Recommendation 12 New Zealand video content licensing

'''Recommendation 12. We recommend that the Government consider ensuring that all appropriate New Zealand video content produced for public consumption is licensed and funded under a single national contract, and made available to all schools.'''

Comment: The legal separation of Tomorrows Schools and our Copyright legislation has had an unintended consequence that meant that work produced by teachers (and students?) belongs to school boards who typically have no policy to exploit their intellectual property.

A simple letter to school boards asking them to formally advise their staff that they may share any content they have prepared under a creative commons license with other schools. [Some private schools may wish to retain control over their materials.]

This is the most urgent need for amending legislation. Typically in any subject of any year level in each year there will be at least 100 teachers covering the same curriculum. These teachers should be encouraged to share their ideas and content. Many such groups of teachers already exist. The writer helped form some such groups in the 1980s. It is simple to set up repositories and to allow comments and hence a choice of the best content can be determined by “crowd-sourcing”. Indeed students should be able to contribute content and to “like” what works for them. All content produced by government funding whether for broadcast TV or film or within government funded bodies should be made available to schools (and libraries) – possibly some after a time delay. Indeed the government should endeavour to negotiate with bodies such as the BBC (and USA MOOC universities &amp; Audacity &amp; Khan Academy) for some relevant content. Our children deserve the best we can deliver – whatever turns them on! Engagement is the key problem facing education of 13-17 year-olds.

back to Index to pages for discussion of recommendations