Copyright 180

I am attending the always wonderful PSLA Conference at State College, PA.

Yesterday morning I attended a session for librarians and the CFF (Classrooms for the Future) coaches. We began with an enlightening session on how CFF coaches and librarians can work together instead of fighting "turf" wars (see great wiki on collaboration by Hempfield School).

Afterwards we began an eye-opening session on copyright by Renee Hobbs. Renee is founder of the Media Education Lab. Renee provided us with a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education. I feel like the copyright chains have been released for educators and students. We discussed fair use and transformative works in the context of education and how that allows us and our students to use copyrighted materials in many cases where we previously thought we could not. The idea of transformative works is the open window in the stifling environment of copyright guidelines. I feel better equipped to teach my students and teachers how to use copyrighted materials in accordance with the Code of Best Practices instead of always saying, "No, you can't use it."

Watch this video by the Media Education Lab on User Rights! You will do a 180 on the way you deal with copyright (if you haven't already).


Although, I did leave the session wondering, "Where does Creative Commons fall into this picture?" As my students have been creating more digital/media products, I have been pushing Creative Commons this year. So, as if reading my mind, Joyce Valenza began her session on Creative Commons.


Photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/69141388@N00/97338266/.

My First Steps Into Podcasting

Last spring I attended a podcasting session at the PSLA conference and I knew that podcasting would be my big push this year with my teachers.

I began by getting audacity and the LAME encoder downloaded on all the computers/laptops in the library. Next, I taught myself how to use audacity - there are tons of great tutorials out on the web and audacity itself is very simple to use. Then I bought enough headphones and USB microphones for an entire class.

So, now I was ready to pull in the teachers. In addition to talking to teachers, I sent out an electronic newsletter hoping to introduce, educate, and interest teachers in doing podcasts with their students. I was able to interest 5 teachers in developing podcasts projects this year.

I want to highlight the alternative energy video podcast project that a science teacher and I are currently working on. This will be the first of three posts chronicling the process.

FIRST STEP

We introduced the students to the project yesterday. I wanted her students to be aware of copyright and creative commons. So, I created a short presentation (see below) to introduce them to the Creative Commons license and how to give attribution to creators. I also introduced them to compfight - the image search engine they will be using to find their pictures (not blocked by our filter - yay!). Finally, I created a page on my website for students to reference.


After talking to the science teacher today, it sounds like she and the students are excited to be working on this project. The students have one week to create their script and find their pictures before we begin creating our video podcasts.

Next week . . . Second Step!

Photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mexicanrejectdafe/3026301012/sizes/m/