Thursday

Copyright at REALize!



I'm presenting an online session at Canada's first ESL/EAL online conference on Friday, January 24. The conference is  REALize! The National Online conference for ESL/EAL professionals.  I'm going to be talking about copyright in Canada.  Never did I imagine I would have the role of advisor on this topic. But when I took on the role of Curriculum Coordinator at my institution, I had to become very familiar with the ins and outs of what were allowed to do as far as the coursepacks we compiled for instruction and that just extended to what is permitted on our course management systems and then what can be used for in class materials... it goes on and on.

I initially gave a presentation on copyright at the 2011 ATESL conference.  It was the day before Hallowe'en and for our reality - post Access copyright and trying to make our way before Bill C-11, it was a scary tale indeed!

Photo by RBerteig (CC on Flickr)

Not so much now, thank goodness.  I almost wonder why I would continue to talk about it with the new Educational exemption that has been added to Fair Dealing but it still isn't exactly spelled out. The law is still "untested" so the comfort of knowing that what you are doing has been considered by someone with legal authority makes the process of decisions for the classroom easier.

A much more positive outlook on copyright today!
Photo by Mystic Musing (CC-BY-NC-SA on Flickr)


I'm looking forward to everyone else's sessions. So much offered for PD without the cost of traveling to a conference. I think it will be a fantastic opportunity for all of us and appreciate the very helpful (and patient) team at English Online as we prepared for this experience.