Digital Storytelling

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Thing 19 – The legal side of things

Copyright is some thing that we are hopefully all aware of and yet I have always had the feeling that people are happy to slide around the regulations if possible.  I can remember it being very frustrating when I worked in a public library environment when you had to tell someone that the could not copy their Ordnance Survey map or make 30 copies of a song for their Choir; they then went around to the local newsagent and did it anyway.  There are similar problems in schools, although they do have CLA licenses which give them wider use than the general public.  However, some staff seem to think it entitles them to do almost anything they want to do.  School librarians need to be constantly on their guard in this respect.

Of course it is not just the written word that has issues.  Images, music, even logos cannot be used without permission, but I quite frequently see slide shows with music and you know that it is probably copyright but they have just used their own CD to provide the background.  Very frustrating.  I have just done a MOOC on digital storytelling which was fascinating but which brought several of these issues in to focus.  Most of the students used images from Creative Commons and used the attribution system for both the pictures and for any music they used in the background.  It was surprisingly difficult to choose the right music in particular because even cutting off a few seconds of the theme could be seen as breaking the terms and conditions, so you have to be very precise about the attribution and the timings.

Basically, think of copyright as a bit of a minefield and be very careful to check what you are doing.  The article on the Rudai blog was extremely useful as it brought us up to date in a concise and understandable way, so thank you very much for that.

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Some new MOOCs for you

Supporting children with difficulties in reading and writing. (Coursera)  This has proved to be a fascinating course which is basically about working with children with dyslexia.  As a non-teacher it is great to see how the basics of phonics are taught and also to see how children can be helped in their learning.  The course does include an element of observation but it can be completed without this if you are not looking to gain a certificate at the end.

Powerful tools for teaching and learning: digital storytelling. (Coursera)  This is not something that I had really thought of before, but I agree with the title in that it could be a very powerful way of putting information across.  I am hoping to complete a short film for this (no more that 5 mins) and will try and embed it in the blog or provide a link if possible.  We have looked at choosing the topic and creating storyboards   There are some extremely useful video clips showing examples and also techniques.  This week we are looking at audio recording and then we will have to put it all together.  It should be fun!??

Parenting in the Digital Age. (Canvas)

There has already been a course on Childhood in the Digital Age, so this makes a perfect addition to the list.  there is a high incidence of child safety material which is excellent and I particularly like finding a resource called “Common Sense Media” that I had not come across before.  This makes you think about the resources available on line, the gaming, social media and how much time our young people spend using technology.

Developing your research project  (Futurelearn)  As we speak this course has been running for one week and there are another seven to go; rather a long course by MOOC standards.  However I get the impression that I am about to actually undertake a small research project during this time.  I  hope to add to this post during the next few weeks to bring everyone up to date on the subject and what i manage to achieve.