Using Diigo I applied to join a group called Ethical Issues in America. I want to join it primarily because of my activism in the anti-death penalty movement but other issues are discussed including euthanasia, gay marriage, "designer babies" - or what I would call the new eugenics. Everything discussed in this group proceeds from an ethical, human rights perspective. Such a group allows for the consideration of important issues such as does one have the right to end one's own life if one is suffering from a disease for which there is no cure and only extreme suffering awaits the patient until death. Perhaps the most fundamental question that pervades this group would be where does the state's power end with relation to the right of the individual to exercise her ownership over her body.
In my assessment the appeal for young and not so young to participate in networking sites lies in a very basic human need: connection. Connection of course can manifest in many ways. The most common connection I would offer that comes to most people's minds in terms of social networking would be to connect with friends. There was a time not so long ago when maintaining existing connections was rather limited to phone calls, physical visits and this antiquated process called "writing a letter.: ;) Yet, social networking has allowed connection based upon mutual interests. Sites like LinkedIn have proven to be invaluable alternatives to the resume scattershot approach in that headhunters have access to posted resumes and prospective job seekers have more exposure to possible jobs due to the fact that social networks are webs of people that are really intricate, complex connections in which communication is fostered.
I really hadn't given much thought to social networking in terms of education before this week's assignment. Yet on reflection and keeping with my assertion that connection lies at the very core of social networking, I can imagine how social networking can be used to create a group in which the social networking site can serve as a forum for persons exploring a common theme. Because networking sites allow for a number of approaches for sharing information, PLEs can easily be created - and monitored. Even Facebook would be an interesting platform and there are many such connected group entities already existing there.
Most of my time in social networks involves human rights issues. This year I get the unique perspective of viewing America from my new home in Europe. It is an election year and on the death penalty front, two more states are on the verge of abolishing it. (N.B. The death penalty is forbidden in the EU and in fact membership in the EU carries many conditions, and one of the most important of these is that a country may not practice capital punishment nor can it have a capital punishment statute on its books for any reason. Belarus for example has not been accepted into the EU because it has not abolished capital punishment). As I had stated in my first paragraph, there are other issues besides the death penalty that interest me as well. I believe in the power of knowledge as an effective agent for change and I believe that knowledge is far more effective than guns to influence thought and bring about paradigm shifts. Human rights has been a global issue since the formation of the UN as a response to the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Social networking creates - to borrow a term from author Marshall McLuhan - a global village in which awareness of human rights abuses can be raised and change can be effected. I also spend a considerable amount of time in social networks involving such diverse topics as animal rights, environmental issues, baseball, music, and magic as a performance art. As a side note, I find social networks to be fertile ground for interesting anthropological study and I hope to explore social networks from an anthropological perspective because education IS an area of interest anthropologically as anthropology is the study of culture.
I would say that the benefits of spending time in these networks would be for the reasons I have noted thus far in this blog entry. The drawbacks would be that there is a danger of developing a blindness/deafness to arguments from the other side of every issue. For instance, spending time in purely anti-death penalty focused groups would not allow me to read/hear what the other side has to say about this issue. From a more prosaic standpoint, the overwhelming amount of information out there on any given issue makes organization a bit of a challenge. Yes, we have wonderful technologies that can do most of the work for us with just a point and a click as in Diigo for instance but even with these technologies, meaningful (read thoughtful and reflective) engagement of the vast amount of material is still overwhelming. There is also I believe the importance of recognizing that social networks are comprised of individuals each with differing learning styles and as such, communication becomes an exercise in balancing efficiency with in-depth content.
