Educating in Intellectual Property

Summary

The project Educate to create arose from the need to work the issue of intellectual property in the classroom, for which we defined certain contents and an educational methodology that we subsequently implemented and analyzed. This project managed to encourage behaviours that respect everyone’s rights, including the rights of people who generate knowledge or contribute to its distribution as well as those who process it in leisure situations on in their daily job.

Objectives

From an educational point of view, with this project we intended to foster the civic commitment of responsible and supportive citizens who would progressively generate a positive impact in society through the development of a critical thinking process.

At a research level we explored the dimensions that define the cultural beliefs and practices of children and teenagers in relation to the authorship and use of cultural creations within a context of respect for intellectual property.

Stages of the project

The project Educate to create was comprised of two stages:

The elaboration of the curriculum materials on intellectual property.
Its implementation by means of a pilot project in which we undertook experiences at different levels of the education system to work on the contents within a real educational context and be able to analyze, in this way, its impact on students and teachers.

The web site: curriculum contents

With our objectives in mind, we designed the relevant contents for the treatment of intellectual property, being developed around three educational units in the web site Educate to create: Authorship, beliefs and cultural practices, Educational settings as communities of practice; and Civic Commitment and an education in values.

This material meant a starting point both for students, who could use it as the basis for their extended study on the issue, as well as teachers, who would find a useful educational support when it came to designing their own classroom activities.

The pilot project

The four pilot experiences took place during the first quarter of the school year 2008 in classes in Primary and Secondary Education and Bachillerato at education centres in Asturias.

Experience in Primary Education

Researchers and teachers worked with a group of twenty-one students aged between nine and ten during a five-session workshop.

The teacher progressively introduced the contents on intellectual property transversally to the official curriculum and worked during tutoring sessions. Finally, we prepared and presented a theatre play that contributed to bringing the issue close to the children’s everyday life.

Experience in Secondary Education

The experience was conducted, over five sessions, with a group of sixteen students aged fifteen and sixteen within the optional subject Young European Company in Year 4 of ESO, which aims for the creation of a co-op.

It was organized in three stages:

Research: What do we know about intellectual property? We reviewed student’s previous ideas on the issue.
Reflection: How does the issue of intellectual property affect our co-op? We reviewed real problems where we analyzed situations of companies that had had their image affected.
Production: Creation of an advertisement. We designed the image of the co-op and developed the advertising campaign of one of its products.

Experience in High School

Both experiences, during seventeen and twenty sessions respectively, were conducted in two centres with groups of students aged from sixteen to eighteen who were taking Audiovisual Communication and Multimedia.

The workshop was divided into four stages:

Research. We analyzed students previous ideas on the issue
Reflect. We explored the perspectives on the issue from the stance of spectator and creator.
Create. Students created their own works, becoming aware of the difficulties of the creative process.
Publish. Creations were published on the Internet.

Results

Elaboration of digital educational material

With the design of contents and methodology developed for this project, we have consolidated a web space where teachers and students can find contents, activities and resources to understand Intellectual Property and relate it with their daily practices. With this web we couple theoretical concepts with examples applied in a common space.

Critical reflection on Intellectual Property

The conclusions reached with the project Educate to Create show how the introduction of contents related to Intellectual Property in the curriculum may contribute to educating critical, conscious and responsible citizens that build their own opinions regarding the intellectual creation environment.

Through the analysis of conversations and multi-modal texts that students made during the different experiences, we have seen how the concepts related to Intellectual Property had progressively acquired more meaning for them. Students became aware of their own role before the universe of audiovisual and multimedia creation.

Agreements

Research agreement “Educate to create. Intellectual Property in Primary Education and Bachillerato”. Financing entities: Microsoft España, Cedro, Universal Pictures, Telefónica. Participating entities: Universidad de Alcalá & Microsoft España, Universal Pictures and Warnerbross. Duration, from: 1st of November 2007 until: 31st of December 2008.

Also participating

Department of Education and Science from the Principality of Asturias
Students and teachers in Year 5 of Primary Education from the Public School Eulalia Álvarez Lorenzo (La Felguera).
Students enrolled in Audiovisual Communication in Bachillerato from schools IES Roces and Aramo (Gijón), together with their teachers.
Students and teachers from Secondary Education from the IES Carreño Miranda (Avilés).
Companies from sectors such as management of author’s rights (CEDRO), musical and audiovisual production and distribution (MPA and NBC Universal), IT (Microsoft Ibérica) and telecommunications (Telefónica).

More information

Publishing of the Web page Educate to Create dedicated to the educational material on intellectual property and the information relative to the pilot project for the implementation of the material.
Research Report (Educate to create: Intellectual property in the classroom) with the conclusions reached following the analysis of the experiences.

English