Tool #3 Finding Online Video and Image Resources

1.  Visit several of the video hosting / streaming sites mentioned above.  Share with your readers which sites you found most useful for your content and why.

• Discovery Education:  This is a fantastic website / subscription that my district provides us access with.  It is generally safe because you can limit your searches to grade level appropriateness, content, subject matter, etc.  They also have short clips that are great for "openers" or the "hooks" that can get  a child turned on to content.  Although I have not placed any of these movies onto an iPod, I'm really going to learn how to do this next step as it would take kids to a higher level - reaching some of those learners who are visual and auditory!  What an excellent way to review for things too..
• SchoolTube is awesome too!  I have learned that this site is a safer place to upload videos that I want my class to look at - at another time / place.  I used to upload to YouTube, but then when they began to "run" advertisements, the content that was "instantly selected" by YouTube, wasn't always what I wanted my kids to view.  
• TeacherTube has some neat things / lessons on it for teachers.  I haven't used it but for my own knowledge.  However, I did find a recording of the popular mathematics book:  Greedy Triangle by Marlyn Burns, that I was able to share with the my class.
• iMovies have some neat ways to share content that is being taught.  For instance, if I were to teach lessons on the 7 Heroes that we cover in second grade, I may create an Animoto of the character traits, with pictures of the heroes.  Then, I'd download the movie as a .MP4 and upload it to my iTunes account.  Once I've done that, I can load it onto my iPod / iPhone and have kids (ESL in particular) go back and view the short clips n a learning station.  
• www.qwiki.com also has some very COOL ways to show a "snapshot" of what one might be teaching / learning.  I did this while we were learning about Rocks.  

2.  Using any of the video resources mentioned above, find and select two videos that may be useful resources in your classroom.  Embed them in your blog.  If they do not have embed capabilities, hot link them to your blog.

Here are a few links that show where I have linked content to my classroom blog:
Qwiki:  What is a Geode?
Local TV Station:  Amelia Earhart
Teacher Tube:  The Greedy Triangle
School Tube:  A New Type of Bird Call

3.  Articulate what you learned about copyright and fair use.  What was new to you?

Copyright and fair use is very important!  We need to make sure students, and teachers alike, give credit where credit is due!

• Music:  In most cases, a teacher can grab 20 seconds of music to use for education.  This was how I was able to place some neat music to a Mother's Day project….  In other words, I took the first 20 seconds of "Firefly" and kept repeating it.  It actually worked out well and I modeled the importance of keeping within the fair and acceptable use. There are some royalty free music - that offer a little selection.
• Digital Citizenship is also very important to teach!  Cyberbullies are a huge concern for me!  It is probably because I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve and can't stand to feel left out of things!
• Photographs:  Flickr offers some photos that can be used - although it takes some "looking around" to find them.  In most cases, the ones that were "free" carried the .gif extension and created more problems when movie generators specifically call for .jpg.  Sometimes, if finding the photos become challenging,  it is best to let the child take pictures and use those.  I knew a grade level that did that with 3Dimensional Shapes & angles that they found around the school.  That activity made for an even more meaningful learning experience!

4.  Login to your Picasa Web Album through Google Apps.  Search for a few pictures.  Use the remix filter.  How could you use this in your classroom?


Well, when thinking of a "remix" I have to go back to the days of Record Players and how we used to have songs that were played on the radio and then those that had been remixed for clubs and dancing...  So, I have to say that I was much of a ding-bat here because I couldn't figure out what it meant to remix right off the bat.  It seems to me, that if you type in a search like "butterfly", you can narrow the search to be more specific such as:
Any Type (faces, no faces)
All Aspect Ratios (landscape, portrait, panorama)
All Sizes (small, medium, large, extra large)
Any Camera (camera models, all licenses, creative commons, commercial use)
Remix Allowed
Order by Relevance (order by date)
So, if I was looking for pictures of butterflies, and needed only those that are:

• Landscape
• Medium
• Photos Only
• Taken With Any Camera
• Commercial Use
• Ordered By Relevance

This is what I'd get:

I think that this might be easier to use than FLICKR.  I like it in the fact that you can search for images that are allowed for Commercial Use.  Commercial Use means (at least to me) that you can in fact use it without getting into trouble.  However, I could be wrong...  
When I clicked on a specific butterfly, I looked on the right hand side of the sidebar and clicked on a tab called Photo Reuse, I clicked on the link that says:  Some Rights Reserved.  


There it explained that I could reuse this photo and edit it (remix it) to fit my needs.  That is pretty cool!  Really, this website might just become me next best friend to use with Big Huge Labs.