Best,
Joe
PS: Pictures are coming soon from The Netherlands. There is an amazing monument to Raoul Wallenberg who saved many Jews from the Nazis. The memorial is in Gouda which itself is quite picturesque in its medieval charm.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Gaming
I wanted to subtitle this week's blog entry as "Everything Old is New Again." This may seem strange in light of our readings this week pertaining to gaming and how it relates to teaching. If somehow we lived in the proverbial vacuum and knew nothing about gaming even prior to the late 20th century then much of what has been discussed would indeed seem new and transformative. I hasten to add that I do believe that gaming, VR and AR are without an iota of doubt transformative but, it strikes me as interesting that in a sense one could argue that we are actually catching up to a very old and venerable idea. Before I comment on the sites I chose to visit I would like to talk about gaming in relation to education by briefly discussing the notion of game as a meta-concept.
As Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, and Haywood (2011) argued, game play allows for experimentation, problem solving, working toward a goal, and learning from failure - all of which are conducive to education such as, I would argue already had been well established in ancient games such as Go, Go-Moku, Chess, and other ancient games. While one might assert and the assertion would indeed be valid that games were thought of primarily as things to do that were recreative in nature and something engaged in during leisure time, gaming has always held a formidable educative paradigm as its foundation. If we look at chess for instance we find that indeed, like any other game, it contains the laundry list that Johnson, et. al, (2011) listed. According to gaming experts chess is the only game in which luck/chance plays no factor at all as opposed to games like poker, blackjack, or even Monopoly. In chess, one engages in constant problem solving; one must not only anticipate her opponent's strategy but she must also plan her own strategy and "see" a number of possible moves ahead. Chess is a game of pure strategy and here is the meta-game concept I want to establish: chess and war have something in common in that both are adversarial in nature - in fact it may be argued that all games, even cooperative games - are adversarial in nature. I will return to this point shortly. Returning for now to the correlation between war and chess, it is clear even to the casual observer that the same strategy that serves the general or admiral in war is the same strategy played out on the chess board. The military leader must understand and exploit the strengths and challenges of soldiers. The chess player must do the same. The King for instance is the piece to be guarded and yet it is the King that is the weakest piece on the board. The strategy in chess is no different than that of war in that the king or capital must be protected while at the same time the focus is simultaneously on defeating the enemy king/capital. So we must ask what does strategy encompass? Strategy requires problem solving skills, a clear and attainable - in most cases - goal, experimentation, and learning from failure. Such is even true of games that do have a strong chance component. Tune into or play a game of poker and you will immediately understand that the savvy poker player for instance strategizes to minimize chance while simultaneously allowing for the vagaries of chance.
This may seem tangential to my readers but the thrust of our reading is how gaming contributes to education. If one of the components of education is the preparation of students then it seems to me that the notion of gaming as a viable component to learning seems to make such perfect sense that I am surprised that it took millenia until gaming was seriously studied and reported upon in educational journals. The military has engaged in war games for centuries to prepare for a multitude of possible combat scenarios; these war games were and are serious business and certainly not done merely as a leisure activity. So to me, gaming is not only important to education, it is essential. But what about that statement I made that even cooperative games are adversarial in nature? Every game has a goal, and in a cooperative game, that goal might be to slay the dragon at the end of a Dungeons and Dragons, or, working together to prevent an ecological disaster. Content is irrelevant in the meta-game concept; problem solving, learning from failure, experimentation, and in cooperative games, collaboration are skills that must be honed no matter the goal and no matter the subject and content.
Johnson, et. al, (2011) pointed out that the Serious Games movement sought to add a social layer to the game in that the social issues were social problems to be dealt with in which the player(s) must apply skills to learn to solve. I wanted to point out that even "entertainment" based games have taken on this sense of social issues. Though not mentioned in our readings, Johns-Hopkins University has taken the much more sophisticated big brother of World of Warcraft titled Neverwinter Nights and have used it to create social simulations which require collaborative problem solving. Daniel Punday in The Electronic Book Review discusses the sophistication of Neverwinter Nights as electronic narrative that is made more robust in that it includes a comprehensive toolset for players to design their own worlds. As a long time player of Neverwinter Nights, I can attest to its amazing possibilities as a tool for learning.
