Welcome to
ESL Printables,
the website where English Language teachers exchange resources:
worksheets, lesson plans, activities, etc.
Our collection is growing every day with the help of many teachers. If
you want to download you have to send your own contributions.
I am really sorry to hear what happened to you and other members of this site.
I admire your work and I think you deserve being fully credited for it.
However, I am afraid it is going to be extremely difficult and very costly for you to
bring the violator(s) to justice. As far as I understand, piracy is a real
problem in Turkey,
internally and externally, which means that we are more than likely to see this
happen again and again in the future. It is great that members of this
community give you their verbal support, but I think you and all of us need
more than that. I also appreciate that Victor
did at least something to change the situation, but I am afraid it is not
enough. I think more drastic measures should be taken to prevent thieves from
future violations. We all enjoy the possibility of editing worksheets of others,
especially when they contain errors and mistakes, but if we were to vote for
a better protection of our work, I would vote for a PDF file format instead of
Word. At least it would be nice to give members of this community a choice.
With PDFs one could lock their name inside the documents and make it more
difficult for pirates to steal their work.
I would like to open a discussion on this. I would like to
have a choice in what format I publish my work on this site. If my work is not
good enough for others to download it as a PDF file, then they don�t have to
download it. Your work, Katiana, and work of many other members does not need
any editing. So, I am sure most people won�t mind if it is not editable, and
you (and others) will have a better protection of your work.
I wish you and all of us a good luck! You�re in our
thoughts,
I think it is a big problem. Even .pdf documents can be modified with a lot of programs. So Katiana and other members who upload very useful ws, should register their copyright to prove their ws are original.
As much as I understand the usefulness of PDF documents, I must admit I prefer when I can edit. For example, American English is different than British English. I want to have the option of editing parts. It �s not about correcting mistakes, it �s about making it current to the level of my students.
I have a pdf to word program so making something PDF is nowhere near as "safe" as it used to be. Everything can be edited with the right program these days.
Nearly every worksheet needs to be edited in some way before using--- - Removing extra colours, backgrounds and pictures for different groups/ and or to save on ink - American vs British english terms - Spelling errors - Grammar errors - Editing in general as to be suitable for a particular age or group...
I have never used a worksheet from here without editing of some sort to suit the group I am using it for. As for Katiana �s problem and the other members here whose work is in those books, the best we can do it support them and hope that there will be a good outcome to this awful situation.
To Suxanita: you can save your work in a PDF file format, and upload it to the site the same way you upload files in Word. If this option is not available for some members, then they could still upload their documents in Word.
To Silivia: I did not say it would make it impossible for thieves to steal work of others, I said it would make it more difficult for them. As for registering copyright, in the USA I don �t have to register my work, I can sue violators as much as I want (and as much as my finances will allow me, I guess). In some countries (Turkey is not alone here) piracy is a huge problem and big corporations have difficulties fighting with it, nothing to say about individuals. :(
I am for pdf�s too, though I am not afraid of piracy (you know I have never scored more than 30 downloads ). Even though it is not possible to edit the resulting files, you can insert there mp3 files as well as videos in flv or mp4. If the files could be bigger, then all the worksheets could be on a completely new level.
As far as piracy is concerned, it is a moral issue. There will forever be people who will want to earn money without putting in any work. We can make it more difficult for them to exploit our work but we will never stop them.
Have a nice day and please do not stop publishing. Our students profit from this.
I think you have a really good point here. I agree that our work should be protected and I was stunned to hear what has happened to Katiana and other amazing teachers here. I honestly think these people who make money out of the hard work of others are theives.. with ALL the letters of the word. I �m only sad to think these kind of people do not take offend with these words or anything because if they have the courage to do something like this then, they have no moral and can �t feel ashamed of what they do. However, what I like the most about this site, is the fact that worksheets ARE editable. I don �t download uneditable worksheets and I �m often dissapointed when I �ve downloaded works and found out they were a whole image. I don �t think that the editable issue is mainly to �edit � worksheers which have mistakes. And I also agree in that Katiana �s works never need editing as they are always perfect. BUT I often just use the exercises with my students and avoid printing cliparts no matter if they are in grey scaleas this isn �t the same as B&W and I can �t afford printing colourful worksheets. So I believe that the fact that worksheets are editable makes it easier for us teachers.
I think that one way to narrow the chances for these delinquents, would be to have the chance in this site to have a profile and ADD FRiends, so that we could add the people we want to our profile and allow them to download our works. People who are not accepted first by the owner of the profile CAN �T download the other person �s works. Of course this would make people get fewer points, but if they truly do it to share then points do not matter. I �m not too worried about MY own works as I �m not that beautifully skilled with computers and I do not buy cliparts as I can �t afford to pay in other currency.. But I �m concerned with the fabulours works such as Katiana �s, Teresaraiva �s, Gabitza �s, and many others mainly the ones like GAby or Alenka..who design their cliparts!!
I don �t think PDF is a real protection against thieves , if they want to use your worksheets there are many programms in informatics to use them and as far as I am concerned I appreciate the fact that I can take only an exercise or I can adapt a worksheet to my classes, too.
I can also use a test and modify it the way I need it.
I wrote to Katiana privately also and I said that I when I saw this site offering worksheets in Word, I felt like it was an invitation for thieves to take your work.
Metaphorically, I could say that this site is a house with open doors. Do you leave your doors open in your house? I don �t. Not in this time, not in this world. People put locks on their houses to make it more difficult for thieves to enter. All I am suggesting is giving people a choice - leave doors open, or put locks on them. I know that you can lock PDFs and then it won �t be possible (at least not easily) to convert them to Word.
As for editing, I don �t edit work of others that much. I am not afraid that my students will learn some words in British English. I leave the world of English as open for them as I can. As for errors, the textbook that I use in my classes (High Point by Hampton Brown) has them too. I just tell my students, that there �s an error there and we keep going. ;)
I can assure everyone here that PDF �s are not guaranteed protection. It all depends on how good you are at cracking codes or what software you have on your system. In a worst case someone could always print & then scan your worksheet.... so as long as people are presenting work to share there is always a way to get around protections if you seriously want to...
). Even though it is not possible to edit the resulting files, you can insert there mp3 files as well as videos in flv or mp4. If the files could be bigger, then all the worksheets could be on a completely new level.
