Digital Story 2 Copy Rights

What?

This week in class we learned about the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons are part of the infrastructure that enables collaboration in the digital medium. It's licensed resources are legally and technically interoperable on a global scale which enables teachers and learners everywhere to work together. We are learning this to make sure that when we are doing our digital stories we don't copy something that is copy righted and use it illegally.

So What?

What does this mean to me as a teacher? This means that I will need to always be very careful to only use information that is okay to use for educational purposes when creating lessons and digital information (Vidcast, digital stories, podcasts, etc.). I learned that there are certain guidelines that I must follow as a teacher, student, and colleague.

I also learned that there are sites that I can go to that help me to know what information is okay to use and what isn't. I know that I must get permission to use any photos that have watermarks on them. The watermark shows who legally owns the pictures. I think it's great that there is a place for educators to go to get lessons, info and other educational aids to use and share with other educators. It's amazing that we can share information with people from all around the world and even have that information translated into our own language. Creativity is key but no one said that we can't share with one another and work together to make things better or make things work for your needs. These things work well for me as a student, teacher and colleague. There is a lot of information and it's good to know that I can go to one place to find what I need.

Now What?

What does this information mean to my future students? It means that I can teach my students how to put projects together such as vidcasts, podcasts, etc. together legally without using anything that they can't use legally. It is a great way to teach them about honesty and plagiarism too. It's a great way to teach values and how to be a good citizen. I love that one is still able to be creative and use aids from others without it being illegal. I have always been worried about using things that I find on the internet because I wasn't sure if it was something that I could use legally. You can pretty much find anything on the internet nowadays so you have to be so careful.
This lesson was very helpful and interesting to me. I wasn't able to be in class for this lesson because I had a sick child, my cute Sidney. I am thankful for technology because I was able to see what we did in class and understand it even though I wasn't physically there. Thank you Google docs and thank you friends for sharing it with me! This information has helped me to understand the laws of copy rights and make sure that I know where to look when ever I am unsure of how the laws work.