To Be or Not To Be: Copyright Edition

Pooh's News

     Having read the copyright book assigned for this class I would not agree that the school's use of the name Pooh is a copyright violation.

1. The school used the name of this character for a new use.  Winnie-the-Pooh is not known for having any type of news reporting nor does he read/write reviews of books. 
2. The name is being used for educational purposes.  The school added this section to their announcements to tell students about different pieces of literature. 
3. Even though they are not exercising this right in this case, the school has the right to use copyrighted material to enhance curriculum and to sell said curriculum. 
4. The students are creating new material with their reports and fair use gives them the right to broadcast those new materials. 

I tried again to find five reasons I do not think the school violated copyright laws but really I only have three... since one of the listed is not applicable because the school is not using the material in this way.  The school refrained from associating their news segment with photos of Winnie-the-Pooh and his voice to avoid direct copyright infringement.  They also put the name to a new use. I do not think they violated copyright laws in this case. 

(4/4)

To Be or Not To Be: Copyright Edition

Movies All Day

     The school was very cautious not break copyright laws regarding local businesses.  What they did not consider were the copyright laws governing the videos they were showing.  I believe the school is in violation of copyright in this situation; fair use does not apply here.

1. Although the school may have purchased the videos they were showing they do not have the right to show the video to the public or to large groups of people.  There is a special license for that. 
2. The school is not changing the use of the videos for an educational purpose.  Students are not learning/creating something new by putting videos on a loop for a festival day. 
3. The school is not using the videos to enhance a lesson or curriculum; they are using it for a festival day.

I really tried to make five points from this prompt, but really there are only three. The school did not buy (unless that information was left out) the proper viewing rights for the videos to show them during a festival.  The videos are not being edited and applied to new learning for an educational purpose (though some would argue fun is educational).  And they are not being used to enhance a lesson or curriculum. 

(3/4)

To Be or Not To Be: Copyright Edition

Gap Steal?

It definitely seems as though Gap broke copyright laws in this situation.  Two tips from the "tipster" in this article convinced me that this was a copyright violation.  First, he noted that this is not a picture of your typical Jaguar.  The sketching across the windshield is very unique.  Second, he notes that the aforementioned lines on the windshield are "as good as a barcode" in this situation. (I guess that is only one point).

After reading the Copyright materials for this course and reading this article I do believe that Gap broke copyright violations to make money from an image they stole from flickr.

If this were an educational situation, the only thing that might change my mind is the profit being made.  If the school/class chose to use this image and were not making a profit on this I would not consider it to be copyright.  Or, if the school were making money for a charity rather than for personal gain, I would not consider it to be copyright. (But maybe I would be a super lenient copyright judge).

(2/4)

To Be or Not To Be: Copyright Edition

A Family Christmas Card

In this situation, neither the family nor the photographer took steps to mark that the photograph belonged to someone.  If the shop owner sincerely believed the image was generated then his ignorance is bliss (in this situation).  Furthermore, the shop owner made new use for the photo.  He did not post this on a Christmas card, rather he used to advertise a grocery delivery service.  This falls under the act of fair use.

My decision would not be considered differently if this were an educational situation.  I do not find the shop owner guilty to copyright violation.  His ignorance and intended use make him innocent, in my ruling.

(1/4)

Game Based Learning: Dogwood Trail

Prompt:

Sociology
     It was hard to leave the Field of Daisies, but you feel you have a duty to explore this Dogwood Trail further. It seemed like you had traveled only a little further before you saw quite a site to behold -- a 1,000 year old Ebony Tree!

Ebony Tree: 

Strong Social Connectivity from Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

Stronger Social Connectivity

• Applications in conjunction with social media sites such as Facebook allow users to keep in touch with family and friends across the world. 
• The game mentioned in McGonigal's book was Lexulous-a scrabble like game equipped with chat. 
• For a while, I played Words with Friend, similar to both Scrabble and Lexulous. It allowed me to connect with family and friends that were at home in Pennsylvania while I am in school in Tennessee. 
• Applications in conjunction with social media sites such as MySpace Facebook also allow users to meet new people and make new friends. 
• Lexulous was designed so that users could create "random" games and battle opponents they may not know. 
• I remember, back when I had a MySpace page, that I began adding people that played the same gardening game that I played so that we could send each other time or seeds or whatever other needs we had. 
• Asynchronous Game-play
• Players do not have to be online at the same time to continue a game.  This allows people to be flexible and play whenever they are free or between appointments. 
• This is the key factor to the addictiveness of games such as Lexulous, Words with Friends, Trivia Crack and so on.

