Learning in a Digital World

I certainly enjoyed our second day of the summercore experience at Castilleja. I continue to gain wonderful ideas and techniques by participating in the sessions. Near the end of the day we had a discussion on the world of copyright and ethics in the digital world. We also did a little reading and surfing of some links that Lynne posted at her delicious account on this topic. I enjoyed the discussion as this is a knotty issue and one we need to have with our students and school community on a regular basis. There are so many gray areas in the world of copyright and as a result, I highly encourage teachers and students to consider doing the following when building multimedia projects.

• When choosing digital content for a project (pictures, video, music, etc), use homegrown/original media if possible. Projects that allow students to take their own photos/video and then add their own music created with tools like garageband completely avoid the copyright issue, AND it gives students experience in building original content.
• If it isn’t possible to use original media, use content that has been licensed in the Creative Commons. Creative Commons is basically a licensing system that allows all of us to use and remix the content in our own projects for a variety of purposes. Do an advanced search for Creative Commons licensed content at flickr to find pictures and video (check the Creative Commons options at the bottom of the advanced search page in flickr). Likewise, visit sites like Jamendo or CCMixter for audio that has been published online and licensed in the Creative Commons.

Check out the YouTube below for an overview on Creative Commons: