Personally, some of the best ones that I found recently were about using ActivStudio for Promethean Boards. Our schools are slowly purchasing more and more boards and needing professional learning for the software the accompanies it. Normally, that would fall on me, but I haven’t had the time that it would take to devote myself on becoming an expert on the boards. That and if you don’t use what you’ve learned, you’ll lose it, which could very well happen to me. The podcasts that I found were short vodcasts, and each focused on a particular tool or topic. I was able to point others to these resources, but have also kept them archived for myself as well.

Even though I’m not a huge fan of long (only) audio podcasts, I have found listening to some conference keynote speakers to be valuable and often times uplifting.

Given that I haven’t taken much time to search out or listen to student-created podcasts, I really enjoyed this particular activity. My experience in the classroom was with high school students only, so I headed straight for the “younger” podcasts and chose to explore the collection from Jamestown Elementary. The first that I listened to was on the topic of Thanksgiving. Even though theirs didn’t have true “video” in the podcasts, they did have images that the children had drawn to accompany their narration. I absolutely LOVE student artwork and to be able to see their interpretation while they spoke was a treat. I then listened to the one titled Outdoor Lab Experience that included pictures from their field trip. This podcast sounded as though they were recording the students during the field trip as they shared what they enjoyed most or what they learned. It wasn’t scripted at all and the spontaneity of their responses really captured their enthusiasm.

After Jamestown, I chose to explore Ms.Edminson’s Weekly Podcast. I specifically chose this one because I was hoping to find a scripted podcast to compare with the prior ones. The first title caught my eye, which was Take a BITE Out of Shark Facts!. I said before that I enjoyed the unscripted podcast, but this one blew me away. It was extremely well written, had music to introduce the podcast as well as during the transitions in the segments of the “broadcast”. The children, to me, sounded as if they had been doing this for quite a while because there was so much inflection and character in their voices. I wasn’t expecting that at all, especially from third graders! It makes me want to find a teacher in one of our schools and start podcasting with them! Given that it doesn’t require a huge investment or expensive equipment to produce a podcast, it’s one of those activities that could be quickly produced for those just beginning.

In searching for podcasts for myself, I went through iTunes and decided to search specifically for vodcasts and found a new one that I had not seen before. It’s from Kevin Honeycutt of ESSDACK out of Kansas. He’s very active on Plurk (one of the social networks I participate in) so when I saw that this was his podcast, of course I subscribed. I think he may also have some on his website, which I’ll have to look into further.

What I like about searching for podcasts/vodcasts in iTunes is that it will tell you what other people also subscribed to in addition to the one I’m currently looking at. I found that to be very useful information and I treat that like a recommendation to at least check the others out. The ones that branched off of Kevin’s podcasts pointed to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” by Wes Fryer (which I already have subscribed to), EdTechTalk.com, David Warlick, and November Learning just to name a few. I’m familiar with all of these so I felt the recommendations were very valid. For someone just beginning to search for podcasts in iTunes, it’s a great resource to have if they aren’t sure what other podcasts might be out there.

I have looked before in the Educational Podcast Network, but honestly found it easier to use iTunes or directly subscribe to a podcast from someone’s blog if I found one there. Again, I’m a visual person and I guess the iTunes interface really appeals to me. That and I can learn more about the podcasts itself through iTunes as opposed to EPN. Now LearnOutLoud.com’s interface really appealed to me and I was about to get right to a few podcasts within a few clicks, I had some kind of a visual that went with each podcast, along with a short description. From there I did subscribe to Teach42’s podcast (Steve Dembo). I have to admit being a bit biased about choosing his since I was just able to meet him in November and he’s also on Plurk.

Podcasts, whether teacher created for specific tasks or existing podcasts can be a goldmine for the classroom. My first thought, was using them with elementary students in centers. Also, I noticed that there are some podcasts specifically for learning English, which might be very useful for ELL students. Some of the podcasts appeared to be geared for older people, so those might be more appropriate for high school students. Teachers could record their lectures and post them on their website, which would be especially useful for students who were absent or need to review. Additionally, teacher created podcasts can target specific standards which students are having problems mastering. The podcast, especially if it was visual in nature, could help explain difficult concepts and appropriate activities could be tied to the pod/vodcast to ensure that students were able to take what they heard and watched and apply it.