Happy Embarrassment 

• Every type of game comes with some type of banter. 
• Players taunt one another to brag about their win or high score and to encourage one the other player to be better. 
• This last part, encourage the other player to be better.  It doesn't seem like banter would be able to do this, but as we taunt our opponents it drives them to beat us.  This would go back to the fun in failure that I wrote about in my last post. 
• Excitement in these social games has even created a new lingo. 
• Pwned, often pronounced poned or pawned, derived from the misspelling of owned in phrases like, "I just owned that game."  I included this under the happy embarrassment section because it is slightly an embarrassment to the intelligence of gamers.  They misspell a word so often that they have created a clip of the word owned.

Vicarious Pride

• Naches
• This Yiddish term means bursting with pride.  Many gamers say they experience this type of euphoria when they have taught or mentored has succeeded.  Players that report this feeling often experience this euphoria when they are coaching someone at a game and the player gets closer to or completes their mission. 
• Mentoring our friends and family makes us happy and brings us closer together. 
• The happiness we receive when we cheer on our family and friends demonstrates our desire to invest in other people's growth and achievement. 
• On the other side of the scale, if we are not actively helping someone achieve their goal, we often feel jealousy or resentment.  
• Our lack of participation in their success is visible through the lack of pride shown in our emotional systems. 

Ambient Sociability

• Sometimes company is better from a different room. 
• Massive multiplayer online games allow people to communicate (via chart or headphone/speaker devices) and work toward a common goal from different rooms (or houses or states or countries).  Many players, however, have reported that they prefer to play these games alone. 
• Researchers have found that players enjoy playing video games side by side. 
• They may or may not be playing the same game, but they are likely not playing the game together.  This ambient sociability is the sensation of sharing the same space with one another. 

Game Based Learning: Dogwood Trail

Prompt:

     Coming out of the cave, off to your left, through a small gap on down the ravine from the cave, you see the most marvelous Field of Daisies in sort of a natural meadow within these woods! You can do with a bit of sunshine and openness after the dimness of the cave and you take off that way jogging will you keep an eye to the ground for the twists and turns of your path. You used to use daisies to gauge your love life ("Loves me, Loves me not") but you always felt like such a failure.

Field of Daisies: 

Fun Failure and Better Odds of Success from Reality is Broken  by Jane McGonigal

Failure and Better Odds of Success

• When you are playing a well designed game failure does not disappoint. 
• Failure makes gamers excited, interested, and optimistic to try again.  They were paying attention to the moves they made before and they are likely to recognize where they made a mistake and attempt to fix it in the next round. 
• Failure at well designed games allows the users to develop mental toughness. 

Why Failure Makes Us Happy

• Researchers have identified three factors that demonstrate the emotions of failure
• Heart rate
• Users pump blood faster when they are more emotionally involved. 
• Skin Conductivity
• Researchers noted that people were sweating more which is a known sign of stress. 
• Electrical Activation of the Facial Muscles
• We make different facial expressions when we are experiences different emotions-smiles, scowls, frowns.
• Researchers found that the strongest bursts of positive energy were displayed when gamers made a mistake. 
• Watching their mistake play out and thinking about how to avoid it next time brought emotional reactions of excitement, joy, and interest.
• The animation sequence made failure enjoyable. 
• When game designers create a failure scene that is fun to watch gamers are more at ease with failing.  I have witnessed many people crash cars in games like Grand Theft Auto because they enjoy watching vehicles smash into one another with no repercussions in reality.  
• In the game world, the more users fail the more eager they are to do better. 
• The right kind of failure feedback (such as a fun animation) is a reward; these 'rewards' get users engaged in their activity and make them more optimistic about the odds.  Furthermore, it reinforces the user's sense of control over the game's outcome.

Better Hope of Success

• Winning tends to end the fun. 
• Once you master a level it is mastered.  You can go back and play the level again but you probably know where all the traps are hidden and the best way to complete the mission. 
• There are games, such as Crash Bandicoot, that encourage users to replay levels to look for missed boxes or to beat their score. 
• But in most games, the hope of success is better than success-in other words, failure keeps the fun going. 
• The unnecessary obstacle becomes less of an obstacle over time. 
• Continued play time and practice helps gamers master the challenges that stand between them and their missions.  Over time, they master more challenges and move on to harder ones.  But in the end, they learn how to overcome their obstacles to succeed. 

The Hope of Rock Star Success

• Rock Stardom is something that is out of reach for most gamers.  But games such as rock band allow them to live out their fantasies. 
• You don't reach actual rock stardom, but users enjoy the thrill of playing famous songs and performing with and for friends and family. 
• Rock band provides users with a semi-real life experience.  The microphone has a pitch register to detect whether or not the singer is meeting the right notes at the right time.  The drums are designed like modern electric drums. 
• Even games such as rock band include entertaining failure. 
• When players get behind on a song the song begins to visually crash.  The music slows and sounds worse.  The crowd boos.  If you are bad enough you character will be booed from the stage and will sulk away pouting. 

