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Teachers love to borrow. How often do you hear “Why reinvent the wheel?”. Teachers spend countless hours combing the internet in search of the perfect lesson or powerpoint or worksheet, only to find something nearly right, and the remixing begins.
The internet and 21st century ideas about sharing public work have increased teachers’ ability to remix. Most give credit where it is due, but some don’t think twice about lifting work from other teachers laying about on the internet in plain view.
Lawrence Lessig, in his article The “Imbecile” and “Moron” Responds: On the Freedoms of Remix Creators, said it best:
[Y]ou have the right to take it and use it.
When you use someone else’s work, you give them credit. We need to stand up and acknowledge what we’re doing, give people credit, and thank them, but not ask permission.
We have to respect the people whose art we build upon. But we don’t respect them in the old fashioned way, by having our lawyer call their lawyer. Respect in the 21st century is acknowledgment.
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In my own classroom, I search for ideas, concepts, and occasionally essay prompts. More often than not, my search results leaving me wanting. As I said before, this is when the remix begins. I borrow from here and there, taking information or formatting from one source, and designs and additional information from another. Remixing is nothing new. With life on the internet, it’s no longer a secret that teachers borrow, steal, alter and reinvent other people’s work. In the end, it’s about connections. The art of remixing often draws upon students’ prior knowledge, connecting them to the information they are presented with. In a world with endless knowledge and sources, we must be the guides for our students with their connections to help make sense of this complex, digital world.
