"Tall" Question.

The text discussion in Kist's chapter 3 from page 50 leading up to the questions on page 51 are about plagiarism, copy rights, and what "fair use" is.  The reason teachers limit new media applications is because of the fear of plagiarism. One of the questions asks if we feel that using texts that others have written on the web belong to everyone and that everyone should be able to use it to create their own hybrid text. The question asked if we agree or disagree. Well I think I both agree and disagree. It depends on what your using this information for, because technically showing a youtube clip is taking someone else's work to give our lessons more context, so that would be one way you are taking something that is on the web, because everyone owns it. So agreeing with the statement that everyone can alter and use the information on the web raises the problem of credibility, simply because everyone can take this information and alter it or change it, so how credible is it? This is usually why teacher limit what their students can use on the internet for their research, but why can't it be good for discussion? If this is how our students communicate and learn outside of the class room, why can't it help them learn inside the classroom?

Now for the disagreeing part. If students are handing in research or something graded, then yes, they should cite or give reference to where their ideas generated from because they didn't create the information. But they did create the thoughts that someone else's work generated, so if they can show where their thinking was when they first read the article or information, and the procession to how they have come to their own conclusion or thoughts, I think that is the learning process. They are learning information, and developing their own ideas so they're also learning about themselves. The point of the web is to share ideas, thoughts and information with one another, and our students are already doing that on their own time. I think if we take these skills they seem to be born with, along with the help of guide lines, and put them into the classroom they will be able to excel and respect the original thoughts and copy rights of other creators.