In my school system we are currently running a pilot with ELL students and iPods, using them both in school to tackle areas on the CRCT where they were defiicient. Math is our current target area and the teachers are either finding existing content or creating their own to provide that needed remediation and support. Our pilot group is small and the students do take home the iPod for one night along with a corresponding activity. Thus far, the response from the students has been very positive and I’m looking forward to the end of the school year when we can see if using this technology has made an impact.

Photo Credit: Pmtorrone on Flickr

I would have never thought about creating a PageFlake that could be used by others as a resource. It’s a great idea and seems as though it would be far easier to use as a themed resource page than building a web page containing a variety of resources. I found it to be very easy to create and customize my own PageFlake. Always a good sign when a site is fairly user friendly, which is something I look for when promoting its use.

For classroom learning, a teacher could conceivably create a page for each unit containing a “theme” of resources pertaining to those standards. I would be very interested to see how teachers use PakeFlakes with their students. I’m also wondering if students could generate their own PageFlake as an assignment and how that might look. The “anything” flake was completely new to me and considering how flexible it is, I would think that students could get very creative with what they might choose to embed for an assignment.

As a professional learning resource, I could definitely see incorporating PageFlakes into a course, such as providing an RSS feeds for specifically tagged bookmarks from Del.icio.us or Diigo, an RSS feed for specific blogs that might relate to the course, task lists, a calendar, and more.

Personally, I can see spending a lot of time going through some searches on PageFlakes to see what gems I might uncover. I”ll have to spend some more time there once this course has been completed.

Photo credit: Poinsetta Flakes by CaptPiper

I LOVE Google Docs and have for quite some time. In my job, I need to be able to work on documents sometimes whenever I get the chance. That might mean that I have ten minutes at a school while I’m loading server-based software or I have five minutes in a media center while I’m waiting to meet a teacher. Those minutes can add up to productivity if I am able to log into Google Docs and make edits or additions to a document. Mobility and accessibility are two wonderful advantages.

Does Google Docs (Presentation and Spreadsheets) have disadvantages? Sure, all three are not Microsoft Office and certainly do not have all of the features, but the advantages more than make up for it. If I could change two things about Google Docs right now, that would be the ability to embed a Google Document into a wiki, blog, or web page and to have a chat. You can embed a spreadsheet and chat in Google Spreadsheets, but not a document, which to me is puzzling since they are both under the Google Docs umbrella.

As for how to use these? Currently we are updating our Media Specialist’s Handbook and I needed a way for all fourteen of them to be able to edit the document, but without creating 14 copies of the same thing leaving me to compile all of the edits. The solution? Google Docs. I took the entire document, split it into four and each media specialist chose a section to work on. They are making their edits and when they are finished, the others will be invited to view their changes, making any last edits before the final document is put together. This also allows them to work on it at their leisure in between the time we meet as a group.

For students who are tasked with a group project (the dreaded group project), Google Docs can allow them to work on a single document all at the same time, while providing accountability for the work they’ve contributed. The beauty of Google Docs allows the teacher to see who has contributed which parts, something that hasn’t been possible in the past using a normal paper/pencil or word processor options.

Not my idea, but I read about a great example for using Google Docs for collaborative story writing. Students were paired together between two different schools, four total, two at each school. Using two computers, one using Skype and the other using Google Docs, students were able to communicate and discuss their story while writing it live.

Google Spreadsheets is an incredible tool, especially the Forms function. The ability to create quickly publishable forms that are also embeddable presents some great opportunities. The following ideas were taken from Tom Barrett’s blog post 10 Google Forms for the Classroom.

1) Getting to know you – A teacher can gather all kinds of information about their students by having them fill in the form with information about their favorite things, clubs, and more.

2)Emotion Graph – Students indicate their feelings at certain points of a story. Data can then be used to create a graph indicating the class reaction.

3)Library Book Reviews – Collect children’s opinions about the books they read. It can be used as a resource for others to help them decide the books they would like to read.

In my job, I have used forms for course registrations and for end-of-course assessments. I found the latter to be quite useful as course participants, I felt, were more candid and provided me with more feedback than they would have using a traditional paper review.

I’ve dabbled in Google Presentations, but haven’t created anything that I’ve used. Personally, I found it limiting. However, I do like the fact that you can conduct a chat while showing the presentation, creating a back channel. I have participated in several of these presentations both live and streamed and have found that feature to be quite useful.

First of all, and I hate to admit this, although I do enjoy reading very much, it’s an escapist sport for me. Which means what, you may ask? Basically, I don’t want to think when I read. I do plenty of thinking when I read online, which is a huge portion of my day. So, with that being said, when I do choose something to read (bound and printed), it’s fluff pure and simple.

