In the past I’ve always had a no show policy for electronics in my high school English classrooms. This year that opinion has begun to shift. My syllabus clearly states that all mobile phones will be kept away and if I see them at all, then I will confiscate them; I’ve confiscated my fair share of cell phones & iPods over the years. After Christmas break when the gadgets came out, I didn’t say anything. I just waited to see what would happen, and you know what? They were respectful. Occasionally they’d look down, check something, fire off a message and move on. Then came a bigger test. When the questions came, instead of telling them I’d get back to them, looking it up myself, etc… I told them to check for themselves. I got confused looks, but then slowly, they got it. More and more kids got it. They pulled out their mobiles and did research in the classroom.

There are several Web 2.0 tools that I know students can use with mobile technology on their phones (e.g. Utterli, Twitter, Poll Everywhere, etc…) but even I still ask, why bother? What can they do with their phones that they can’t just do when they are there in my classes. I know there are reasons to use these things outside the classroom, but, for example, why text to Poll Everywhere when we’re all sitting in the class? Together? Utterli is cool for our Rhetoric Out on the Town Assignment, and I think I am going to try to use it for that, and it’s great for recording foreign language homework, but why do we use it IN THE CLASSROOM.

Ok so this is the big question, and I’ve not discounted it. I’ve embraced it. Two of my colleagues at the college are studying Mobile Pedagogies this summer, and since this has always been rolling around my interests/issues and I recently fell into an iPod (door prize, conference), I am not the proud owner of an iPod Touch. I do not have AT&T, nor do I have an iPhone, but an iPod Touch gets me everything but the voice and camera. I am going to research and play all summer. Watch for my fall syllabus policies.

Three demands of the public in relation to copyright include:

• Fair use is the right to make unauthorized copies of works for certain protected purposes – mainly for academics, reporting, or criticism. When a student quotes a book in a high school paper, she is making a fair use, and can’t be stopped by the copyright owner.
• First sale is the right to sell a copy over and over again, once it is made, as long as you don’t make any new copies. When you read a book, then sell it to a used book store to be bought and read by someone else, you’re exercising your rights under first sale.
• Limited time – copyrights are granted for a limited time. After that time expires, the work goes into the public domain – it can be copied and used by anyone, for any reason.

The DMCA strives against this. The provision says that it is illegal to circumvent access protections to content and to manufacture or make available things that circumvent the protections. An example of this is third party toner cartridges, for example.

Now Section 1201(a)(2) provides:
Distribution of circumvention tools is likewise prohibited, with the same or similar exceptions. Section 1201(a)(2) provides:

(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

So essentially if you attempt to create anything with or WITHOUT intent of infringing on copyright, you are pretty much breaking the law and can be sapped of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Look, I am all for policies, rules, etc… but my problem is two fold. 1.) People who make rules really vague so they can interpret them however they want. 2.) People who make rules who have no clue at all how those rules affect other areas (e.g. EDUCATION!).