off topic - creative commons

I want to take a break from the iPad discussion this post to explain about Creative Commons and copyright licensing. (please don’t roll your eyes)  I also haven’t played with Popplet in a collaborative way yet and want to try that before I post about it.

Did you know that anything you create has an automatic copyright attached to it?  I didn’t.  That if anyone wants to use something you’ve made they need your expressed permission to do so?  That if you want to use something someone else has created you are supposed to ask their permission?

There is an easy way around this (legal too! - not just ignoring it).  You can use creative commons licensing.  Notice anything new on my page?  I have creative commons licensed it!  Yeah me!  It was easy and fast - took me less than 3 minutes to do and that included finding the website.  (http://creativecommons.org/)  So now, if you want to use my writing for something else you may, as long as you give me credit, aren’t making money from it and also license your work in the same way I licensed mine.  These are choices I made - if you want to license something you can make different choices.

This video does a much better job explaining it than I can.  Watch it.

I believe it is our responsibility as educators to both model this and encourage (make it necessary?) for our students to respect copyright and only use images that are not-copyright protected.  This is good digital citizenship.  This can be done by searching in the creative commons itself, or using the advanced search in google images to select re-usable images.  Most images in flickr and like depositories are CC licensed.

The hardest part for me has been remembering that I want to do this (and I think it’s important), and being willing to be flexible about the image I get - it may not be exactly what I want, but can I find a different way of expressing my point?  At the very least I have been trying to be more diligent when it comes to citing my sources for images I use that aren’t labelled for reuse (art images).

As a positive heads up - the Canadian copyright laws are changing. See this article. This should make it easier (more legal) to use things for educational purposes.  The laws haven’t been changed since 1997 - which is a very long time in the digital age.

Is this on your radar?  Do you think about the intellectual rights of your work?  Of a colleagues work?  Of a stranger’s work?  Do you expect your students to cite images in posters/powerpoints/prezis?  Do you cite them?

Honest thoughts?

Accessories

We have purchased a couple of accessories for the iPads that go with the past couple of blogs.  We now have a mic that will plug into the iPads.  Although the iPads have a built in mic, the hand-held mic is supposed to cut out some of the background noise.  If you are trying ShowMe or Voice Thread in your classes you may want to borrow the mic as well.

We have also purchased 3 camera connection kits.  There are 2 connectors in each box, so we have enough for all 6 of the original iPads.  One connector is for the USB cord from the camera to the iPad, the other connector is for the SD card.  If you are having students take pictures with the department cameras, you can put the images onto the iPads using one of the connectors.

Once the images are on the iPad, they automatically go to the Photos app.  Images there can be shared via twitter, email, iMessage (although we are currently trying to avoid use of this), and copied.  Any of the apps that allow you to post a picture, also automatically access your photos on the iPad.  For example, if you choose add an image in ShowMe, voice thread, or Evernote it will take you to the photos saved on the iPad.

There is another iPad brainstorming/concept mapping app that I’m playing with called Popplet.    It allows pictures which Idea Sketch doesn’t, and it is collaborative (more than one person can work on it at the same time on different devices) which is also nice.  More on this next week.

Voice Thread

Voice Thread is a web based program that you can run on any computer through your browser (ie: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox), but there is also now an app.  According to the Voice Thread website: “VoiceThread … allows you to place collections of media like images, videos, documents, and presentations at the center of an asynchronous conversation. A VoiceThread allows people to have conversations and to make comments using any mix of text, a microphone, a web cam, a telephone, or uploaded audio file.”  Does that sound like a lot of mumbo-jumbo?  Sorry.  Maybe I could show you one easier than I can describe it...  Here’s my first try:

http://voicethread.com/?#u2210871.b2483951.i13152664

I created the above voice thread using my pictures of concentration camps, then asked 2 students in my Aventures in World History class to comment on a few of the images.  They came up with the idea of making it “like a radio show” - their words, not mine.  It wasn’t my intention to have them do it that way, but they were excited about it and were willing to spend more time with it than they have wanted to spend on any one thing all semester.

You can see that there are various options for posting comments - text, audio record, webcam record.  Just like the Show Me app, you can write on the images as well.  If you use video in your voice thread (instead of a still image or text), people commenting on the video can pause it to comment, or to draw on the still image to point something out.  Very cool.

Here is a voice thread example of video commenting use a road runner cartoon:  http://voicethread.com/?#q+voice+thread.b21651.i122786

So, what could you do with this in class?  These are just brainstormed ideas.  
1) You could post a power point and talk about the slides on voice thread if you were going to be away from class for a day.  You could pose critical thinking questions that students would respond to through Voice Thread.  I believe there is a way to fairly easily convert ppt to voice thread (at least the images), then you just add your audio/comments for each slide.
2) You could post a series of images and ask students to respond to the images.  How does each image relate to the course/unit big idea for the course?  What does the image demonstrate about the big idea?
3) You could have students submit images or quotations that they’ve found that best represent a given topic/idea.  Post those in the voice thread and require students to respond to each others’ ideas.
4) You could put debate topics or arguments on slides and have student argue each side through the voice thread.

You can choose to moderate the comments that people put on the Voice Thread if you are concerned about student putting appropriate things up.

 
Here are the draw backs I’ve seen so far.  You have to create an account. When you create a free account, it is just good for you.  Then, to comment, all your students need to create a free account as well.  Not the end of the world, but I would prefer not to ask all my students to have to create accounts for things.  You can create an educator’s account that gives you 50 student accounts attached to your account, but you have to pay for it.  I’m not into that.  (May be able to create a department one, and pay for it with the p-card?) It is possible with your 50 student accounts to use them with more than 50 students if you create, then assign generic ids to students.