Johnson (2011) discusses the point that gaming blurs the line between the real world and the game world. Again I would argue that this has always been the case, but, for the sake of this discussion, I wanted to talk about a site that does just this. Stop Disasters engages the player in setting in motion measures to prevent disasters from earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis, volcanoes, and hurricanes. I played the tsunami scenario and it was intense. And the genius of the design really struck me. When you look at the game, there is nothing terribly realistic about it; the game world resembles a Lego block construction and the trees and other flora and the "people" were simple pixels on a screen. Playing the game however, I found myself carefully deciding what structures to purchase to minimize damage. The game also has developments you can buy with a virtual budget including schools to educate your citizens about tsunamis, radar detection systems to sense the approach of the wave, construction options to strengthen buildings and many other variables. The adversary is not only the imminent tsunami but also the fact that the player only has a limited amount of resources from which to draw to save the populace and minimize infrastructure damage. I felt a real sense of connection and actually learned quite a bit about tsunamis in the process. Design wise, the game - though it lacks the graphic sophistication of commercial games - nonetheless provides what I felt was a robust learning environment that educated the gamer on ecological disasters as well as a sense of urgency to minimize the destruction. For those reading this that would be interested in a game like this but quite realistic and even more strategic and panic inducing in nature, I would recommend giving the game "From Dust" a spin. It is available on the cloud computing digital distribution service called Steam for 15.00USD.
Johnson (2010) talks about the importance of games giving the player a sense of accomplishment. Is this not true also of traditional education? Think back to calculus or when you might have learned a second language and the feeling of satisfaction you experienced when you overcame a learning challenge. The BBC offers a wonderful game that deals with dinosaurs and ecology/environment in its excellent game called Planet Dinosaur. In this simulation, you must deal with the problem of nurturing your dinosaurs so that they reach adulthood. The simulation takes into account such factors as habitat needs for your creatures as well as strategies to deal with potential ecological disasters that threaten to destroy not only your dinosaurs that you have so carefully nurtured but also the very world in which you AND the dinosaur "live." At least for me, the sense of accomplishment was quite satisfying as I was able to meet and solve problems presented by the game's ecosystems.
Finally, I visited Teen Second Life. Second Life is one of world's largest online virtual communities. Teen Second Life - like its big brother simply titled Second Life - is literally a planet in which anything is possible. While it is usually referred to as a game, Second Life has been and is still by such prestigious universities as Cambridge, Oxford, East Anglia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and many more as well as corporations, governmental agencies, public and private schools, and law enforcement and health care professions as a platform for educative purposes. Second Life comes with a full suite of tools to build a simulation including 3D modeling tools, scripting, and tons of multimedia possibilities. Second Life is something that cannot be easily summed in even in a few paragraphs. It is free to "play". All you need to do is create an avatar and explore. I should add that Teen Second Life is actually incorporated into Second Life. (N.B. At one time it was a separate "world" but Linden Labs, the creators, have created grids on the main planet that are age restricted).
Our readings and the videos have all stressed the importance of gaming in allowing students to visualize difficult concepts in ways that traditional media simply cannot replicate. Students can experience dangerous situations without any real risk to themselves. Most importantly and the thing that really sums up my assertion that gaming is essential to learning is that gaming engages students and makes learning enjoyable. As Johnson (2010) stated, even "serious" games elicited positive responses from students. But, even more than this is the old adage that I believe is quite appropriate here: "we learn by doing" and games allows us to not only see, but do, and do such that we solve problems, learn from failure, experiment, and collaborate. Hey, that sounds like the "real world!"