Review: 

     Failure can be fun... in games at least.  Games designers take the time to make failing at their game seem like a reward.  They include fun animations that stimulate the same physical responses that come when gamers complete an epic win.  Failing at a game encourages users to master the challenges and prevail at their mission. 

      This would be an awesome strategy to include in the classroom but I do not see how I would make this work.  Create a cool video for students that fail a spelling test? In video games, users sometimes fail on purpose, and that is the last attitude I want to encourage in my classroom. 

Game Based Learning: Dogwood Trail

Prompt:

     Dogwood Lane is such a pleasant walk. The flowering trees are beautiful. When I see the opening to a Cave, just down the hill from where the path turns, visions of cool subterranean beauty come to mind as the perfect complement to this trek in the sunshine that is starting to get a little bit warm. Someone has carved "Csikzentmihalyi" into the stone by the cave entrance.What does that mean? You go explore for a few minutes...
     Oh, and of course, Stalagmites... That is a curious one over there. It almost looks like writing along the side... "Auto..." "Autotelic?" What? You are not sure what autotelic means, but that does not appear to be a stalagmite!

Cave: 

Stalagmites

     Work will always be hard, but it does not always have to be unpleasant. According to Csikzentmihalyi, there is evidence in the Bible that shows that work has the ability to be the most enjoyable part of life.  In some cultures the community works to make daily chores feel like flow activities. People from these communities seldom distinguish work from free time. But even in these communities the test of time has taken its tool.  People of the older generations valued and enjoyed their work whereas people in the younger generations, twenty to thirty years old, would have preferred to work less and spend more time in leisure.
     Autotelic jobs are more about the person doing the job than the job itself.  People with an autotelic personality have the ability to, despite limitations, change constraints into opportunities for expressing their freedom and creativity.
      For people with non-autotelic personalities the job must be changed to fit the characteristics of a game in order for them to enjoy the work.  The job would inherently resemble a game equipped with variety, opportunity, clear goals, and feedback.

Review:

     This was a very interesting article to read.  It is weird to think that people did work based on what they wanted to do or how the weather was.  People would do what needed to be done for the sake of production for that day.  In our world, since the industrial revolution, people do what they are told to do, regardless of the weather.  Very few people make their work related decisions based on the weather.

If life were a game, we would enjoy our jobs more. 

Game Based Learning: Dogwood Trail

Prompt:

     Dogwood Lane is such a pleasant walk. The flowering trees are beautiful. When I see the opening to a Cave, just down the hill from where the path turns, visions of cool subterranean beauty come to mind as the perfect complement to this trek in the sunshine that is starting to get a little bit warm. Someone has carved "Csikzentmihalyi" into the stone by the cave entrance.What does that mean? You go explore for a few minutes...
     Ah, Stalactites, beautiful! As you gaze up, though, you feel a breeze, as though someone brushed by you. Your imagination? Then why did the candle flicker and what are the papers in your hand. Arghh... you are startled and drop the papers - should you pick them up? Is this a time when you should Flow with the activities around you?

Cave:

Stalactites

     Flow activities are designed to make the optimal experience easier to achieve. These include activities such as chess, dancing, sailing, making music, and rock climbing. These activities include all four main traits outlined by McGonigal in one of my previous posts: goals, rules, feedback, and voluntary participation. The structure of flow activities enable participants to reach a highly enjoyable and ordered state of mind.
     Games off the opportunity to go beyond the boundaries of ordinary experience in the areas of competition, chance, alternate conscience, and mimicry. Each of these areas of gaming provides the common factor of equipping the participants with a sense of discovery; they push the participants to new levels-sometimes to levels they didn't know they could reach (epic win).  Some activities even help people balance boredom and anxiety.
     In order for flow activities to combat boredom we must understand the four stages that people would go through as the play a flow game.  The first  stage would be in flow because the participant is learning how to do the rudiments of a new game.  The second stage is boredom as the participant loses interest in the basics.  The third stage is anxiety, when the participant meets someone that challenges the basic skills they have mastered.  The fourth stage returns to flow as the participant challenges himself to be better at the game.  This cycle continues and participants move up in the category of flow as they master more challenging skills.

