, it’s critical that those metaphors are appropriate and sit comfortably with us.

For many years I have been uncomfortable with the metaphor of professional learning as a journey, especially when it was claimed by one on behalf of others, working in a team, school, or centre. Who is making the decisions about the destination?  Who is in the driver’s seat? Who is navigating? I imagine there are educators on a professional learning journey going along for the ride, without any control over the direction, any opportunity for a personal destination, and with little ownership of the steps or stops along the way. I prefer a metaphor that convinces me that I have control over my own professional learning, and at the same time enables me to deal with the vast array of factors that influence modern learning.

Mixing it up

mixer

I have spent time in studios recording and mixing audio, and it occurred to me some time ago that the mixing desk was a metaphor that really suited me. Most of us are familiar with the long mixing desk, and the rows of sliders with which you can adjust the level, timbre, and dynamics of any sounds in numerous combinations, and in that way create the ideal mix.

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