Usage Rights and Google Search
Once you get something big rolling, it's pretty tough to try and stop it.
Some very principled students were explaining to their teachers this week that they no longer could find the "Usage Rights" option under Google image searches on their iPads.
ISPP students have done a great job of encouraging this aspect of Digital Citizenship in the past, ensuring that images we use for our projects and presentations are "labelled for reuse" or under a creative commons license so that we can freely create and share our work without infringing on the rights of other content creators. They still cite and hyperlink their images when appropriate, but having a filter to quickly identify which images might be available has been key to student use.
Students relate to the idea that some artists and makers rely on these images in some way to support themselves and their families, and in Cambodia this can often be a difficult lesson to teach. Infringement upon content creator's rights is everywhere with little apparent consequence. These are days where your content, even an app that took years to create, could end up on someone else's website with someone else's name attached to it, days after you published. Developing understanding in today's youth that this can be harmful to others while also promoting a maker culture is a difficult and crucial balance.
It's disappointing that Google has made this a low priority feature for their mobile sites, but you can still find it if you are using the Chrome browser on iPad with the following method:
Click the three dots button:
Click Request Desktop Site:
Click Search Tools:
That's all there is to it!
Hopefully Google will revisit this feature on their mobile site and Chrome app in the future, but for now the desktop site will work. Good luck with your future generation of digital citizens!
-M
