How Patents Hinder Innovation (graphic)

Free Speech

http://xkcd.com/1357/

What might explain online incivility?

Here are some possible explanations for why there is a lack of civility online:

• Lack of manners guidelines

* there are many guidelines for kids and educators/parents to teach how to be good digital citizens 

* Commonsensemedia.org is one excellent resource: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/blog

• Online disinhibition effect - Like being in a crowd, online behavior can allow people to feel less inhibited in what they say online.

* avoid the disapproving looks
* lack of hierarchy or status differential
* absence of non-verbal cues to intent and meaning
* de-personalization with anonymous, automated communication

• Wild West mentality: little or hidden enforcement of social norms, so people act in ways that make them feel like they can say anything they want without fear of retribution or laws.

• Sensory overload - can't figure out which media is appropriate to comment because so many media are open and viewed.

• Sleep deprivation - we know what lack of sleep can do for judgement 

Can you think of others, or expand on these?  Do you agree that these might be some reasons?  Why or why not?  Clive "the jive" Bundy made it to the front page of the NYTimes today.  I think his mentality, and those of his "cowboys" has an air of Wild West lawlessness about it (and they have the horses and hats to prove it).  But they think they are just being patriotic - and going against the government is about as patriotic as you can get, if you're a tea party advocate.  

Are there other examples that you chose that fit these explanations, or do you have other reasons?

DMCA Rulemaking

We didn't have a chance yet to discuss the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), so in addition to the book chapter on  "Balance Toppled: Who Owns the Bits?", I wanted provide a more recent take on this rather controversial law.

The DMCA came about because there was a shift towards the distribution of copyrighted materials in digital form (copyright) accompanied by new methods of protection. Through the use of "digital locks," technological systems behind which these copyrighted materials are protected, producers and manufacturers are able to automate fine grained control over who can access, use, and/or copy their works and under what conditions. Producers insist these "digital locks" are necessary to protect their materials from being pirated or misappropriated.

But, these new technological systems, and the DMCA provisions making it a crime to bypass them, undermine individuals ability to make "fair use" of digital information, and essentially replace the negotiation of the terms of use for those products with unilateral terms dictated by copyright owners. These self-help technical protection mechanisms are generally not evident to the purchaser or user until after the sale. In some cases, producers who use these technical locks to enforce limits on access and use of their works fail to disclose the terms of use to the purchasers or licensees of their products.

Technological protection systems are already in place in DVDs, eBooks, video game consoles, robotic toys, Internet streaming, and password-protected sections of web sites. The fact that a digital protection may be really weak and easy to circumvent has not prevented courts from applying this law to punish those who bypass them.

As a result, the legitimate activities of scientists, software engineers, journalists, and others have been chilled. The DMCA has been used by copyright holders and the government to prevent the creation of third-party software products, silence computer scientists, and prosecute journalists who provide hypertext links to software code.

In the article I posted for this week, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits "circumventing" digital rights management (DRM) and other "technological measures" used to protect copyrighted works. While this ban was meant to deter copyright infringement, the law is misused to chill innovation, free speech and fair use. The one ray of light: every three years the U.S. Copyright Office convenes a "rulemaking" to consider granting exemptions to the DMCA's ban on circumvention to mitigate the harms the law has caused to legitimate non-infringing uses of copyrighted materials. The Copyright Office pores over exemption proposals submitted by the public, weighs the pros and cons, and then offers recommendations to the Librarian of Congress, who ultimately grants or denies the exemptions. At the end of the article, the authors suggest:

• The Register of Copyrights and the Librarian of Congress would do well to go back to the drawing board and come up with a process, and a standard, that will help a broader array of concerned users to make their case for legitimate exemptions.


• The Register should revisit the long-standing policy of making the proponent of an exemption demonstrate the need for it every three years, no matter how obvious the need for the exemption is, or how many times it’s been granted in the past. It’s absurd to automatically put the burden of proof on the people seeking an exemption under all circumstances, and it's not required by the DMCA. Once the Librarian grants an exemption, the burden should shift to those who oppose it to show in future rulemakings why it isn’t needed anymore.


• Finally, the Copyright Office should be more receptive to granting exemptions for innovative uses of new and emerging technologies. The fact that an exemption was granted for smartphones but not tablets, even though they are virtually interchangeable devices with increasingly similar functionalities, shows that the rulemaking process doesn’t track the ways consumers are using those devices today.