Flow Channel's to Combat Boredom and Anxiety

1. Tennis
• Stage 1: Flow: Getting the ball over the net.  Participants are in flow as they learn how to master the basic skill.  It is thrilling to see how the ball reacts to how you hit it, based on force and speed. 
• Stage 2: Boredom: Hitting the ball over the net becomes boring; there are only so many ways you can hit a ball. 
• Stage 3: Anxiety: Participants meet someone that has mastered skills beyond their level.  This motivates them to learn and master more skills. 
2. Bingo
• Stage 1: Flow: The excitement of hearing the numbers called and finding them on your sheet is thrilling.  You enjoy seeking and marking in the effort to fill your sheet. 
• Stage 2: Boredom: Beginning participants only have one bingo card, so they get bored as the caller shouts combinations they do not have on one sheet. 
• Stage 3: Anxiety: Participants get anxious when they are only a few spaces away from BINGO when someone else shouts BINGO. 
• Stage 4: Flow: They learn to master dobbing multiple bingo cards and the thrill waiting for the number to be called. 
3. Skydiving
• Stage 1: Flow: Participants are excited to learn about the adventure they are about to embark on. 
• Stage 2: Boredom: Participants begin to snooze as they continue book work and safety instructions for the upcoming adventure. 
• Stage 3: Anxiety: The thought of jumping out of a plane and plummeting to the Earth begins to sink in.  Participants begin to realize the risk they are taking and my even second guess themselves. 
• Stage 4: Flow: The day comes and they step up to the plate and jump  out of the plane.  They thrill of falling to the Earth gives them a huge adrenaline rush. 
4. Dance
• Stage 1: Flow: Learning a new skill brings a lot of excitement to the participants.  They are overjoyed at the idea of learning a new step. 
• Stage 2: Boredom: Practice makes perfect but it also gets boring.  Doing the same steps over and over are tiring. 
• Stage 3: Anxiety: A much more advanced dancer comes along and out dances participants.  This makes them want to learn more advanced moves. 
• Stage 4: Flow: Learning more advanced steps and choreographing them to a song brings a new sense of flow. 

Game Based Learning: Dogwood Trail

Prompt:

Dogwood Lane is such a pleasant walk. The flowering trees are beautiful. When I see the opening to a Cave, just down the hill from where the path turns, visions of cool subterranean beauty come to mind as the perfect complement to this trek in the sunshine that is starting to get a little bit warm. Someone has carved "Csikzentmihalyi" into the stone by the cave entrance.What does that mean? You go explore for a few minutes...
You carefully creep into the Cave Entrance. Is there something stuck in that small hole over there?


Cave:
Cave Entrance

   In  Mihalyi Csikzentmihalyi's book Flow the author takes the time to define happiness in the eyes of psychology.  Csikzentmihalyi believes that happiness is out interpretation of outside events.  It is not something that happens to us, but rather something we, as individuals, prepare and cultivate for.  Once we have the ability to control our inner experience we can determine whether or not an event or sequence of events makes us happy.

     Csikzentmihalyi goes one to describe what he calls the optimal experience.  He does not view this experience as the times we have to relax and sit down.  Rather, he believes these are the times when we have control of our actions and are masters of our own fate. 

     Flow, the title of the book, is defined as the state at which people are so engrossed with what they are doing nothing else seems to matter. The author wrote this book on flow and optimal experience so that it could be the first book presented to the general reader. 

Review: 

     Reading Csikzentmihalyi's work in light of having read McGonigal drives me more to have a game based learning classroom (dependant on my schools expectations and restrictions).  Csikzentmihalyi's insights through the lens of psychology are very similar to those presented by McGonigal.  

     People find happiness whiled doing what they love, not while doing nothing.  We are happy when we are achieving a goal and being productive.  Both authors have pointed this out. 

     

Game Based Learning: Chestnut Trail

Prompt:

     Back on the Chestnut Trail you meander along, around a curve and down a slight hill, when you see those bright juicy cherries strewn across the path. There are Cherry Trees just off the path on the left!

Cherry Trees: 

Chore Wars

     Chore Wars was designed as a simplified version of World of Warcraft with goals that resemble real world cleaning tasks.  Being an alternate reality game, players work with real people such as roommates, siblings, or other family members.  This is also a downfall to the game, you can only play if you know others that are playing the game.  The designer created the game to help households keep track of what chores are being done and to inspire house members to do more work.
     Users have the ability to design household chores and set point values based on the activity.  A good strategy is to make less desirable jobs worth more points, this will attract other users to do the job.  Households are also encouraged to create ways for players to redeem the points they earn.
     The author of Chore Wars makes the point that you can win even if you lose. They mentioned this comment when discussing the record of points earned.  They noticed that their husband had accumulated more points than they had over the nine months they played this game.  This is a huge bonus for all the wives and mothers out there!

Review:

     I was slightly disappointed that I could not play this game because I did not have other people to play this.  It would be nice if there was a stimulation added so that people could see how the game works.  This would be great to use in the classroom in conjunction with the Montessori Method.  In a previous post you may have noted that Montessori had her students to real life activities as part of their course work. I love that idea for my classroom and a fun way to implement it would be through Chore Wars.  Students can complete tasks in the classroom and earn points on Chore Wars.  The image below will take you to the chore wars website if you would like to explore for yourself.