Featured: 7-15-2013 Copyright Kids

Copyrightkids, brought to you by the Copyright Society of the USA, is an educational tool to help teachers and students identify copyright issues and learn how and why copyright law applies to everyone.

Students may use Copyrightkids on their own or in connection with classroom activities. Students can learn about the fundamentals of copyright law in the Copyright Basics section. Teachers may distribute the Copyright Basics in class.

Students can then join the Lincoln Middle School Multimedia Yearbook Club members as they navigate through copyright law with the help of their guide, "Copyright Cat." By working through the various copyright issues with the members of the Yearbook Club, students can find out how copyright might apply to them and why it is important to learn about it.

The intent of Copyrightkids is to provide:

• An educational tool to define, explain, and apply copyright issues to middle school students.
• An educational resource on copyright issues for teachers and parents of 5th - 8th graders.
• Information about protecting your own creations by registering them with the US Copyright Office.

A user-friendly toolbar will enable users to jump to any section of Copyrightkids, allowing quick access to more information on a particular subject. Jump to any exercise from the topic headings that appear in the individual pages. Helpful links have also been provided on each page to help users understand particular terms and concepts. In addition, there are pages that outline sample permission letters, copyright-related materials, and FAQ's.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured: 5-30-2013 The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning [Reference]

The Teacher's Guides To
Technology And Learning 

The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning by Edudemic are intended to offer teachers some of the best and most popular resources currently available.

In creating The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning, Edudemic has explored hundreds of resources in order to make their guides easy to read, use, and share.

The Teacher’s Guide To Flipped Classrooms

Because the flipped classroom is one of the most sought-after topics in terms of questions on social media, search queries, and more, Edudemic thought it would be useful to organize all of their many resources into one easy-to-use guide. It’s a curated list of many of the most useful flipped classroom resources.

The Teacher’s Guide To Copyright And Fair Use

Teaching students about copyright and fair use involves more than just telling them that they should be doing their own work, and not copying off the web. Plagiarism and copyright violations are significant issues in the classroom.

The Teacher’s Guide To The Library Of Congress

The Library of Congress is an incredible resource for teachers. The largest library in the world, it’s home to millions of books, recordings, photographs, and other materials, many of them original sources. This guide, written for teachers and education in general, promises to be an easy and solid resource to refer back to as needed.

 

The Teacher’s Guide To Choosing The Best Digital Content

Blended learning is becoming a noteworthy trend in education technology as teachers realize technology alone isn’t the 'magic bullet' of education. A blended learning environment means  mixing technology with standard teaching practices in order to enhance education.

Other available guides:

• The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter
• The Teacher’s Guide To Digital Scavenger Hunts
• The Teacher’s Guide To Pinterest In The Classroom
• The Teacher’s Guide To Keeping Students Safe Online
• The Teacher’s Guide To Badges In Education
• The Teacher’s Guide To Google Glass

The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning are always a work in progress. The current guides are always being updated and refreshed, and new guides are being developed.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0 

MakeUseOf Explains Fair Use

According to USC Title 17, Section 107, there are four traits to consider when deciding if something is actually under fair use law:

• Purpose And Character Of The Derivative Work.
• Nature Of The Copyrighted Work.
• Amount Of The Copyrighted Work Used.
• Effect On The Potential Market Of The Copyrighted Work.

MakeUseOf writer Joshua Lockhart attempts to explain these determining factors for fair use.

"All four of the above factors are taken into consideration when it comes to fair use, and I’m aware most of them are arbitrary. For the first three, use your gut, and I mean really use your gut. Don’t play the rationalization game. Usually, when you start rationalizing, you end up being wrong. The last one is pretty black and white when you get right down to it."



Read the full article here.

COD - 8/22/2012 - PlagTracker.com [Tools]

PlagTracker.com benefits teachers, students, writers, bloggers, and anyone else interested in protecting their writing.

PlagTracker.com, the product of two Ukrainian computer scientists, guarantees that anything you write can be thoroughly checked by their plagiarism software to ensure that your texts are unique.

The process of checking your work for plagiarism is accomplished in three simple steps:

1. You upload your paper or enter the content in the text box.
2. PlagTracker.com scans it for plagiarism by checking all internet pages and their own database of more than 20 million academic works.
3. You will then receive the plagiarism report containing information about sections of the text that need to be cited and a list of sources.

Students can also benefit from PlagTracker.com by having their essays or research papers checked for any plagiarism that may have been committed in their work. Even if you commit plagiarism unintentionally, it is still viewed as plagiarism.

PlagTracker.com supports English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Romanian.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Five Sources for Free and Legal Images

Image via WikipediaGoogle image search is a great resource for images, but there can be issues with your right to use some of those images. Here are five links to sites where you can locate free (as in "no cost") and free (as in "available to use") images, clipart, video, and music.

Creative Commons Search allows students and teachers to search for images, music, and videos which are free for their use and which can be modified legally.

FreeFoto.com is the largest collection of free photographs on the Internet offering images that are free for on-line use. If your off-line use is not commercial you can download web size images for free.

everystockphoto.com is a search engine for free photos. These come from many sources and are license-specific. You can view a photo's license by clicking on the license icon, below and left of photos.

Classroom Clipart offers over 62,000 free images, clipart, illustrations animations and photographs for every occasions.

FlickrStorm is a better search for Flickr! It works by looking for more than what you enter to find related and more relevant images... Be suprised!

Copyright Bay

Copyright rules are a reality that educators must come to grips with in a time when technology makes it easy to steal intellectual property. Educators in general have a lot to learn to become familiar with not only what copyright law restricts, but also what it allows in terms of that hazy concept, fair use.

A Visit to Copyright Bay attempts to explore fair use in the educational setting and presents it in an informative and entertaining way.