Introducing The Source
Copycats? Digital consumers in the on-line age (Note: PDF)
From the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP) website
Huge economic losses are being sustained due to large-scale unauthorised downloading, generated by widespread confusion about copyright law in the online world. This UK report examines online consumer behaviour in the UK and its potential impact on business and government policy. It is the first piece of research to look at evidence from across the copyright industries and across all age ranges.
The report has two further objectives:
- To inform a SABIP workshop at which a selected group of attendees with a direct interest in the issue will consider the implications of consumer behaviour on IP and make recommendations for further areas of SABIP research
- To highlight any further SABIP research that is required to ensure that all agencies of Government have the fullest understanding of the issues
- The world of the digital consumer is an environment, indeed a series of ‘eco-systems’, subject to rapid change; change that means many predictions about the future of the Internet and digital convergence (and how these are ‘consumed’) made even two, and certainly five and ten years ago seem quaintly dated – a fact that should be held in mind as predictions are made for the future of not just ‘Digital Britain’, but also the ‘Digital World’
- Within ten years we have seen the widespread domestic use of high-speed broadband and multichannel (and often High Definition) digital television with the facility to time-shift, copy and view programmes on other devices, and to upload these files to websites such as YouTube; the arrival of wi-fi in the high-street, the library, the office, university and the home; the rapid expansion of open source and Creative Commons publishing; at least four iterations of file-sharing technologies; the birth of mainstream blogging as a broad social phenomenon; the arrival of social media as a significant medium of authorship, sharing, and communication; the shift by the younger digital consumer towards the mobile phone as not just an aural communication tool, but also a medium for text messaging, music and video consumption, and as a gateway to post messages, photographs and other types of content to social media websites
- Most recently the large expansion in use of ‘microblogging’, to websites such as the text-based Twitter and the image-based Tumblr, has once again surprised many who suspected these services were a fad. Finally, the recent successful launch of the BBC’s authorised programme-streaming service, iPlayer, and the music streaming service, Spotify, has demonstrated that new forms of business models may be possible in the world of ‘free things’. Unsurprisingly, the literature review we undertook does not grasp the enormity and the speed of these changes. Each impacts centrally on intellectual property
- The challenge for IP policy makers is to judge and, where possible, measure the changing social behaviours and attitudes brought about by the myriad rapidly evolving technologies and networks of the digital revolution, and map this against their economic, political and social objectives
'Authentic' learning experiences: What does this mean and where is the literacy learning? (Note: PDF)
From the aWAy with Words Conference website
Teachers are challenged to adopt practices that facilitate the development of “necessary” skills and strategies for learners. For many, however, what is required in policy and curricula is increasingly obscured and even confusing as teachers are bombarded with jargon prescribing seemingly similar (yet apparently different) approaches such as “rich tasks”, “big questions” and “fertile questions” that are to be "relevant”, “authentic” and “engaging” for the learner. Barton and Hamilton (2000) argue that literacy learning should take the learner beyond the transmission of technical skills in the classroom to an understanding of its role within a community’s cultural practices. These literacy practices are mediated by literacy events and it is engagement with these events and their diverse demands that allows learners to make strong connections to their own literacy practices.
Reported in this paper are the interpretations of four experienced primary school teachers as they plan, programme and facilitate authentic literacy experiences in their classrooms. These are examined within the framework of the principles of authentic learning, which is useful in gaining insight into the ways that experienced teachers make sense of the complex jargon associated with their profession for the development of deep and flexible knowledge that can be applied in a range of community settings. Evident in these teachers’ stories are the understandings, beliefs, contexts and competing tensions that underpin the conceptualisation, design and implementation of these experiences. The teachers’ stories reveal the complexity of teaching as they consider:
- the individual contexts of their schools
- their students’ own communities
- the expectations of stakeholders in a child’s education
- the availability of resources
Public libraries and the Internet 2008-2009: Issues, implications, and challenges
From the First Monday website
This paper presents an overview of methods, findings, issues, and implications from the 2008 ‘Public Libraries and the Internet’ national survey, including comparisons to data from previous studies. Since 1994, these surveys have chronicled the expansion of the Internet as a primary library service. The 2008 survey includes key data about the many facets of public libraries as community Internet access, training, and service centres, from the number of workstations and connection speeds available to the most common Internet services and training. The findings from the 2008 survey reveal impacts of the global recession on public libraries and their ability to meet the needs and expectations of patrons, communities, and all levels of government.
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