Component 1: Recognising Intellectual Property

If you take a look at the Australian Curriculum learning continuum for level 4 (year 6), it explains 'recognising intellectual property' as:

"Identify the legal obligations regarding the ownership and use of digital products and apply some referencing conventions." (ACARA, 2014)

This includes listing all sources, author names and URL's (web addresses) either in the form of a bibliography or similar, when completing a piece of work. You may be able to help your child with this by asking where they have found information from and reminding them to list it within their work.  

When looking specifically at the aspect of 'recognising intellectual property' it is important that your child understands that just because a piece of work may be accessible on the internet, it does not mean it is necessarily free to be copied or redistributed. One way in which we can recognise and determine if a picture or piece of work is acceptable to be copied or used is with a Creative Commons logo. This logo is typically found at the bottom of a webpage (as it is with this blog) and generally contains a link to a page which further explains the copyright conditions that the creator is allowing. Once you copy an image to your work, you must then attribute that work to the original author. To find out the best way to do this, check out this wiki page.

By adding a Creative Commons license to a piece of work, you have the ability to say how you would like that image to be used. Obtaining a Creative Commons license is one way of exhibiting knowledge in the area of 'applying digital information security practices'. You might like to create a license with your child here! Check out this YouTube clip below that further explains how Creative Commons work, as well as general copyright information.

Alternatively, if a site does not appear to have a creative commons license, they will generally have a copyright label at the bottom of the web page with an attached link to their privacy policy, conditions of use, or similar, and from here, you can gauge whether information is freely available for use or redistribution. If the image is copyrighted, then unfortunately, you would not be able to use or redistribute the image for any public purpose. 

All of this information may be confronting at first, but it is something that can become habitual if you practice it. Just as there are guidelines for you children behaving in an ethical way online, the same can be said for us teachers. All teachers are required to meet a set of professional standards when teaching. Standard 4.5 addresses the safe, ethical and responsible use of ICT requiring teachers at the graduate level to understand relevant issues and strategies to promote safe, ethical and responsible use of ICT in learning and teaching (AITSL, 2014). Click here to see more about the Australian Professional Standards for Teaching.