Katkin’s weBLOG

It would seem rather appropriate that this week’s post is timed to coincide with our Freedom to Read Week in Canada. From February 22nd through 28th, Canadians are celebrating the 25th anniversary of “Freedom to Read Week.” This annual event draws attention to our right to intellectual freedom and serious issues such as censorship.

Intellectual freedom can be defined as an individual’s right “to read, to listen, to write, and to speak your beliefs and opinions” (Kids, know your rights! created by the Intellectual Freedom Committee 2005-2007, Association for Library Service to Children). In Canada, our Canadian Library Association’s Statement on Intellectual Freedom also states that:

All persons in Canada have the fundamental right, as embodied in the nation’s Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to have access to all expressions of knowledge, creativity and intellectual activity, and to express their thoughts publicly. This right to intellectual freedom, under the law, is essential to the health and development of Canadian society.

In “Intellectual Freedom 101,” Helen Adams refers to “intellectual freedom” as “one of the core values of the library profession” (Adams, 2007). Libraries play a prominent role in supporting our right to intellectual freedom, even when it might be considered “to be unconventional, unpopular or unacceptable” (CLA, Statement on Intellectual Freedom) to do so. This means that libraries and librarians have a responsibility to ensure there is access to materials that express a variety of opinions and interests, although there may be some who object to their content and may challenge their inclusion in a library collection.

Intellectual freedom also includes respect for intellectual property. Intellectual property and copyright protect the work of others from being reproduced without permission. It is important for students “to understand that property is a two-sided issue: they need to respect the property of others as well as protect their own property from the abuses of others” (Johnson, 2003). Since it has become so easy to copy the content from electronic sources, there is a need for increased emphasis on ethical behaviors such as respect for intellectual property by seeking permission for use and acknowledging authorship.

In this digital age of learning, we all have the potential to be content creators in the Web 2.0 environment. David Warlick agrees in “Redefining literacy 2.0,” when he says that “an increasingly accessible Web” means that many of us,”our students included, are [becoming] information producers and intellectual property owners” (Warlick, 2009). We can express ourselves in writing, visually, through sound, through movement, and through multimedia. However, with all this new freedom, comes responsibility and the need to be literate in new ways. In the United States, the National Education Technology Standards (NETS) for students was updated in 2007 to include the concept of digital citizenship which states that “students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior” (NETS-S).

The “affective domain” of our own K-8 continuum model for Literacy with ICT across the curriculum in Manitoba consists of four big ideas: responsibility and ethics, social implications, collaboration, and motivation and confidence. The affective domain is an important target area for our teacher-librarians, as classroom teachers often focus their attention on the big ideas of the cognitive domain of the continuum. Teacher-librarians can provide the essential support to help students “recognize the need to acknowledge authorship of intellectual property” in various media (text, images, music, video). As well, teacher-librarians guide students to recognize and question unethical behavior that might materialize in the form of bias, prejudice, hatred, racism, fraud or theft. Teaching students to be critical evaluators of online information becomes a critical new literacy for our students.

In his book entitled Learning right from wrong in the digital age, Doug Johnson asks the question…”Why do technology ethics deserve special attention? In considering the following, it becomes apparent that students require support in developing new literacies in “appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use” (Ribble, 2008-09) for the following reasons:

• media such as books, films and television have trivialized our respect for technology ethics by making hacking into computers seem acceptable, and even “heroic”
• a virtual world seems less serious than the real world, making it easier to “copy” software from a computer, as compared with physically “stealing” software from a computer store
• there seems to be less physical evidence when breaking the law electronically

In “Intellectual freedom for youth: Social technology and social networks,” author Annette Lamb outlines eight ways teacher-librarians can use their instructional role to support both students and teachers in navigating the “key issues related to intellectual freedom and social technology for young people.” Lamb’s “eight ways to take action” are particularly attractive because they allow teacher-librarians to envision specific ways in which they can use new social technology tools “as an opportunity to enhance thinking and learning” (Lamb, 2007).

1. look for ways to include these new tools in “positive, productive ways”
2. keep informed about new legislation (Bill C-61) that moves forward, rather than hinders progress
3. use social technologies to “amplify learning”
4. encourage students and teachers to evaluate social networks for themselves
5. work with students and their parents in developing strategies to ensure safety and privacy online
6. scaffold student experiences with social networking, from both within (portal) and outside (world wide web)
7. continually update your policies (collection development, selection policy, library procedures)
8. advocate for intellectual freedom

Source: Lamb, A. “Intellectual freedom for youth: Social technology and social networks, “Knowledge Quest: Intellectual Freedom 101. Vol.36, No.2, 38-45.

In our schools, teacher-librarians don’t only find themselves providing guidance in ethics and responsibility to students, but to their colleagues as well. As Mike Ribble observes in the article “Passport to digital citizenship: journey toward appropriate technology use at school and at home,” we are not only “educat[ing] our children on the issues that are occuring with technology but provid[ing] resources for our teachers and parents as well.” Teaching and promoting ethical behavior to adults is critical because they are often the models for students in their care. If we expect students to model responsible, ethical conduct when using technology, then we must also display the same regard and respect as their teachers. As Doug Johnson says, “It’s useless to lecture about intellectual property when we as adults use pirated software!” (Johnson, 2003).

An important strategy that teacher-librarians can use when dealing with the controversy that often results from disagreeable discussions that lecture on copyright infringement, plagiarism and disrespect for intellectual property, is to focus on the positives and what is permitted, rather than what is not. For example, if students and teachers are frequently using images that are not copyright free, teacher-librarians can re-direct them to sites and sources where they may have permission to use free images (World Book Online, Creative Commons, flickr). When we want to divert students and teachers from activity that is seemingly harmless, but unethical, teacher-librarians can experience greater success if they have a do-able alternative ready to offer up in substitute of the offending behavior.

Perhaps one of the most effective ways educators can “help students understand and appreciate information as valuable property is to make them property owners” (Warlick, 2009). We can also support students in developing a deeper understanding of intellectual property, by encouraging teacher-librarian and classroom teacher collaborations, whereby this dynamic instructional team plans and designs assignments that discourage plagiarism and promote original thought. By embedding safety, ethics and responsibility within student projects, digital literacy skills should eventually become seamlessly woven within the inquiry process. More than ever before, schools will need to rely on the skillset and expertise of the teacher-librarian in interpreting copyright laws, confronting censorship and defending intellectual freedom in a new digital age – where the very social nature of our online environment has forced us to re-evaluate how we interact with both public and private information.