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12th April 2006

JumpCut and Educational Ethics

posted in digitalstorytelling, ethics, intellectualproperty |

JumpCut is another read/write web tool for browser-based video editing, similar to EyeSpot that I blogged about last week. The article “Ten video sharing services compared” analyzes different online video sharing / remixing sites and services. Thanks Miguel and Dean for these links!

Sites like these epitomize the “remix culture” in which our youth live, and many adults seem to live beside. How many adults you know think that all online music sharing is illegal? How many adults you know have never heard of Creative Commons? Probably a sizeable majority in both cases. I don’t know about anyone else, but quite often my head seems to be spinning with all these NEW TOOLS. Doug Johnson questions teachers’ ethical right to experiment with students, but what do we term an experiment versus a proven strategy?

I agree (sadly) with Miguel that in our current climate, most schools will likely block access to websites like JumpCut and EyeSpot. But is that censorship the right decision? Do we really think most parents are going to be up to the task of helping their children sort out intellectual property issues, Internet safety issues, and broader issues of digital and global citizenship without help from anyone in the schoolhouse? Certainly many are and will be. But there are certainly many who aren’t and won’t be.

What are our ethical obligations as teachers, particularly as public educators? I think most would agree those obligations extend far beyond helping students prepare to pass tests. How can administrators and IT department leaders become engaged in conversations where these issues are addressed– beyond the typical demonizing and blacklisting that seems to go on? Is this something I should perhaps take up explicitly in presentations and podcasts? I am thinking it likely is.

Educational ethics in an era of social networking. Sounds like a good article title to me. But even more important, it sounds like just the sort of REAL issue teachers should be talking about on their own, even blogging about, and certainly discussing formally during the requisite “sit and get” professional development training times the state requires.

On this day..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 10:20 pm and is filed under digitalstorytelling, ethics, intellectualproperty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 2 responses to “JumpCut and Educational Ethics”

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  1. 1 On April 13th, 2006, Infomancy » JumpCut Meta-Remix said:

    [...] This is a meta-remix of jumpcut. What, you might ask, is a meta-remix? Well, jumpcut is a remix itself, and this is a discussion of remixing, so…a remix of discussions about remixing must be a meta-remix. As Wesley Fryer pointed out yesterday in his “JumpCut and Educational Ethics” post, we need to be more aware of remixing as a concept and a practice. Sites like [jumpcut] epitomize the “remix culture” in which our youth live, and many adults seem to live beside. How many adults you know think that all online music sharing is illegal? [...]

  2. 2 On May 1st, 2006, Hamlin Gunther said:

    Eduardo V. Genao A magnet school in Hartford, CT has been stirring up a ton of controversy after its principal Eduardo V. Genao (pictured) allegedly coerced several mixed students to change their racial identity to white so that the school would qualify for more funding. Genao claims he asked for every student’s permission, but most deny this, and say that he guilted them into identifying as white for the good of the school:

    Genao conceded that he asked teachers to help him identify biracial students and that he called the students to his office. In the course of discussing their racial classifications, he acknowledged, he spoke with them about the school’s funding. “I did indicate to the students and the parents how the formula works,” he said.

    In fact, state guidelines tie the funding of magnet schools that opened before this year to residency, not race… to qualify for magnet school funding, schools must draw at least 30 percent of their students from the suburbs - a standard Sport & Medical Sciences Academy meets.

    Race becomes a factor, for schools established before this year, in regard to compliance with the Sheff vs. O’Neill school desegregation settlement. It says 28 percent of a magnet school’s students must be white in order to count toward reducing racial isolation. With just 89 white students in a population of 400, or 22 percent, Sport & Medical Sciences falls far short.

    Genao, who is in his first year at the magnet school and is new to Hartford, said he did not realize the state law linking funding to racial quotas applies only to new schools and not to established schools such as his. He denied, though, that the change in the students’ racial classifications was linked to money.

    This case has drawn attention to the massive inconsistencies that still exist in the ways schools collect racial data. Of course, this can all be traced to the Department of Education’s delays in implementing federal guidelines that require it, along with all federal agencies, to allow people to check all that apply, instead of just one box. (To learn more about this issue, check out our FAQ with Census expert Professor Ann Morning.)

    Personally, I think this should be a wake-up call to us mixed folks that our ambiguous status can be exploited for others’ financial and/or political gain. Another good example of this is Ward Connerly’s ongoing campaign to eradicate all racial categories. He uses sob stories of mixed people who are forced to pick one box as an illustration of why racial categories don’t make sense. But what some people fail to realize is that this initiative is extremely dangerous because in effect, there would be no way of tracking civil rights violations or racial discrimination.