Darknet classroom

The microcontent-savvy Bernie Goldbach at IrishEyes (yes, he teaches in Ireland) offers a mini-Darknet classroom, noting:

No amount of legal constraints will roll back the way an entire generation leverages the broadband they use to connect their worlds. ...

As a third level lecturer, I have encountered a creeping erosion to the "fair use" granted in the service of culture. Today, if I use more than 500 words from a source, I am expected to get permission. Since I do not have a research assistant who can plod after permissions, I now use "jump lists" and bibliographies. Test results show the students don't follow the lists. The end result is they don't read required material and the overall quality of essays and classroom discussion suffers. ...

Nearly half of my first year students carry connected, always-on devices. They can share photos, videos, music and assigned texts in the classroom, on the bus or in the canteen. By the end of their third year, they are creating and distributing video shorts and mashing up music, photos and graphics from their "skunkworks sandbox". Some of their stuff is edgy, often demented, and with generous helpings of originality.

This is exactly the kind of innovative, experimental grassroots creativity that we should be celebrating instead of closing off to our young people because of outdated copyright laws.

I hope Darknet gets much wider dissemination on college campuses so that these issues can be debated by the students being directly affected. Here's a start.