As educators, you know that young people are naturally creative. But how do we encourage ethical digital citizenship that simultaneously nurtures creative expression in today’s youth?
From the day CreativeFuture launched, we have supported education and the value of teaching our next generation the importance of leading ethical digital lives. We have supported lessons about copyright, fair use, and creativity in K-12 schools and in universities.
Leading education nonprofit iKeepSafe developed a K-12 curriculum, Copyright & Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens. The curriculum teaches students their rights and responsibilities as 21st century creatives and consumers. These lessons were created by leading copyright and fair use experts and can be found here.
We also partnered with leading university publisher Macmillan Learning to create resources for college students and their professors. Through a short video featuring Los Angeles-based street poets available on their Launchpad educational platform, we hope to educate faculty and students alike that copyright protects creative people.
Get to know the issue
Technology has created innovative new ways for us to watch movies and television shows, listen to music, play games, and read books. At the same time, it has also created new opportunities for students to create and share their work online. However, this innovation has also had an unintended consequence. The internet made everything available, seemingly for free. But this created an expectation of free and contributed to the devaluation of creative works.
Piracy myths debunked
No matter the justification – there is truly no reason that anyone should steal the creative work of another person, either online or in the real world. Educators hear a lot of justifications for piracy from their students. Here are some helpful answers to common misperceptions.