Best,
Joe
As Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, and Haywood (2011) argued, game play allows for experimentation, problem solving, working toward a goal, and learning from failure - all of which are conducive to education such as, I would argue already had been well established in ancient games such as Go, Go-Moku, Chess, and other ancient games. While one might assert and the assertion would indeed be valid that games were thought of primarily as things to do that were recreative in nature and something engaged in during leisure time, gaming has always held a formidable educative paradigm as its foundation. If we look at chess for instance we find that indeed, like any other game, it contains the laundry list that Johnson, et. al, (2011) listed. According to gaming experts chess is the only game in which luck/chance plays no factor at all as opposed to games like poker, blackjack, or even Monopoly. In chess, one engages in constant problem solving; one must not only anticipate her opponent's strategy but she must also plan her own strategy and "see" a number of possible moves ahead. Chess is a game of pure strategy and here is the meta-game concept I want to establish: chess and war have something in common in that both are adversarial in nature - in fact it may be argued that all games, even cooperative games - are adversarial in nature. I will return to this point shortly. Returning for now to the correlation between war and chess, it is clear even to the casual observer that the same strategy that serves the general or admiral in war is the same strategy played out on the chess board. The military leader must understand and exploit the strengths and challenges of soldiers. The chess player must do the same. The King for instance is the piece to be guarded and yet it is the King that is the weakest piece on the board. The strategy in chess is no different than that of war in that the king or capital must be protected while at the same time the focus is simultaneously on defeating the enemy king/capital. So we must ask what does strategy encompass? Strategy requires problem solving skills, a clear and attainable - in most cases - goal, experimentation, and learning from failure. Such is even true of games that do have a strong chance component. Tune into or play a game of poker and you will immediately understand that the savvy poker player for instance strategizes to minimize chance while simultaneously allowing for the vagaries of chance.
This may seem tangential to my readers but the thrust of our reading is how gaming contributes to education. If one of the components of education is the preparation of students then it seems to me that the notion of gaming as a viable component to learning seems to make such perfect sense that I am surprised that it took millenia until gaming was seriously studied and reported upon in educational journals. The military has engaged in war games for centuries to prepare for a multitude of possible combat scenarios; these war games were and are serious business and certainly not done merely as a leisure activity. So to me, gaming is not only important to education, it is essential. But what about that statement I made that even cooperative games are adversarial in nature? Every game has a goal, and in a cooperative game, that goal might be to slay the dragon at the end of a Dungeons and Dragons, or, working together to prevent an ecological disaster. Content is irrelevant in the meta-game concept; problem solving, learning from failure, experimentation, and in cooperative games, collaboration are skills that must be honed no matter the goal and no matter the subject and content.
Johnson, et. al, (2011) pointed out that the Serious Games movement sought to add a social layer to the game in that the social issues were social problems to be dealt with in which the player(s) must apply skills to learn to solve. I wanted to point out that even "entertainment" based games have taken on this sense of social issues. Though not mentioned in our readings, Johns-Hopkins University has taken the much more sophisticated big brother of World of Warcraft titled Neverwinter Nights and have used it to create social simulations which require collaborative problem solving. Daniel Punday in The Electronic Book Review discusses the sophistication of Neverwinter Nights as electronic narrative that is made more robust in that it includes a comprehensive toolset for players to design their own worlds. As a long time player of Neverwinter Nights, I can attest to its amazing possibilities as a tool for learning.
Johnson (2011) discusses the point that gaming blurs the line between the real world and the game world. Again I would argue that this has always been the case, but, for the sake of this discussion, I wanted to talk about a site that does just this. Stop Disasters engages the player in setting in motion measures to prevent disasters from earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis, volcanoes, and hurricanes. I played the tsunami scenario and it was intense. And the genius of the design really struck me. When you look at the game, there is nothing terribly realistic about it; the game world resembles a Lego block construction and the trees and other flora and the "people" were simple pixels on a screen. Playing the game however, I found myself carefully deciding what structures to purchase to minimize damage. The game also has developments you can buy with a virtual budget including schools to educate your citizens about tsunamis, radar detection systems to sense the approach of the wave, construction options to strengthen buildings and many other variables. The adversary is not only the imminent tsunami but also the fact that the player only has a limited amount of resources from which to draw to save the populace and minimize infrastructure damage. I felt a real sense of connection and actually learned quite a bit about tsunamis in the process. Design wise, the game - though it lacks the graphic sophistication of commercial games - nonetheless provides what I felt was a robust learning environment that educated the gamer on ecological disasters as well as a sense of urgency to minimize the destruction. For those reading this that would be interested in a game like this but quite realistic and even more strategic and panic inducing in nature, I would recommend giving the game "From Dust" a spin. It is available on the cloud computing digital distribution service called Steam for 15.00USD.
