EdTech – Page 4 – Meg Andrews

Copyright, Fair Use, All the Fun Stuff

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Ok, so maybe it’s not the most provocative topic but copyright is something we unknowingly deal with on a day-to-day basis. As teachers, there is a world of information out there for us to harvest and share with our students. But before we do this, we need to take a little look at copyright and fair use. It can be something that is easily ignored. After all, administration isn’t knocking on classroom doors and screening powerpoints for copyrighted images. Still, it’s important that we adhere to these guidelines for numerous reasons.

Let’s try to be examples

As an educator, you’re setting daily examples for your students. I think it’s fair to say that you wouldn’t want to teach your children to be lax with the law. Don’t model behaviour you wouldn’t want to see your students adopt.

2. Respect content creators!

There are many struggling artists that work hard to create content whether that be writing, art, music, video etc. Respect these creators and pay for the work that produces. If you can’t afford someone’s art, there are a ton of free licensed resources out there. Take advantage of these resources, not creators.

3. It’s a Slippery Slope

A copy and pasted image here, a music clip there. These small actions don’t seem to mean much in the moment. But even though copyright is often trivialized, it doesn’t make it any less important. The law exists to protect creators from being taken advantage of. Don’t contribute to the idea that this doesn’t matter.

This has been copyright, fair use, and all that is fun. Please pay for your materials. Content creators thank you.

Origins of the Mystic

Modern tarot is a symbol of the occult. It is associated with future-prediction, new age ideology, in so many words, a kind of magic. The history of tarot, however, strays from our modern definitions.

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Despite its ancient practice, tarots beginnings lack the certain glamour that their modern presence conveys. Though its origins are not clear, tarot can be traced by to somewhere in the early fifteenth century in Northern Italy (Tarcher, 6). By many accounts, there is “Evidence [that] indicates that the first deck that we would call a tarot was created . . . when a fifth suit, containing allegorical figures, was added to an already existing deck of cards”(15).

By 1507, we know that tarot had reached popularity in other regions including Marseilles and surrounding areas (7). In its earliest days, there is some indication of its use for divination but primarily, it was a simple card game (15). In fact, tarot is a likely ancestor of bridge (15).

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Despite its humble beginnings, divination remains part of tarots earliest history. Examples of the use of tarot for divination can be traced back to at least, the early sixteenth century (25). When searching for these uses, we are able to differentiate between parlour game and divination based on whether or not the deck includes all 5 suits, including the major arcana (25). The best evidence for this use occurs in a Venician work titled Merlini Cocai Sonnets, published in 1527 (25). This publication includes 5 sonnets “in which trump cards are dealt and laid out then used to determine the fates of the story’s main characters”(25).

By the 18th and 19th centuries, occultists adopted and popularized tarot for use of divination (25). Our most modern understandings of tarot are dated from 1781 to present time (26).

For more information, check out this short video on the history of tarot.

I’m not sure what I was expecting when learning the origins of tarot. Maybe I was looking for some enlightened beginnings that brought this practice to modern-day. What I discovered was that its origins are similar to that of a simple card game. Perhaps its origins are not of the highest importance. Perhaps what allowed tarot to transform and last to its modern definition is what is truly impressive. Stay tuned.

Why Tarot?

Because a little self-investigation never hurt anybody.

New age ideology is often beaten-down by the self-proclaimed “rational.” In this same way, tarot, crystals, astrology, have all been feminized. Some troubling parallels have been made between women’s’ interest in the occult and the snubbing of these practices. I have been told that tarot is self-centred. I have been told that these practices exist only for vain, self-obsessed women. Why else would they care what these glorified playing cards have to say about their lives, right?

Maybe the reason you don’t like these practices is that it forces you to have a deep empathy towards those around you; it forces you to examine your tiny cog in the universe, to reflect on your actions, to come to terms with yourself. Maybe when you look into yourself, you won’t like what you see.

Or maybe, some people are just natural sceptics: they fear the unknown, they don’t believe anything without deep investigation, or they just enjoy throwing their hands in the air and yelling “bullshit!”

For whatever reason, I’ve never had difficulty in enjoying tarot. I’m neither gullible nor self-obsessed. I’ve just used them as a tool for introspection. They allow me to have deep conversations with myself and to others that receive readings. Still, I feel I’ve been somewhat irresponsible.

I picked up my tarot deck in high school. I was young and desperately edgy. I gave them a good shuffle, cut the deck, had my subjects choose four cards from the eight I drew, and laid them out on a sheer blue kimono that I deemed mystical. It was a parody in every sense, and they loved it. Somewhere in this feigned bravado, they started to believe me. They started requesting readings after breakups, before breakups, in the midst of a breakup (people are stupidly obsessed with love hey?).

I’ve been giving readings for about seven years now. And over these years, I have never learned to properly give a reading. I know so little about the history of tarot, it is almost laughable, if I didn’t find it so deeply troubling. This inquiry acts as an open apology to those I’ve burned with my haphazard readings. It also acts as a deep exploration into tarots origins and modern uses. I just think it’s about time.

Beginnings

This course is almost entirely inquiry-based; our assignments are then catered to our unique interests. In this way, I’m able to focus on subjects I’ve always been drawn to; I can explore them in the way I have always wanted to, but could never justify the time required to do so. For a long time, I’ve been deep in the work/school spiral. Free-time is a luxury. I usually spend it asleep, trying to avoid my next stint of bronchitis. So now that I have the option to study something just for me, I’m going to do it right.

I’ve settled on learning how to properly read tarot. I feel dramatic just typing that (in true irony, I’m currently writing this in a church). It is a study that raises opinion: interest, fear, a dismissive eye-roll. Still, I am unapologetic in my fascination and excited to see where it takes me.

In regards to my tech-based inquiry, things are a little less certain. I’m a language arts lover so I’m naturally drawn to the idea of digital storytelling in the classroom. More specifically, I’m curious as to how it may be able to make poetry a more accessible form of writing. Gone are the elitist days of tall-hatted men meeting in parlours and defining poetry for the world. Though still a dreaded subject for many, poetry has reached new popularity for teens with the emergence of YA focussed collections, a bustling spoken-word community, and the uber-popular bestseller, Rupi Kaur.

With this being said, I’m interested in tapping into this interest through technology with programs such as poetry generators and online magnetic poetry. Somehow, I hope to find a way to make poetry fun. Is it an impossible task? Maybe. I’ll find out soon enough.