When my EdTech class first introduced the concept of Creative Commons, I found myself preparing for the onslaught of complex and overwhelming licencing and legal information. This however was not the case as Creative Commons was introduced through the lens of educators and its ties to creating open education.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons produces Creative Commons licenses to allow for the sharing of content and knowledge of creators. Creative Commons have created licences that allow for creators to choose how they wish for their content to be shared and used under copyright law.
Collaboration, sharing, and co-operation are in our nature — building community, co-operating towards common goods, and creating shared benefits are at the heart of who we are. – Ryan Merkley (Chief Executive Officer at Creative Commons) pulled from We Need To Talk About Sharing
Supporting Open Education
The support that Creative Commons creates for Open Education is invaluable for everyone involved, but especially creators, teachers and students. Creative Commons creates easily understandable legal licensing that allows for creators to share their work while still having control over how their content is used. For me, Creative Commons has been eye opening in terms of better understanding the world of Copyright. Further, Creative Commons is working towards building an Open Education Platform to create space and attention for open education resources worldwide.
Open Education Resources (OER) are becoming more available through licensing like Creative Commons and allow for better access to education. Seeing the growth of OER is exciting as it shows how the narrative of education is changing from being monetarily driven to being driven by collaboration and creativity. It is encouraging being a teacher-in-training and seeing the growth that OER has made in fighting for open access to learning materials. This includes access to open textbooks, worksheets, lesson plans, and other learning materials. The more openness we can achieve through licences such as Creative Commons and the growing development of OER the more students will benefit. In turn this can change how society views education and move towards nurturing collaboration and creation while providing accreditation. In the classroom we try to instill these important lessons of collaboration, creativity, teamwork so that we may nurture a culture of sharing. It is hopeful that now education outside of the classroom is moving in the same direction.
Photo by Elaine Casap on Unsplash
Those tomatoes look delectable!
What a great post. I have a hard time wrapping my head around copyright so I am followings all the links ASAP!
I also really enjoyed learning about creative commons, and about copyright in general. I definitely did not have any idea of what was involved in it, but I also agree that it is very useful for us to know about as future teachers!