I was shocked to read Will Richardson’s post today. I’m glad that he does not ascribe to the new AP pricing rules for quoting – or I would owe him money:

$12.50 for Five Words

That’s what it’s going to cost you to excerpt in your blog any content published by the Associated Press under it’s new pricing structure.

With a little more searching, I did discover a discount for educators. We would only owe $7.50 for quoting 5-25 words. 

What’s next? Charging students to use quotations from AP in their research papers? Might happen if any of said research papers should end up on the web.

Come on – figure out a way to make the web and web 2.0 part of your business plan. How are you going to police the Internet? Isn’t it better to figure out how to gain from your reputation as an authoritative source? I would think that bloggers quoting and linking to your sources would create a buzz, bringing more business your way. Get creative and realize that “You’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.” How much do you think I should pay Bob Dylan for using that quote?

]]> http://wanderings.edublogs.org/2008/06/21/what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-adapt/feed/ 2 http://wanderings.edublogs.org/2007/09/27/cheating-plagiarism-or-just-a-helpful-tool/ http://wanderings.edublogs.org/2007/09/27/cheating-plagiarism-or-just-a-helpful-tool/#comments Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:38:00 +0000 James 8e022459-3594-48a8-9156-22dfd51b62af:146288 Give this a try. Thesis Builder and Online Outliner. Pretty amazing. Is it cheating or just a helpful tool? I tend to think it is cheating – but I am open to hearing other opinions.

An online citation maker like EasyBib is a useful tool because it saves you from a tedious task – a task which has no real intrinsic value as far as I can see. But a site that will write your thesis statement for you….? I don’t know….. I suppose it does have some value in teaching kids how keywords and concepts can be synthesized into a thesis statement. But once the kids discover this – will they ever write an original thesis statement again? Isn’t thesis building a critical thinking skill? Exercising our brains keeps them “lean and sharp”. Are American brains in danger of becoming as flabby as their bodies?

There are no shortcuts to a healthy brain anymore than there are any shortcuts to a healthy body. Pass the chocolate please. Maybe the Internet really IS “mind candy”?!