ESA Curriculum Review

Copyright Curriculum – Entertainment Software Association

· Location: http://www.jointhecteam.com/

· Target audience: K-5

· Normative Values: The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is a trade association representing nearly all of the major publishers in the American computer and video game industry. Their curriculum, titled “Join the © Team” promotes respect for copyright protection. It is presumably part of their larger effort to combat software piracy, though the curriculum gives equal weight to discussions of copyright in music, visual art and text.

· Information Presented: Three separate curricula are offered for K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 grade students, though there is a great deal of overlap between them. The curricula consist of a six-page “Educator’s Guide to Intellectual Property” along with descriptions of three to four classroom activities with accompanying printable worksheets. A wall poster is also included. The curricula recommends about 10 class periods for completion spread over three to four weeks.

o Educator’s Guide: A six-page summary of IP law for teachers to familiarize themselves with before presenting to students. Discusses plagiarism, copyrightable vs. noncopyrightable works, exclusive rights of © owner, public domain, internet piracy, and fair use (focusing on the educational context).

o Scavenger Hunt Activity: Students are introduced to © by looking through an illustrated book for the author and illustrator, and then for the © symbol. Teachers explain that © stops people from copying the book, and lets the people who created the book sell it. Students then get a worksheet with pictures of other things found in the classroom (videos, board games, computer games) and are told to seek them out and see if they can find a © symbol on them. For homework, they are told to find things in their house with the © symbol.

o Copy Right Activity: For grades 2-5, a worksheet depicting four copying situations. Students are asked what the character in each situation should do to “copy right.” Situations include quoting a sentence for a book report, using information from a CD-Rom encyclopedia, using info found online and sharing a disc with copyrighted content on it. The focus is on citing sources, giving credit.

o Creative Activity: Students are given an assignment to create a copyrightable work. The K-1 curriculum suggests greeting cards or posters. The 2-3 and 4-5 curricula suggest illustrated books. Templates and detailed instructions (not particularly relevant to ©) are provided for both. After completion of their works, students are given a © sticker to affix to their work where they fill in the publication date. This is meant to segue into a discussion about what the © protects, why a © owner deserves control over their work, and the extent to which the students value the intellectual property that they’ve just created.

o Computer Research Activity: This activity is adaptable depending on the age group, but the main idea is to teach kids how to evaluate information found online, how and when to credit sources, and to recognize the difference between copying info for school purposes and copying for other purposes. These skills are incorporated into an “internet show and tell” for younger kids, or a complete PowerPoint presentation on a given topic for older kids. Special worksheets and templates for presentation planning are provided. Kids are instructed to:

§ Check the “last updated” tag on websites to determine that it’s up to date.

§ Check the “about us” section to determine reliability.

§ Check the URL, valuing .gov, .edu, and .org sites as most reliable sources.

§ Check the “terms of use” for permission to copy for non-educational uses.

§ Properly cite the website author and URL.

Strongest Part: The Copyright scavenger hunt provides an excellent way to introduce young kids to copyright, giving them the opportunity to be active, as well as showing them © as it exists in the world, as opposed to as an abstract concept.

· Weakest Part: Given the limited range of situations that the Copy Right worksheet addresses, it does little to broaden student’s understanding of ©. Of the only four situations presented, three are specifically about plagiarism. As a jumping off point for a more extensive discussion of ©, the worksheet may be useful, but it may end up restricting the conversation because of its narrow subject matter.

· Suggested Improvements:

o Devote more discussion to copyright outside of the classroom context. Considering that this curriculum is backed by the ESA, it surprisingly spends most of its time discussing plagiarism and proper citation, with little discussion of file sharing, software piracy or non-academic contexts in which kids might be creative but potentially infringe on copyrights (personal web pages for example).

o Discussion of fair use is limited to the notion that copying for school is ok, assuming you give credit. Perhaps this is as in-depth as young kids can handle, but the curricula could do without the completely false statement: “No one is allowed to copy copyrighted material outside the classroom for any reason without permission.”

· Aspects to Consider Using:

o Student-made computer presentations allow teachers to easily combine copyright education with other subjects. This is because presentations can be assigned on anything from social studies to science, and still maintain their underlying messages about plagiarism and copyright.

o Worksheets like the scavenger hunt provide a good way to engage kids, as well as a concrete starting point for discussion. Alternately, they provide a good way to reinforce concepts learned in a prior lesson.

o The inclusion of an Educator’s Guide along with each curriculum is a useful way for teachers to familiarize themselves with a subject in which they likely have no expertise. As a bonus, it contains info regarding the use of copyrighted material for teaching.

o Giving students the opportunity to create something on which they can affix a © sticker drives home the point that literally all creative works are protected, and that kids can be both creators and consumers of protected content. It also lets kids reflect on what it means to create something original, and what rights they feel they should have over their content.