Romance is my preferred genre. Now, I do have a few authors who I enjoy reading, but beyond them, finding other books that I’d like to spend a few hours with and that I’ll enjoy can be difficult. Have you looked at the romance aisle in a bookstore lately? Too many choices. Given that, I thought the Suggester function of LibraryThing was great. I haven’t had a chance to check out any of the books that it suggested, but I did find myself spending FAR too much time using that great little feature.

The groups are something I plan on investigating further on my own. There are times, even though I’m primarily a “fluff” reader, that I’d like to see what others like me are interested in, but didn’t quite know where to turn.

The search feature was very robust. Having the ability to search for books in so many ways, especially since I don’t recall many of the names of authors who I have read, was wonderful. Since tags are used, I even attempted to search for themes that might be found in romance books and had success with that as well. I noted that they refer to using multiple tags in the search as a “tag mash.”

As far as the educational setting, I think the idea of participating in a book challenge would be fun, especially if students tied the book challenge to a blog where they reviewed the books they read and included LibraryThing Widget as well. As for other applications, I’m not sure, but I will enjoy reading the other blog posts on this topic to see what they thought.

I LOVE using social bookmarking services and have been a delicious user for longer than I can recall. Oddly enough my oldest saved bookmark dates back to June of 2007, but I know I started using this service long before then. My account on Del.icio.us is techintegrate.

When I first imported my bookmarks (many, many moons ago), I didn’t really understand tagging all that well. First, I did the anal thing and added tags to EVERY bookmark. At that time, I think I had about 300 – 500 bookmarks. I do NOT recommend anyone doing what I did. In fact, a co-worker came up with a far more reasonable approach. IF she visited one of the sites and then went to bookmark it, she knew if it was one of the uploaded sites that she had because the tag said “imported”. She then erased that tag and added in ones that were appropriate. Smart woman! Wish I had thought of that. Using this process, if after quite a few months she had not changed the “imported” tag to something more relevant, then she most likely wouldn’t need the site again and deleted it from her collection.

I found this image below a while back and thought it was a great visual way to illustrate the concept of tagging.

But tagging, I have come to believe, can become a HUGE headache if you are not both consistent in how you tag your sites AND if you do not use enough tags to later retrieve sites you need. In the beginning, I wasn’t very liberal with tagging sites. I may have only used two tags, feeling this would be sufficient. However, when attempting to find sites that I needed, those two words sometimes weren’t enough. I would know that there was a site that I had found and it was the one that I really needed, but due to my tagging practices, I wasn’t able to easily locate it.

Luckily, Delicious does provide you both with recommended tags and with a library of your own tags as you begin to type it in. This is a wonderful feature, because it helps with ensuring that your tagging is somewhat consistent. I say somewhat, because even though I try, I still need to go into my tags every now and again and do some merging, condensing, and cleaning. Case in point, having the tags “blog”, “blogs”, and “blogging”. I know there is a rhyme and reason to my madness, but until I investigate the sites tagged with those words, it remains a mystery.

Another important aspect of keeping your bookmarks organized is to use the bundle function. This is akin to using folders in your browser favorites, but has much more flexibility. I tend to go to my bundles to see which tags I placed under them, and then search from there when mining my own bookmarks.

Of course, the most beneficial aspect of social bookmarking, is the “social” aspect. The ability to see who else saved the same types of bookmarks that I did, and then be able to look through their bookmarks is like having your own private goldmine. I hate to admit how much time I’ve spent hopping from one person’s list to another, to another, all because of a bookmark that I saved. To know that I have access that kind of a resource, that collective intelligence, is huge, especially when I can read through their comments about the website itself, if they’ve added any.

Now, after I’ve said all of this about Del.icio.us, I need to admit that no longer directly save links to this service. I discovered Diigo in the Fall of 2007 and really liked it for the fact that you could highlight and place sticky notes on pages for future reference. I tried the site, but didn’t wish to cease using Del.icio.us because I knew that more people were bookmarking there, which is a huge resource. Diigo was supposed to cross-post to Del.icio.us, but I soon discovered that it was not working properly, so I abandoned it. That was until Diigo came through with a major upgrade in early 2008 that appealed to many educational users of Del.icio.us. The news of the new features made the rounds at Twitter and within a week, I had built up a considerable network there.

