Out here in the Ed-tech world, the Edu-Blogosphere, the Personal Learning Networks or whatever you want to call it we do a lot of talking. We read, we write, we share, we site, we connect, we learn. There is an unspoken decency that keeps all the conversations civil. A common understanding that sometimes leads to the creation of little communities of teachers doing great work, sharing ideas with like minded people and learning immensely.

If you can escape the repetitive echo-chambers of jargon and boot licking of some of the better known Edu-bloggers, who seem to have been saying the same things for years now, you will find a core group of teachers worldwide who are blogging and Tweeting the revolution one classroom at a time.

I personally have met a tight group of teachers whom I respect immeasurably. I have never actually been in the same room with many of these people, but through the sharing of our lives and our work, I know that we see education and many other topics in the same light.

Occasionally, though, someone ignores the rules of common decency and acts inappropriately. These transgressions can be ignored, for they never cause much harm, but if we are trying to create a new way of communication for our societies, if we are serious about the things we teach our students, things like: cite ones sources, be honest with the work and ideas you use, never steal other people’s work and pass it off as your own, then we must call to the table when one of our own acts irresponsibly.

I am not writing this post to admonish the perpetrator for his action. I am seldom in the mood for confrontation these days. I am writing this post as an act of solidarity and support for a good friend. I am writing this post as a learning opportunity. I am writing this post as a tool to share with students about plagiarism. I am writhing this post as a way to correct a wrong done to the community of which I am a part and one in which I take pride.

Here is the gist of what has happened: Keri Lee Beasley wrote a post called Ten Great Ways To Use Audacity With Your Students over at her blog The Tip of the Iceberg over a year ago. She recently sent out a Tweet dismayed that Alan Cain had simply cut and paste her post verbatim and put it on his blog. It was word-for-word down to the title. He never made any mention of her work or cited her in anyway. You can find the post here. Judging by his Tweets, it appears that Alan simply shares resources and tools. Seems harmless enough; we have all had some spam blog take our work, but this seems different Alan appears to be a flesh and blood educator. So why would he do this? Doesn’t he teach his students about plagiarism, about Creative Commons and the need to give credit where credit is due? Sure! Share the tools. Use Keri-Lee’s work, just say that you got it from The Tip Of The Iceberg. How hard is that?

Don’t get me wrong, I am no longer a fan of copy righted material. I think once you put something onto the Internet it should be used by as many people as possible. Let our ideas be shared, tweeted, and made viral. Let them be altered and changed. Let them evolve into something new, but I do believe that it is common courtesy to credit the person who put in the blood, sweat and tears.

Why not write a post about Audacity using your own ideas and then link to Keri-Lees post as further reading? It is so simple to create a hyper-link. This way not only are you being respectful you are making connections and expanding the network, giving value to the community?

I am curious if this was a case of misunderstanding or laziness. I hope in the next few days we here from Alan. I hope that he will explain why he came into our community and sole something that belonged to one of our members. I am sure if he is honest and explains himself we will take him in and help him. We are a forgiving bunch. Like I said no one is looking for confrontation or to be possessive. It just doesn’t feel right to have something like this happen in your neighborhood. You can also read Keri-Lee’s response here.

The ball is in your court Alan…