More on Copyright and Fair Use

Here is some more information on copyright and fair use. Keep in mind that I am not a lawyer or copyright expert. You are responsible for your own actions.

Four Factors of that Determine if Something Falls Under Fair Use

• The purpose and character of use
• The nature of the work
• The amount and sustainability of the portion used
• The economic impact on the market value of the work

Just Remember
Simply giving credit to a source does not substitute for obtaining permission.
The work you are showing has to be legally acquired.

Showing Movies
If you are showing a movie in class, do not show the whole movie to your class because you do not have public performance rights. If it is for "face-to-face" instruction, you can show it. But, very rarely will you have to show the whole movie in class to convey the point you are trying to get across. Showing a movie as a reward for a class, is a big violation of copyright even though it is in a school. The phrase "for educational use" does not always shield us from copyright repercussions. If you think someone could construct an intelligent argument that proves that you did not need to show as much as you did, I would seek permission or cut back on the amount that you are showing.

Some Limitations
Time - you may use projects for up to two years after the 1st instructional use.
Portion - Text (up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less), Music(10% or 30 seconds, whichever is less), Video (10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less), Photos (No more that 5 images by an artist or photographer), Numarical Data Sets (10% or 2500 field entries or cells, whichever is less). these limits are cumulative. You can 10 second from the beginning of a song, 10 seconds from the middle, and 10 seconds from the end of a song, you have reached your limit. Also, if you use 30 seconds of a song, you cannot loop it. If you use the same portion of a song and loop it 3 time within a PhotoStory project, you are breaking copyright because your total use is not 90 seconds for that particular song.
Copying - You may have no more that 2 copies - only one for reserve. Additional copies can be made for preservation purposes but may only be used to replace the original if it is lost, damaged, or stolen.

Intellectural Property Curriculum
http://ipreducation.com/curriculum.html

New Google Search Trick

If you include ~ before your search term, it will include synonyms. So, if I "googled" "~inexpensive cell phones" it would include results for "cheap cell phones" and so on. Give it a try.

You have to check this out!

I was just introduced to chacha.com. You create an account, tell it your cell phone number, and verify your number by replying to a text message they send you. Then, you are able to text questions and they will answer. I asked many different questions and they were able to successfully answer them. I asked it everything from "What was the name of Forrest Gump's boat" to "What is the mean of the first chapter of Tao Te Ching" to "What is Einstein's Theory of Relativity" and they answered them. It is pretty impressive. It does take a few minutes for them to respond. Check it out. I guarantee you will be amazed.

Trading Cards in the Classroom

At the CFF Boot Camp, I attended a session where a History teacher showed us some trading cards the students made for different historical figures. I figured we could us this activity in our history classes by assigning students different historic figures and having them create cards for them. My idea was to print them and laminate them just like the presenter did. However, I would like to see each student walk away with a full set of all the cards made by their class. I am trying to figure out an efficient way to print an laminate all of those cards. If a class has 20 students and each student makes a card, that would be a total of 400 cards to print and laminate for that class. Imagine if the teacher taught that class during three different periods. That would be 1200 cards. I would alsolike to see English teachers use this activity for characters of a story. Image assigning each student a different character from Romeo and Juliet. I made an example for Juliet. I posted it here. If anyone has an idea for an effective way to print an laminate all of these, let me know.

Have Students Create Timeline Online

This resource came across the CFF Listserv yestereday. www.dipity.com allows students to create visual timeline. This site allows you to attach a picture to each event, type a description, and tag locations so the events will show up on a map. I created one and embedded it below.

Transfer Big Files

If you have an exceptionally large file to send to someone, check out http://transferbigfiles.com/

What it Does
The site allows you to upload a file to their site and send a link to the file via email. The file remains available for a couple of days.

How I Discovered This
A couple colleagues and I created a video for the Classrooms for the Future Bootcamp. The final product was 90Mb and my email account would not allow me to send a file that big. (Even if it did, chances are the other person's account would not allow them to receive a file that large) I didn't want to sacrifice quality by making the file size smaller and I didn't want to make our mentor wait for a CD in the mail, so I went looking for a free way to transfer the file. First, I tried to host it on my Wikispaces account and then on my GoDaddy hosted account. It was too big for the free versions I use. Then, my Technology Coordinator recommended TransferBigFiles. It worked great.