To see what was granted and was denied, read the 2012 DMCA Rulemaking article.

Are you aware of other examples where the DMCA has been used to stop people from using products they buy and change because of weak controls or fair use assumptions?  What about product developers that allow people to circumvent their products (e.g., Google Glass, X-box Kinect - see http://openkinect.org/wiki/Main_Page)?

SXSWedu & Blended Learning

I found the SXSWedu site in a roundabout way, as I often do.  I was reading the disruptive innovation blog from the Clayton Christensen Institute (Prof. Christensen is the man noted for inventing the definition of disruptive innovation):

The theory of disruptive innovation describes a process by which a product or service transforms an existing market by introducing simplicity, convenience, accessibility, and affordability.

Anyway, the blog I was reading, "Could local innovation networks be a key to adopting blended learning?" which provided an example of blended learning at Reynoldsburg City Schools. 

Blended learning involves leveraging the Internet to afford each student a more personalized learning experience, meaning increased student control over the time, place, path, and/or pace of his or her learning. The definition of blended learning is a formal education program in which a student learns:

1. at least in part through online learning, with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace;
2. at least in part in a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home;
3.  and the modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience.

Here is a short video of blended learning from The Learning Accelerator. 

I found this notion of blended learning similar to topics we discussed on how to create new learning environments in the classroom that offers collaborative (affinity) spaces, as well as taking into account different learning skills of individual students.

The SXSWedu.com site that I found is pushing the envelope in designing many new innovations in education.  You can see a video there of some examples.  But what impressed me most was the 2014 Features Session by Jack Andraka.  Here is a HS kid (some kid) who took on the challenge of finding a better, cheaper way to scan for cancer cells.  It's worth watching.  

Some things to think about:  

• What do you think of the blended learning idea?  Investigate other new learning innovations either at SXSWedu.com or other sites and comment on them.

• What did you take away from Jack Andraka's talk?  

Video Game Questions

The readings for April 8 focus on video games and gamers. At issue is whether the real world can measure up as "the carefully designed pleasures, the thrilling challenges, and the powerful social bonding afforded by virtual environments" or whether "reality, as compared to games, is broken" (McGonigal, p.3).

According to McGonigal (based on mostly 2008/2009 data so assume the numbers are larger now), hundreds of millions of people worldwide, including 183 million active gamers in the US -- as well as "4 million in the Middle East, 10 million in Russia, 104 million in India, 10 million in Vietnam, 10 million in Mexico, 13 million in Central and South America, 15 million in Australia, 17 million in South Korea, 100 million in Europe, and 200 million in China" play video and computer games.

The questions to consider are many:

• McGonigal thinks we should "use everything we know about game design to fix what's wrong with reality" by solving real-world problems like computer and video game theorists (p.7). 

• According to James Paul Gee, "Lots of young people pay lots of money to engage in an activity that is hard, long, and complex. As an educator, I realized that this was just the problem our schools face — how do you get someone to learn something long, hard, and complex, and yet still enjoy it?"

• Alternatively, are gamers missing out on reality by spending too much time in digital games? 

• Are games too violent and lead gamers to become violent themselves? 

• Are games designed for boys, leaving girls behind? Are only the affluent gamers? 

• And what about job prospects?  Are avid gamers more likely to get better jobs because of their problem-solving skill game mentality? That is, what are the educational benefits to video game playing? 

Here are the readings on video games, as well as the questions. Read the CQ Researcher article, as well as the the Intro and Chapter 1 of McGongigal's book, Reality is Broken, and comment on these issues here, or on our class wiki.

Learner Lectures

Here is the list of students and topics as discussed today, Mar.6 (order is random):

• Online Education
• David Celaya
• Online Dating (e.g., Tinder)
• Riley Brennan 
• Bitcoin
• John Campbell & Tyler Peterson 
• Google Glass
• Alfred Jimenez
• Crowdfunding (e.g., Kickstarter)
• Fletcher DellaGrotta
• Rebaz Ahmad & Victoria Barry
• Internet Streaming & Net Neutrality
• Slow Internet & Infrastructure
• Robert Pfluger
• Privacy Security & Raytheon's RIOT
• Whitney Bruns
• Music Piracy Software
• Alexis Copeland
• To be decided 
• Eric Gun Ho Bae 
• Colton Cray