My Contributions to the WebQuest Wikis

I made two changes to WebQuest Roles, one in self-knowledge and one in persuasion.  I uploaded two examples of WebQuests fitting the descriptions - in Self-Knowledge, I added a WebQuest that looks at heroic traits and how students can foster traits their heroes possess.  In Persuasion, I uploaded a WebQuest in which students determine whether or not Prince Hamlet would be fit to rule Denmark, and then argue their sides in a Senate environment.

In the Audience wiki, the change I made was to the Reality TV page. I uploaded an example of a reality show WebQuest in which contestants must research Korea to brief contestants of an upcoming Survivor: Korea show.

How to help someone use a computer

"A computer is a means to an end. The person you're helping probably cares mostly about the end. This is reasonable."

This thing to tell myself when helping somebody with a computer is a refreshing thing to read.  My Pepere just got a computer a year or two ago, and he uses it for nothing but email.  When he first got it, I tried to get him excited about it and interested in how it works, but I quickly realized that he was only interested in the one thing he got the computer for - staying in touch with his kids more easily and frequently.

"Attend to the symbolism of the interaction. Try to squat down so your eyes are just below the level of theirs. When they're looking at the computer, look at the computer. When they're looking at you, look back at them."

This one stuck out to me because I know that this is difficult when you're trying to help somebody with a computer problem.  This goes along with the rule about taking the keyboard away - for some reason, computer problems seem to be the most urgent thing in the world when you know what the problem is.  It's easy to just want to take over the situation for the person requesting help, but that doesn't help them at all.

If I'm teaching somebody to use Google Earth, it'll be easier than usual to attend to symbolism of the interaction - the controls are somewhat intuitive, but it's easy to fall into a place as another person who's just in awe of the amazing technology of the program, instead of a "guru."

In response to and quoting http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/how-to-help.html.

Copyright and Fair Use LR

16. At a local electronics show, a teacher buys a machine that defeats the copy protection on DVDs, CD-ROMs, and just about everything else. She lets her students use it so they can incorporate clips from rented DVDs into their film genre projects. This is fair use.

This is the one that really surprised me.  Not only was the author really flippant about the answer (that you can rip content for educational purposes), but the answer itself surprised me.  Digital protection is supposed to be like a safe - either you can't get in at all, or you can only get in under the owner's circumstances.  Cracking the digital protection, even for educational purposes, would be like breaking the padlock on somebody's door. It seems to me that the excuse that technological blocking and legal blocking are different things is a bit off.  The content is blocked for a reason - you wouldn't tell somebody they couldn't put a password on their own content.

Copyright and Fair Use SR

7 - Faculty and Family Website

I was surprised that this one was allowed - it seems to me like any project that uses copyright material without permission shouldn't be on the web.

10 - Clipart and Music Lesson Plan

This one half-surprised me. I understand not using music taken from file sharing in a lesson plan. But publicly available things like WebQuests have clipart all over them, yet they can be accessed by anybody - not only teachers. Why is sharing a lesson plan any different?

11 - Frontier Homes

I think this one's a stretch. I don't see the instructional value of "making fun of the spoiled family from California."

12 - Movie Rental Ripping

I was really surprised about this one. To see my thoughts on movie ripping, see my longer response.

13 - Holocaust Survivor Interview 

I was somewhat surprised about this one. I'm glad that it does work both ways. It definitely lends itself to making the Web a place of intellectual exchange.

14 - Disney VHS

As much as I know it's not covered under Fair Use, this one makes me angry, if only because it's just one location change away from being considered legal.  If a local parent offered to host a "party" for younger siblings, then it would have been fine (or at least spared the taboo of inappropriate use).

18 - Ethnic CD

This one could have used a little more explanation in the answer.  Royalty-free music, to the best of my knowledge, is a little hard to find.  I'd like to see that chart on page 32 of this magazine.

20 - Science Fair Multimedia

This item made me angry too.  The answer seems to imply that not only can the school not sell the CD (which I agree makes sense), but that they cannot give the CD away to students, as that might account as "wider distribution."