Johnson (2010) talks about the importance of games giving the player a sense of accomplishment. Is this not true also of traditional education? Think back to calculus or when you might have learned a second language and the feeling of satisfaction you experienced when you overcame a learning challenge. The BBC offers a wonderful game that deals with dinosaurs and ecology/environment in its excellent game called Planet Dinosaur. In this simulation, you must deal with the problem of nurturing your dinosaurs so that they reach adulthood. The simulation takes into account such factors as habitat needs for your creatures as well as strategies to deal with potential ecological disasters that threaten to destroy not only your dinosaurs that you have so carefully nurtured but also the very world in which you AND the dinosaur "live." At least for me, the sense of accomplishment was quite satisfying as I was able to meet and solve problems presented by the game's ecosystems.
Finally, I visited Teen Second Life. Second Life is one of world's largest online virtual communities. Teen Second Life - like its big brother simply titled Second Life - is literally a planet in which anything is possible. While it is usually referred to as a game, Second Life has been and is still by such prestigious universities as Cambridge, Oxford, East Anglia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and many more as well as corporations, governmental agencies, public and private schools, and law enforcement and health care professions as a platform for educative purposes. Second Life comes with a full suite of tools to build a simulation including 3D modeling tools, scripting, and tons of multimedia possibilities. Second Life is something that cannot be easily summed in even in a few paragraphs. It is free to "play". All you need to do is create an avatar and explore. I should add that Teen Second Life is actually incorporated into Second Life. (N.B. At one time it was a separate "world" but Linden Labs, the creators, have created grids on the main planet that are age restricted).
Our readings and the videos have all stressed the importance of gaming in allowing students to visualize difficult concepts in ways that traditional media simply cannot replicate. Students can experience dangerous situations without any real risk to themselves. Most importantly and the thing that really sums up my assertion that gaming is essential to learning is that gaming engages students and makes learning enjoyable. As Johnson (2010) stated, even "serious" games elicited positive responses from students. But, even more than this is the old adage that I believe is quite appropriate here: "we learn by doing" and games allows us to not only see, but do, and do such that we solve problems, learn from failure, experiment, and collaborate. Hey, that sounds like the "real world!"
Best,
Joe
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Ethics and Open Content
Open content, public domain, copyleft, "no rights reserved", and a cornucopia of other terms have popped up all over this week's reading more prolifically than the proverbial mushrooms after a rainstorm. While at least to me it was a lot of information to internalize, essentially the subject at hand for this week's post is nothing short of a revolution in thinking about what has outlived its usefulness in terms of access to information. Here I am talking about copyright in relation to access to information and how traditional copyright has failed to meet the demands of today's learning society. Journey with me as I attempt to unravel all of the wonderful possibilities.
Open content according to Johnson, Adams, and Haywood (2011) has allowed the dissemination and perusal of information to move away from the traditional modality of centralized and authoritative repositories that were essentially static into decentralized shareable resources that are both free and ubiquitous. Open content allows users to customize a work for use in the curriculum (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood) and allow the modification to be shared with other educators. Here then is where I would argue that the revolutionary concept comes into play in that educators can now customize according to the specific needs of each individual classroom, striking a balance between the authoritative voice of the original author while at the same time adding their own voice. From a bottom line perspective schools and students also benefit financially in that these open content textbooks are shareable as already stated,but students may also download these textbooks for free or at very reduced cost.
