Podcast260: EduBloggerCon 2008, Intellectual Property and Recording: A Conversation with Elaine Roberts of Pearson

By Wesley Fryer On June 29, 2008 · · 16 Comments

At EduBloggerCon 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, on June 28th, some controversy arose regarding the presence of videographers hired by Pearson Education. Steve Hargadon, who was the primary organizer of EduBloggerCon, gave permission to Pearson to attend and videotape many of the sessions pending permission from the presenters and speakers themselves. Today I had an opportunity to interview Dr. Elaine Roberts, the Director of Product Development and Professional Growth for Pearson, about the video recording which took place at EduBloggerCon this year and Pearson’s plan for utilizing this video content. In my view, it is a real compliment that a respected and large educational publishing company like Pearson views the conversations and ideas discussed by educators at EduBloggerCon to be important enough to document and share. If we, as change agents in our schools and communities, want our voices and ideas to gain a broader and more mainstream audience, I think we should embrace opportunities like this to both share our perspectives as well as further educate educational publishing companies themselves. Respecting intellectual property rights is VERY important, and the conversations which took place before, during, and after EduBloggerCon regarding the recording and sharing of ideas are needed. How do we change? Through conversations. Hopefully the opportunity to have Pearson record and share participant perspectives at EduBloggerCon on Friday will lead to more constructive conversations about learning and educational change in the 21st century in the classrooms and educational board rooms around our nation and world. We’ve still had LOTS of great opportunities for “unconference” conversations at NECC 2008, and things are just getting underway here in San Antonio!

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