Diigo has many services that Del.icio.us does not, which for me makes it the superior tool. There is a discussion board where I can communicate with my “friends”, I can create lists of bookmarks that are easily shared with others, I can participate in groups on specific topics where members save links to a common pool, and the list goes on. Diigo, for me, has become such a valuable resource that I tend to search their first before going to Google. Many times I will search my own bookmarks by tags and if I don’t find what I need from my own collection, with a click of a link, I can then scan through all of the sites with those same tags saved by my friends. Granted, the tags other people use may not be the same ones that I would use, but I have still been able to find resources that I might not have otherwise.

No matter which service you like, participating in a social bookmarking is “no brainer”. I love to think about it in terms of having a collective intelligence at my fingertips. Professionally speaking, I rely on this service heavily. Instead of the hit or miss searching I can do on Google, I peruse what my network has saved first to see what gems I might find.

Other ways and examples of using this service might be:
1) Teachers in a school or across the district who teach the same subject and/or grade level can create a group in which to save bookmarks.

2) Decide upon a “common tag” that all teachers will use for researching and saving links for an upcoming project students will do. By agreeing on a unique “common tag” and tagging all links found with that tag, you can then search for that specific tag and create a link roll for the students. The link roll can then be embedded into class website, wiki, or blog for the students to use.

3) Students who are working on a common project can also (if they have accounts or using the teacher’s account) save using common tags.

4) Teachers can create lists of bookmarks by tags for students to use. These lists in Diigo have RSS feeds, which can be integrated into a wiki.

5) The highlighting and annotation (sticky note) feature, when shared in groups, can be most helpful to teachers when collecting resources. If a page is mostly text, highlighting and adding a sticky note can help others within the group find the pertinent information quickly, as well as any accompanying notes.

I’m sure there are more uses, but these are just a few. I’m addicted to Diigo, and am slowly but surely getting others in my district to use it as well. Even if they begin using it for purely personal reasons, like not having to email themselves bookmarks, it’s a first step. The benefits of the social aspects will follow. Here’s hoping it goes viral in a good way.

Image Source: cambodia4kidsorg

Deep breath…

Okay, my intent had been to dig deep into the bowels of my reader to find one of my starred gems, however when I opened it to develop this post, one of the titles of a recent post jumped out at me: 50 Ways to Use a Projector in the Classroom. This post comes from the blog, Langwitches created by Silvia Tolisano, who I greatly admire. She is known, to me at least, for her practical blog posts, which I have always found informative.

This particular post is cuts right to the heart of the title and is a subject about which I have been thinking about recently. One of the issues that I have noticed in my district is that teachers have been using LCD projectors mostly as a replacement for their overhead projector – something she mentions in the post. She goes on to describe the process of how they adopted the LCD’s and how they have begun mounting them. I really liked hearing about this because it’s nice to hear about where other schools are in utilizing various types of technologies.

Silvia then speaks of offering professional development on uses for the LCD projector at one of their monthly workshops. I love the idea of monthly workshops and wish that I could implement this myself, but I would really need people in the schools that I could count on to redeliver this instruction. Yet another item to add to my list of things to do. But given the practicality of her suggestions, which she adapted from a discussion on Classroom 2.0, and her wiki, this will become a great resource for me to use in my district.

As for the second post that I’d like to share, I found this great post by Jennifer Jones of Injenuity. I only wish there had been time to read it before I did my presentation at GaETC. Had that been the case, I think I may have changed the approach I took just a bit. Why? Because in her post, titled “The Job of Personal Learning”, she approaches the building of a PLN by looking at it as a job. I knew that building a PLN was work, knew that it takes time, and knew that you have to dedicate yourself to your tools of choice and to fostering the connections. Even knowing all of this, I didn’t think of it as a job, probably because I eat this stuff up. I quickly realized the benefits of my network and I was hooked!

This part really rocked me, that rang true with me (the grace of 20/20 vision after the fact) was this,

When I look at it as a job, I can see why introducing it to groups en masse doesn’t lead to successful adoption.

Yes, I enjoyed a rather self-depreciating laugh. After all, that’s exactly what I attempted to do. But hey, so did David Warlick and Steve Dembo, too. At least I was in good company, right? Of course. My expectations were a smidgen too high though. Yes, I am a glass 1/2 full kind of girl, but I believe in the power of positive thought. Yes, I thought I might could possibly start a PLN wave. I think perhaps it was more like a pebble dropped into a large lake though.

