How+to+Teach+a+Remix+Generation

[|Elluminate for Classroom Practice Track C]

Alison Saylor, Dan Watkins, Janni Black
Related WIKI - http://remixtheclassroom.wikispaces.com/

==Our students treat the digital media as their personal palate. Ownership means little - sound, image and video are just bits they use for self-expression. Today's youth like putting their thoughts out there digitally and practice this outside of school with Myspace designs, music and video remixes- publishing their work to Youtube constantly. ==

==If we can harness this passion for digital creation in the schoolroom it can help our students learn more deeply while helping them develop critical communication skills for life in the 21st century. As educators, our question is, “Do we ignore their uses of media to make their own creations, punish efforts or try to harness and guide this trend”. ==

==Media leaders Michael Wesch and Lawrence Lessig are posing questions about creativity being crushed by our current copyright laws. We don't need to wait until the copyright laws change, we can introduce Mash-ups in our classrooms today legally using copy-shared works. We teach the evils of plagiarism and how to cite works but beyond this, the lines are murky. ==

==From the inception in 2004 of the Grey Album (a remix of the Beatles White album and JayZ's black album) to the thousands of Youtube mash-ups created by the masses every day, as educators need to look at this topic again and incorporate works using the Creative Commons license structure. We feel there is room to allow students to construct knowledge using digital media for a variety of curricular subjects. ==

Sadly Lawrence Lessig who originally said he would Skype in to our conversation has had a conflict and will no longer be able to join us.