Central however to this issue of the ability to share and modify are concerns about retention of intellectual property rights, copyright as it pertains to the creator's right to distribute the work as well as the ability for the end user - and in this context I am of course speaking of students and educators - to use content and modify it without worrying about possible legal hassles. A number of solutions have presented themselves to remedy this situation.
Creative Commons states that copyright laws were created before the advent of the Internet and that the copying and pasting we now take for granted once required the explicit permission of the original creator. Creative Commons is an effort to create an environment which allows for different types of licenses that allow copyright holders to retain their intellectual property while simultaneously allowing for different levels of use of their works. Creative Commons allows for different levels of licensing from completely free use of intellectually all the way to limited non-commercial use. Johnson, Adams, and Haywood (2011) do state that the open content is diffuse and driven more my personal taste at the time of their report than by collaborative efforts among many. Implicit in this statement is the notion that open content is still a burgeoning effort. In the article they state that the full realization of the fruition of collaborative effort with regard to open content will take a number of years.
All of this seems quite utopian and certainly one that can be realized but the road has not been without a few legal potholes and corporate positioning. Open Content Alliance relates a number of issues surrounding Google Books and its attempt to monopolize the area of public domain books and other materials also known as "orphans." Google claimed to be a guardian of these orphans and along with Microsoft creative an initiative to scan millions of orphan books from hundreds of libraries. Open Content Alliance however points out that the restrictions placed upon the use of these orphans were such that libraries and educational institutions that once hailed the effort as being a savior to the academic community in fact placed Google in a position to dictate who could use what material under their terms - essentially breaking the law by using existing laws. Further complicating the situation was the fact that five years prior to the `google initiative, the Million Books Project had already begun the process of scanning these orphans without any restrictions whatsoever. Google's financial muscle it would seem had the opposite effect of what the project intended in that Google positioned itself as intellectual property owner of books that it legally did not own. A settlement was reached but it positions Google Books as a commercial distributor of out of print books without any serious competition.
However, Google's financial muscle popularity has not proven to be insurmountable and that is a very good thing for learning communities and casual readers as well. In the area of textbooks Flat World Knowledge is built upon the premise that authors contribute to the learning community by creating textbooks that can be modified as previously discussed to suit the needs of individual learning environments. Authors get rapid royalty return, students get choice, and faculty can modify (Flat World Knowledge).
Thanks to open content, the stranglehold of copyright is loosening to the obvious benefit of learning communities. Open content allows revision and modification of textbooks while the original author still retains intellectual property rights, in other words, licenses exist whereby the original creator must be credited and the same distribution conditions apply fir the revision and for and shared revisions thereafter.
Open content is frequently digital material (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood 2011) and as such allows the inclusion of video, audio, and images that enhance textuality. As such, there are online repositories of images, videos, and other media that may be used freely and in many cases these materials may be altered as well.
With the continued efforts by Flat World, Open Content Alliance, and even Google Books, it would appear that as the kinks are worked out we may finally be in a situation where everyone involved in the learning community truly does benefit creatively, collaboratively, and financially.
--
Addendum: Google Books IS a blast! Along with all of the classics such as Chaucer, Austen, Poe, and well, you name the classic author and chances are her/his works can be found there, you can also find cool stuff like Baseball Digest (I am a HUGE baseball fan), The Weekly World News - yes, now we can read that tabloid with no guilt and also not contribute to the death of trees, Calvin and Hobbes comics and scads of other great stuff. Actually I had never explored Google Books for quite a while and I was pleasantly surprised to see the fun stuff there too. Now, if you will pardon me, I am off to read the story about Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush being space alien skeleton brothers to Ted Nugent! I LOVE life!!
Open content according to Johnson, Adams, and Haywood (2011) has allowed the dissemination and perusal of information to move away from the traditional modality of centralized and authoritative repositories that were essentially static into decentralized shareable resources that are both free and ubiquitous. Open content allows users to customize a work for use in the curriculum (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood) and allow the modification to be shared with other educators. Here then is where I would argue that the revolutionary concept comes into play in that educators can now customize according to the specific needs of each individual classroom, striking a balance between the authoritative voice of the original author while at the same time adding their own voice. From a bottom line perspective schools and students also benefit financially in that these open content textbooks are shareable as already stated,but students may also download these textbooks for free or at very reduced cost.