Regardless, Jen’s quote above is all too true. After reflecting on it, I realized that I have had much more success with colleagues becoming involved in aspects of building a PLN because I have been able to intimately demonstrate the power of my PLN and I have been able to, in effect, mentor them. Those who I have been able to do that with have stuck with it.

After uploading my picture, the puzzle is created for you, and you are then given an embed code as well as other options. They offered quite a few embed code options, which I found to be useful given that my blog doesn’t leave a lot of space to embed something of this size. The code I chose allows the puzzle to overflow the space to the right.

When I played my puzzle online, there was timer that kept track of how long it took me to create my puzzle. As far as social aspects of the site, you can play puzzles other than the ones that you created and share your puzzle solving time with “buddies” who also create accounts. Other than that, I didn’t see many social opportunities. I would also have a difficult time finding educational applications for this site. I suppose if students uploaded their own artwork or photos they took, then they could put the puzzles together when there is “downtime” in the classroom – but when do we have that?

What my PLN Means Jigsaw Puzzle

Wordle was another option to explore, which I LOVE. This is a sample wordle that I created with the help of my PLN (Professional Learning Network). It’s the same Wordle that I used to create the puzzle above, but with different colors.

As far as the educational applications of Wordle, here are a couple:

1. Copy and paste student work into a wordle to identify repetitive words

2. Create an “about me” page, but pasting the student’s name in many times to ensure their name comes out large. Then descriptors, again adding them in several times, but not as many as the name so they appear smaller.

Speeches are another piece of text that are great to plug into a Wordle. You can see what the most common “themes” of a speech are because the more the word is repeated, the larger it is.

Since I’ve already been using Wordle, I decided to try a third Web 2.0 tool, Writeboard. It’s a site where you can create a document that can be edited and added to collaboratively. Once you create a writeboard, you’re ready to edit and then save it. After that step, you are provided a link to the write board which can be distributed along with your chosen password allowing others edit it as well. Probably the best thing about Writeboard is the fact that you do not have to create an account. I find this especially useful since it is sometimes difficult for students to create accounts because they a) don’t have an email or b) have an email but they can’t verify it at school in order to use the service.

The bad? I wish it had is an embed code. Also, two people cannot simultaneously edit the document or they will save over each other, much like a wiki. The third most obvious drawback is the fact that you have to use codes to bold, italicize, or underline.

Here is the link to my Writeboard and the password is trymeout.

As far as educational applications, I think a fun project that this could be used for is to create a chain story. The teacher could provide the start to the story and each student then add on. Students can also create a writeboard for school work and share the link and password with their teacher.

All in all, it’s free and for that price, it’s worth at least giving it a try.

Credits for these images are as follows:
Trans Asia Express : Zerega
A confusing street sign : Jellybean
Questions : Oberazzi
The world network: saschaaa
Globes-hands-sm: noticelj
Sharing :ryancr
Learning: Nebraska Library Commission
Ingrid ~ La Fontaine des Innocents XXVI: h_de_c
What my PLN Means Wordle: Created by me with the assistance of my PLN

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways!!
Thou art more useful for finding an incredible
array of images than any other tool.

And I joketh not!

Okay, all Shakespeare references aside, I am head over heels for Flickr! In my previous post on Creative Commons, I mentioned how I have recently used Flickr for a presentation that I did. I spent hours on Flickr searching for those special images that evoked the meaning I wanted and I found far more examples than I ended up using.

Whenever I need an image, I head straight to Flickr. When someone else needs images, I show them the CC search in Flickr. When I see someone heading to the Google Image search, right after I cringe, I point them to the CC search in Flickr. Certainly there are other photo sharing sites out there, but none are comparable to the depth and breadth you find here. Can you tell I love this site?

Since I already spent so much time searching for images in preparation for my GaETC presentation, I chose to use the same theme for this task. Is that cheating? I dearly hope not. In this instance, I’ll call it dual-purpose tasking just to cover myself . My theme is Professional (Personal) Learning Networks and the images that I searched for were those that, for me, represent what my network means to me.

The image below is probably one of my favorites. Most might see a group of people holding puzzle pieces together. However, what I see is a broad cross-section of people who are joining together to connect, collaborate, share, and create something of value that each person can then use.

Not being a classroom teacher (for many moons), I don’t have specific ideas for how Flickr can be used to support teaching and learning in general. I use Flickr in my professional development courses to show teachers a viable option they can use and that their students can use for project creation.

