One of my first experiences with creating lectures and recording them for my students lead me to find the Creative Commons Licensing. Here I found a way to search for free images that I could use in many different media without worrying that the publishing companies were coming for me. I will never forget learning of Paul Andersen of Bozeman Biology fame having to take down several of his wonderful lectures because he used images from the Campbell Biology book without permission. If you look at his videos now, not only does he use Creative Common’s licenses and cite them appropriately. This is one of my favorite ways to introduce the Creative commons license to my students. Mr. Andersen did not intentionally “steal” these images, but because of Pearson’s copyright, he was on the wrong side of fair use. I take this opportunity to show students that just because something shows up on Google image search, does not mean that thy have permission to use that image or file without the creator’s permission.
This is typically one of my first lessons that I teach in the media center. I have been very fortunate in that all of the librarians at the schools I have worked with have been very knowledgeable about the creative commons and teach my students how to use and cite the images and files as well as how to search for them effectively. Usually, these conversations move into a discussion of illegally downloading movies or television shows and how it is not the Brad Pitt’s of entertainment industry that are harmed by that action. Most of my students arrive at the conclusion that using someone else’s artistic work is a very similar process and hurts the unknown individuals in the same fashion.
Once we start moving through content again after coming back from out first visit to the media center I show my students several of David Knuffke’s presentations. Students will eventually point out that he is using the same licensing structure that we were working with in the Media center and I point out how helpful his work is for many teachers in my subject area. He has become quite the content area leader and has shaped many classrooms around the country by graciously sharing his work under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License. I use a similar license when I post things outside of my Edmodo space for classroom use, but I haven’t published anything like that in a long time. I appreciate the Edmodo space sharing because it allows me to blend information from all of my various sources without worrying about infringing someone’s copyright. When my senior students post their final projects it is part of their rubric to only include materials they have permission to use and to attribute the works correctly. This actually has lead to many students taking and making many of their own resources more often because they cannot simply Google something to find their image. I have found much fewer instances of plagiarism from external sources and higher rates of attributed collaboration when I include that element in the rubric.
Quite possibly the most frustrating thing about Creative Commons and teaching appropriate use is that many school systems consider flickr to be outside of the suitable realm of websites students can visit while on campus. There are unequivocally inappropriate images on flickr, but there are also inappropriate images on Google. Every year I have to ask for it to be unblocked at school, sometimes it is sometime it isn’t. The Internet is a huge resource that students need to learn how to navigate. As cell phones are becoming more of an everyday, every student thing, blocking flickr is not going to keep students from viewing materials they shouldn’t. Teaching students how to look for, correctly cite, and independently determine the value of the works they are using is a huge step in the teaching process that many students are not allowed to learn in high school. Under the premise that a filter is protecting them, one many of them run into once and switch to their cellular Internet.
I have included a few pretty purple flowers here from flickr. the first one was taken by Lars Hammar and is titled flowers.
the other images I have included are a part of a Google slide show that I have embedded below.
This is typically one of my first lessons that I teach in the media center. I have been very fortunate in that all of the librarians at the schools I have worked with have been very knowledgeable about the creative commons and teach my students how to use and cite the images and files as well as how to search for them effectively. Usually, these conversations move into a discussion of illegally downloading movies or television shows and how it is not the Brad Pitt’s of entertainment industry that are harmed by that action. Most of my students arrive at the conclusion that using someone else’s artistic work is a very similar process and hurts the unknown individuals in the same fashion.
Once we start moving through content again after coming back from out first visit to the media center I show my students several of David Knuffke’s presentations. Students will eventually point out that he is using the same licensing structure that we were working with in the Media center and I point out how helpful his work is for many teachers in my subject area. He has become quite the content area leader and has shaped many classrooms around the country by graciously sharing his work under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License. I use a similar license when I post things outside of my Edmodo space for classroom use, but I haven’t published anything like that in a long time. I appreciate the Edmodo space sharing because it allows me to blend information from all of my various sources without worrying about infringing someone’s copyright. When my senior students post their final projects it is part of their rubric to only include materials they have permission to use and to attribute the works correctly. This actually has lead to many students taking and making many of their own resources more often because they cannot simply Google something to find their image. I have found much fewer instances of plagiarism from external sources and higher rates of attributed collaboration when I include that element in the rubric.
Quite possibly the most frustrating thing about Creative Commons and teaching appropriate use is that many school systems consider flickr to be outside of the suitable realm of websites students can visit while on campus. There are unequivocally inappropriate images on flickr, but there are also inappropriate images on Google. Every year I have to ask for it to be unblocked at school, sometimes it is sometime it isn’t. The Internet is a huge resource that students need to learn how to navigate. As cell phones are becoming more of an everyday, every student thing, blocking flickr is not going to keep students from viewing materials they shouldn’t. Teaching students how to look for, correctly cite, and independently determine the value of the works they are using is a huge step in the teaching process that many students are not allowed to learn in high school. Under the premise that a filter is protecting them, one many of them run into once and switch to their cellular Internet.
I have included a few pretty purple flowers here from flickr. the first one was taken by Lars Hammar and is titled flowers.
the other images I have included are a part of a Google slide show that I have embedded below.