What do your
students know about copyright?
By Shirley
By Shirley
How many
students and teachers download their favorite music or find pictures on Google Images
to copy or embed into their papers, reports and projects, without even thinking
that copyright applies to them? Over the past few years, my students have
been using a variety of online sites, and web 2.0 tools to share their work
with people around the world, and it has become very clear that copyright
applies more online than anywhere else in their daily school life. Fair Use Policy for
educators no longer applies when teachers and students are creating and sharing
globally.
Copyright
Laws have always been difficult to understand and decipher because of the legal
terminology and the fact that educators are under the misguided impression that
anything can be used for students and teaching as long as it is for educational
purposes. The basic rule is that everything
is copyrighted unless stated otherwise. Of course these laws were passed before digital copyright was an issue.
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| Picture by Stuart Miles From Freedigitalphotos |
Taking an
online course and being part of an Edublog Challenge a few years ago really
started me thinking about what was legal to copy or embed and what was
not. And so I found a number of
useful sites for public domain pictures, copyright free pictures, Creative
Commons (CC) pictures and free music sites – lifesavers in students’ lives so
they can use those great pictures to illustrate their work and play background
music to enhance their project or presentation, of course with the correct
attribution. Attribution should include a link to the site being used and the
name of the author, photographer etc.
Teaching about Copyright is an essential part of teaching technology today, especially when students are creating and sharing more of their work globally. Watching videos about copyright, finding helpful sites and using examples with correct attribution have helped my 6th graders become more aware of copyright laws.
Edublogs has a very helpful page for understanding copyright restrictions and this You Tube video is also enlightening for students...
Here are some useful links for finding usable pictures and free music…
- Flickrcc
- Wikimedia commons
- Compfight
- Behold
- Pics4learning
- Morguefile
- Edupics
- FreeFoto
- ImageAfter
- Photos8
- Jamendo
- Free Music
One of my 6th
graders recently found an ideal picture to use in a wiki page he was designing
and creating on medieval architecture and arts, but realized that the site he
has used, The Canadian Center for Architecture, had a copyright license on all of
their art in the collection. Lukas decided to email the curator and ask
permission to use this picture. Within
two days he had received an interesting reply, “Thank you for your email and your interest in the CCA
Collection. Since this particular image is from the 17th century, it
is out of copyright (or in the “public domain”). It will not be necessary to
obtain our permission for the use in your wiki. We would love to see your wiki
page once it has been completed. If you want to, please send us the link and I
will show our curators here at the CCA.I f you have any questions, please feel
free to contact me. Good luck with your project!”
Courtesy of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Another
student, Manny was making a Voki about Poet’s Walk, (which is a favorite local
spot) to embed into his blog page and found a local photographer’s pictures that
were copyrighted. He also decided to e-mail the owner of the site and ask
permission to use two pictures. He too received a great email , “My photographs
are copyrighted, so I do appreciate your requesting permission to use the
photographs. Normally I do charge for use on a website, but I will waive my fee
and you do have my permission to use both photographs in your blog.
Please give me photo credit – Linda T. Hubbard. And please send me the
link when you finish your project, as I would like to read it. Please let me
know if I can help you any other way. You have picked two of my favorite
places.
What a great real life learning experience for these two students who obviously understand the moral issue in this copyright confusion and were able to follow the process to successfully work with copyright restrictions. As we use more technology in schools there will be many more similar questions to investigate and new problems to solve.
A link to Manny's blog page with his voki and picture.
What a great real life learning experience for these two students who obviously understand the moral issue in this copyright confusion and were able to follow the process to successfully work with copyright restrictions. As we use more technology in schools there will be many more similar questions to investigate and new problems to solve.
