Plagiarism

I just finished reading this week's Kist assignment, and found that the section of chapter 3 dealing with plagiarism I had the most mixed reaction to.  In the section, she writes about "fair-use " and what it means in a web 2.0 world.  She explains that many teachers are afraid to use social networking tools in the classroom because of fear of plagiarism.  Evidently, to some, if you are concerned about plagiarism, you are out of style.

My initial reaction: "WHAT?!  Are you kidding me?"

Seriously though, I was appalled, and hoping that it really wasn't true that some educators are just accepting that it is going to happen, so we should all just go with it. Evidently, I was raised with the now "old school" idea that what a person creates is unarguably their property.  It seems as if Angela Maiers (whom Kist refers to in this section) is essentially of the opinion that if you put something on the Internet, it becomes a free for all, and anyone can use it however they see fit.  She also thinks that knowledge should be shared and not hoarded.  Basically, if you're putting something on the Internet, you are getting free exposure, so everyone can use it.

Then, I thought about Shakespeare, and the fact that if he wasn't able to alter material and create plays out of stories that already existed, there would be no Romeo and Juliet, because that was the property of Arthur Brooks. There would be no Julius Caesar, because Plutarch is the rightful owner of the story of Julius Caesar.  So maybe the 21st century is coming up with some good ideas, and moving in the right direction with the sharing of information on the Internet.  Maybe I need to change with the times and be more accepting of something I was taught to tolerate under no circumstances whatsoever. 

And then I read it again as I was writing this, and I think that this section is merely about a concern that teachers have about using an actual social media outlet as something that they reproduce a version of in their classrooms.  In this case, I still think that at least there should be an effort made to obtain permission to use other people's ideas before just accepting these fair use rules, and using other people's ideas.  As I understand, though, the rules are still being developed and changed, so I think that the most important thing that we can do as teachers is to always be aware of them.  I liked that they included the website for the fair use ideas, and I hope that when I am a teacher I will remember to check them from time to time.