Tech Tips & Timely Tidbits
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Tech Tips and Timely Tidbits by Heather Loy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Free the Standards
The AASL (American Association of School Librarians) has come out with NEW standards for school librarians – Standards for the 21st-Century Learner – that we are supposed to be using to educate our students. If you go to the standards website you can download copies of these standards. However, before you do so, I recommend you follow the link “Rights and permission on the use of the learning standards.” When you do, the first paragraph states that you can use the standards for your own personal or educational use; however, if you read down further you find that in order to use these standards you have to request permission and possibly PURCHASE the rights to use them. WHAT!
In addition,
- we cannot LINK to the documents without obtaining permission, which is why I didn’t link to it above. If you want to read them, Google AASL and “Standards for the 21st-Century Learner” yourself as I don’t want to be in violation of the copyright.
- we cannot list standards on curriculum maps, lesson plans, or other educational documentation unless we obtain permission – which may have a price tag.
- we cannot train other educators using these standards in training handouts, PowerPoint/SlideShare or other mediums without obtaining permission – which may have a price tag.
Now, I’m not always the brightest bulb in the pack, but what is the point of having taken the time to compile a set of standards and then restrict their implementation by making us have to request permission EVERY TIME WE NEED TO USE THEM! Bureaucracy in action folks!
Come on AASL. Get with the program. Free the Standards by making them available under a Creative Commons license.
To read more about the issue, check out Joyce Valenza’s NeverEndingSearch blog posts “#FreeTheStandards” and “#FreeTheStandards — David’s Take” as they are more eloquent stated than my own ranting.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Great post! You have captured the frustration that many library media specialists are feeling right now.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Spoken like a true Teacher Librarian SUPER HERO!
July 15th, 2009 at 4:45 am
AASL is being totally ridiculous, and displays a lack of understanding of the standards which they are trying to promote. No linking?? I think you should have done it anyway. In fact, I’ll do it here so you don’t have to take the blame.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
@Fran & @Cathy – you know I could have use a lot of more colorful phrases to describe how I feel about AASL holding the standards prisoner, but I refrained! Aren’t you proud of me!
@Tom – thanks for visiting and commenting, as well as linking to the standards. I would have linked, but was trying to make more of a point by not linking. Those who know me know I tend to walk the line (if not cross the line!) when I feel the reasons for the line are just down right STUPID, like not making the standards available under CC.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Tom you are SUCH a rebel. I noticed that SLJ online published an article today and they linked to them. Wonder if they asked permission?
July 15th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Here it is!
Wow I had to brush off the html dust bunnies an sweep out cobwebs in my brain to remember how to do that!
July 15th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
[...] Joyce Valenza has two thoughtful and analytical blog posts; you can read the first post from July 13 here; the second post from July 14 is available here. Heather Loy, a South Carolina school librarian, also has a helpful synopsis on her blog. [...]
July 15th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
[...] Joyce Valenza has two thoughtful and analytical blog posts; you can read the first post from July 13 here; the second post from July 14 is available here. Heather Loy, a South Carolina school librarian, also has a helpful synopsis on her blog. [...]
July 31st, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hi Heather,
I am late in coming to the party, but in putting together a presentation for teachers which I wanted to link with standards, I caught up on my reading—and discovered this more than silly copyright restriction. How irritating, to say the least! Thanks for sounding off about this! Currie Renwick