Critical Commons

In a recent EDUCAUSE LIVE! webinar entitled “The Future of Fair Use” hosted by Steven Anderson, Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at USC and author of technohistory blog, Anderson highlighted Critical Commons, a project he started to fill a void he saw in the open and free use of media arena. As described on its website, “at the heart of Critical Commons is an online tool for viewing, tagging, sharing, annotating and curating media within the guidelines established by a given community.” The organization bills itself as “a non-profit advocacy coalition that supports the use of media for scholarship, research and teaching…” with a goal of “build[ing] open, informed communities around media-based teaching, learning and creativity, both inside and outside of formal educational environments.”

For those interested in the background and how it relates to Fair Use, please watch the archive.

This got us thinking, how could we use Critical Commons’ online media tool in our legal education technology world? A resource like this doesn’t come along every day. So far we can think of:

• A “how to do Legal Research” series, naturally since we are based in the law library.
• Annotating a series of interviews to demonstrate both good and poor practices.
• Likewise, annotating clips of legal procedural scenes from films and TV to identify everything from good and bad lawyering practices to key elements our what is being discussed in the classroom.

How would you see this tool being used?