Originally published on my blog EngagingReadersDigitally.com on 4/8/2011
I recently had an epiphany about the issue of copyright as it applies to media literacy and teaching. Until recently, I was an educator that was blissfully ignorant about copyright issues when assigning student projects and in my own media use for the classroom. If I needed an image for a handout or classroom web page, I Googled what I wanted and inserted it. If my students did a poster project, I made no stipulations about what kind of images could be used or that they keep track of their sources. In contrast, with writing assignments I pounded in my warning about plagiarism and the need to cite sources. But for other media, it wasn't that I turned a blind eye. I just didn't think about it.
About two years ago, I took a graduate course where the professor brought up the issue of copyright and digital citizenship. We had an assignment to create a digital story to teach a concept to be used in our curriculum and I decided to create a book trailer. As we learned about the requirements of the project, we had a discussion of copyright. I realized, as did several other educators in my cohort, that in our personal and professional uses of technology we weren't always modeling the digital citizenship qualities we wanted our students to learn. This is where I first learned about Creative Commons licensing, how to find free images and music that were copyright-free or friendly and began a new campaign in my classroom to teach copyright awareness to my students.
About two years ago, I took a graduate course where the professor brought up the issue of copyright and digital citizenship. We had an assignment to create a digital story to teach a concept to be used in our curriculum and I decided to create a book trailer. As we learned about the requirements of the project, we had a discussion of copyright. I realized, as did several other educators in my cohort, that in our personal and professional uses of technology we weren't always modeling the digital citizenship qualities we wanted our students to learn. This is where I first learned about Creative Commons licensing, how to find free images and music that were copyright-free or friendly and began a new campaign in my classroom to teach copyright awareness to my students.
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