February 2011: The School Library Link to Copyright, Collaboration, and Creativity

Spanish edition: http://www.theschoollibrarylink.com/storage/thelink_vol2_issue5_spanish.pdf

Three things that the school library can assist with are copyright, collaboration, and creativity? That’s right! In fact, the school library can incorporate these three elements in many different ways.

Download the February 2011 issue here!Copyright: Old and New
Copyright has always been one of the librarian’s areas of expertise. School librarians’ roles with copyright have traditionally been to teach students to respect copyright (and not break the law), how to write without plagiarizing, and how to cite sources. School librarians have also helped teachers understand where copyright applies in education. For example, is it permissible to show a video during class without getting permission from the copyright holder? Under what circumstances? How much material can you photocopy from a book and then distribute to students?
     School librarians help with these issues by teaching about and discussing fair use. Fair use is a limitation and exception within copyright law, which when applied properly, allows teachers and students to use copyrighted material on a limited basis for educational purposes. For a fun introduction to fair use, visit YouTube and view this video, “A Fair(y) Use Tale:” http://bit.ly/3JhZue.
     Copyright, however, has taken on a new form since 2001. That’s when CreativeCommons.org, in conjunction with the Center for Public Domain, created the Creative Commons license. How is Creative Commons different? It allows creators to preemptively give permission to other users to use their content with or without restrictions. Creative Commons evolved out of our new “participatory culture,” in which mash-ups, parody, and mixed-media have become common ways in which copyrighted materials have been borrowed and reused. Creative Commons gives creators more freedom to share their work with others. For more on Creative Commons, see page 2.

Collaboration and Creativity
Collaboration in this context refers to collaboration between students. We live in a collaborative culture in which information is exchanged within the blink of an eye, and school librarians are familiar with technology tools that allow students to collaborate and create new forms of writing, art, and music. Tools such as GoogleDocs and wikis allow students to work together online. Find out more on these tools, see page 2.
     School librarians can help with students’ creativity as well, by suggesting alternate forms of project outputs for curriculum assignments. For example, for a history report, a school librarian may suggest to teachers that students create an online interactive poster instead of making a cardboard one. For another assignment, students might be assigned to create a digital video instead of a slide show. Using online technologies and Web 2.0 tools can assist and transform how creativity is applied.

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The Link to Creative Commons

CreativeCommons.org was created in 2001 as a way to provide creators with the power to control the ways in which they share their work with others.
     For example, say you are a photographer. You take photographs and post them on Flickr (www.flickr.com). You want others to be able to use your photographs, but not alter them, as long as they give you the credit for the photographs. Creative Commons has a license you can attach to your photos to specify that.
     Say, however, that you are a musician who writes and records your own music. You want to allow others to not only use your music, but also alter it if they choose, as long as you receive credit for the original version. CC has a license for that too.
     There are approximately 6 levels of license, and each license comes with HTML code you can insert onto a Web site to attach credit. Check out The School Library Link’s Creative Commons license at the bottom of our Web site, www.theschoollibrarylink.com. Our license allows users to copy, transmit, and reproduce this newsletter, as long as they give attribution and use it for noncommerical purposes. In education, students can use the freedoms of Creative Commons to create their own licenses to share their work with others, as well as use others’ works to create something new!

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 Technology and Media Tools that Utilize the Three C's

GoogleDocs
Google has a collection of online word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet tools that you can use for free. GoogleDocs allows collaboration, because you can share documents with anyone with an email address. Users can even work on the same document at the same time from different computers. (www.google.com/docs)

Animoto
Animoto is a tool that allows users to create videos combining still images and music. A great perk to Animoto is that in addition to uploading your own photos and images, you can use copyright-free music (as well as images and video) directly from the site for use in your video. The music is available for use with permission by the artists looking to promote themselves.
(www.animoto.com)

VoiceThread
VoiceThread is a tool with which you can create interactgive presentations combining still images and your voice. Because it is online, you can work collaboratively with others to create a VoiceThread, or you can use the interactive features whereby others can contribute their comments to your VoiceThread conversations. (www.voicethread.com)

Wikis
Wikis are collaborative Web sites. Users can each contribute their own content and edit each other’s content. Some wikis allow anyone to contribute, while others only allow members to contribute. One of the most well-known wikis is Wikipedia.com.