Personally, in my searches for images to use in my presentation, what I have found in Flickr has broadened my view of how words can be represented. It’s always interesting to see the results that I get when searching titles and tags.

One of the more interesting and recent developments on Flickr is the ability to upload videos. I know that YouTube is the preferred method for that, but in many cases YouTube is blocked for schools whereas Flickr is not. This Life in Florida set contains student-created Photostory movies they are sharing with a partner school, which I believe is in either Central or South America. Since most digital cameras these days can also take decent quality movies with sound, the ability to upload movies to Flickr extends the use of the site and opens up other opportunities for sharing digital media.

I know there are many other aspects of Flickr that can be used in education and that I am just beginning to scratch the surface. This perhaps will become a goal of mine to delve deeper into the world of Flickr so I can then develop strategies for incorporating its use in the classroom. To that end, I created a Flickr in Education group in Diigo to help me and others see the educational applications of Flickr. This is our group’s linkroll thus far. If you are a Diigo user and are interested in joining, you are welcome to contribute!

Group Flickr in Education Bookmarks

Flickr logo photo source – Jing Screenshot
Puzzle photo source: Flickr Lumaxart

I tend to be pretty oblivious to badges or logos on websites unless they’ve been pointed out to me. Call it ignorance, but in this case it’s true. If I have ever gone to a website with a CC logo on it, I never questioned what it was because it had no impact on me personally.

After attending NECC 2007 in Atlanta, which is where I first heard the term “creative commons”, everything that I searched for on the Internet to use for professional purposes was viewed in a different light.

How? First of all, I knew that images from Google’s image search weren’t in the public domain. For years when I taught web-publishing, I always told my teachers that you are not to use images from there unless you have permission. Then I would direct them to sources of clip art and images that were freely usable, with the request for attribution. In the cases of elementary teachers, the sites that I found were great for them because most of the images were geared for the eye of a younger child. That left out the middle and high school teachers though who I often found were grabbing images from here and there, without attribution, and using them on their websites.

Then along came Creative Commons.

What a difference this had made! I now have at my fingertips a vast resource of images that can be used legally for free. All anyone needs to do is provide a link (if published on the web) and attribution back to the source. I recall the expressions on the faces of the first group of teachers that I told about the Creative Commons search feature in Flickr. It made me feel like I had given them a present.

For the most part, the video clips that I have needed to use in the professional learning that I deliver has all come with an embed code. However, I know that teachers and their students need access to media that is freely usable. It has become important for me to promote the use of Creative Commons searches more now than in the past because an increasing number of both our teachers and students are publishing.

Creative Commons will, I hope teach both teachers and students about the importance of attribution and how they, too can contribute to the vast collection of CC licensed work available. I believe that if students utilize the media available under this license, they will find a far richer and deeper pool of resources to choose from, which will result in a better final project.

On a personal note, I recently presented at GaETC in Atlanta and created a Power Point presentation – the first I’ve done in years! My goal was to completely avoid clipart in favor of finding images that would evoke meaning. I turned to the CC search feature in Flickr and was able to collect a huge array of images. What made it even more meaningful for me was the ability to search both titles and tags of images for words such as ’sharing’ and ‘learning’. It was interesting to see people’s perceptions of these words in their pictures.

I do share content on the web via Flickr, wikis, and most recently Slideshare. After having found such great content in so many places, I almost feel that it’s my duty to contribute for the benefit of others.

(Word of warning…this Power Point won’t make sense without the presentation. I’m hoping to do a recording of it.)

One of the questions that we could respond to for this blog post was “Who owns your teaching materials?”. I think a gut reaction would be to say “ME!”, but given the fact that the materials I create are typically done both at work and on my school system’s computers, then arguably, they do. I haven’t had the chance to further research what the true answer to that might be. Is there a true answer? That is the piece about copyright and fair use that is so confusing to both students and teachers. There are no cut and dry answers, just simply guidelines that are subject to interpretation. Even though I say that my school system “owns” the content I create, I license it Creative Commons. What I create is not for my personal benefit or only for the benefit of Barrow County Schools, but for anyone seeking to learn.

Now as far as potential drawbacks to Creative Commons, there is always the risk that you might end up using CC licensed media that the licensee doesn’t have the “right” to license at all. I often wonder about some of the pictures that I find on Flickr that are under a CC license, but are photos of licensed media. In those cases, my instinct is to steer clear of it.

In the end, Creative Commons is a very blessed thing!

Image Source: Flickr CC screenshot