Central however to this issue of the ability to share and modify are concerns about retention of intellectual property rights, copyright as it pertains to the creator's right to distribute the work as well as the ability for the end user - and in this context I am of course speaking of students and educators - to use content and modify it without worrying about possible legal hassles. A number of solutions have presented themselves to remedy this situation.
Creative Commons states that copyright laws were created before the advent of the Internet and that the copying and pasting we now take for granted once required the explicit permission of the original creator. Creative Commons is an effort to create an environment which allows for different types of licenses that allow copyright holders to retain their intellectual property while simultaneously allowing for different levels of use of their works. Creative Commons allows for different levels of licensing from completely free use of intellectually all the way to limited non-commercial use. Johnson, Adams, and Haywood (2011) do state that the open content is diffuse and driven more my personal taste at the time of their report than by collaborative efforts among many. Implicit in this statement is the notion that open content is still a burgeoning effort. In the article they state that the full realization of the fruition of collaborative effort with regard to open content will take a number of years.
All of this seems quite utopian and certainly one that can be realized but the road has not been without a few legal potholes and corporate positioning. Open Content Alliance relates a number of issues surrounding Google Books and its attempt to monopolize the area of public domain books and other materials also known as "orphans." Google claimed to be a guardian of these orphans and along with Microsoft creative an initiative to scan millions of orphan books from hundreds of libraries. Open Content Alliance however points out that the restrictions placed upon the use of these orphans were such that libraries and educational institutions that once hailed the effort as being a savior to the academic community in fact placed Google in a position to dictate who could use what material under their terms - essentially breaking the law by using existing laws. Further complicating the situation was the fact that five years prior to the `google initiative, the Million Books Project had already begun the process of scanning these orphans without any restrictions whatsoever. Google's financial muscle it would seem had the opposite effect of what the project intended in that Google positioned itself as intellectual property owner of books that it legally did not own. A settlement was reached but it positions Google Books as a commercial distributor of out of print books without any serious competition.
However, Google's financial muscle popularity has not proven to be insurmountable and that is a very good thing for learning communities and casual readers as well. In the area of textbooks Flat World Knowledge is built upon the premise that authors contribute to the learning community by creating textbooks that can be modified as previously discussed to suit the needs of individual learning environments. Authors get rapid royalty return, students get choice, and faculty can modify (Flat World Knowledge).
Thanks to open content, the stranglehold of copyright is loosening to the obvious benefit of learning communities. Open content allows revision and modification of textbooks while the original author still retains intellectual property rights, in other words, licenses exist whereby the original creator must be credited and the same distribution conditions apply fir the revision and for and shared revisions thereafter.
Open content is frequently digital material (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood 2011) and as such allows the inclusion of video, audio, and images that enhance textuality. As such, there are online repositories of images, videos, and other media that may be used freely and in many cases these materials may be altered as well.
With the continued efforts by Flat World, Open Content Alliance, and even Google Books, it would appear that as the kinks are worked out we may finally be in a situation where everyone involved in the learning community truly does benefit creatively, collaboratively, and financially.
--
Addendum: Google Books IS a blast! Along with all of the classics such as Chaucer, Austen, Poe, and well, you name the classic author and chances are her/his works can be found there, you can also find cool stuff like Baseball Digest (I am a HUGE baseball fan), The Weekly World News - yes, now we can read that tabloid with no guilt and also not contribute to the death of trees, Calvin and Hobbes comics and scads of other great stuff. Actually I had never explored Google Books for quite a while and I was pleasantly surprised to see the fun stuff there too. Now, if you will pardon me, I am off to read the story about Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush being space alien skeleton brothers to Ted Nugent! I LOVE life!!
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