This week, NPR featured an interesting interview with author, Lewis Hyde, who argues in his book, “Common Air” that the rapid expansion and notion of intellectual property rights threatens to stifle creativity and runs contrary to the ideals of America’s founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin, who created bifocals, the lightning rod, and the furnace stove, among other things, but never sought to patent his inventions because he wanted everyone to benefit from them.
Though it sounds abstract, it’s an intriguing piece that has implications for all aspects of society, including education and educational technology, which is driven and advanced through the collaborative process of sharing ideas and best practices.
Wikis and other forms of open source content are a perfect example, which you’ll have an opportunity to learn more about at NSBA’s T+L Conference, held in Phoenix from October 19-21.
If your district hasn’t dabbled in open source formats, October 19′s pre-conference session, “The Cloud, Open Source and Web 2.0: Financial and Instructional Implications for District Leaders,” is a good start for you.
While the October 20 workshop, “Beyond Textbooks: Sharing Teacher Success and Creativity,” features the culmination of years of hard work from the Vail School District, who developed a digital instructional calendar containing lesson plans and instructional resources aligned with state standards— then shared it with other districts across Arizona.
If that’s not an example of the power and importance of keeping ideas and dialogue open, we don’t know what is.
