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Being educators, we are often conservative, especially when it involves the law, as copyright does. This has led to a growing concern about missed learning opportunities due to caution because teachers are avoiding doing anything with copyrighted materials, or not allowing their students to produce content using copyrighted material.

American and Temple Universities have been working on this and have a report coming out about the cost of copyright confusion in education. I recently attended a session at NECC given by Kristen Hokanson on this topic. This discussion brought up a concept that is really central to educational use of copyrighted material, and that is transformation. A big part of what makes it fair use is that you’re not just “copying” the work of others, but remaking it into something of your own. One of the best examples is the Fair(y) Use Tale video produced by Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. This video takes snippets from Disney cartoons to teach about fair use. Because it’s both education AND satire, it’s covered by fair use.

I was first introduced to this concept when I did a case-study discussion (a favorite way for lawyers to discuss and educate about legal points) about a potential fair use I had in a classroom project. Transformation is not often discussed, but it’s an important concept for fair use.  Get to know more about it. -ALICE MERCER

Transformative use resources

Stanford University guide to Fair Use in Education check out the section on the “transformative factor”

Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society Fair(y) Use Tale

It’s Elementary: Copyright–It’s the Law

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Copyright in education, part 1: Fair use

Photo credit: PugnoM on flickr

15 Awesome Tutorial Websites You Probably Don’t Know About
A couple weeks ago I decided to take up juggling. Right away I was amazed at the high quality tutorials I found online. If you have a random hobby you’d like to try, or you’re looking for a project during these summer months, check out this list of sites.

100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of
Here’s a great big list of sites you can use to find everything from literature to library references to health care. You can also find fun stuff like the Dialectizer, which can translate your text to sound like Elmer Fudd. Who doesn’t need that?

10 Brain Training Tips To Teach and Learn
Keep your brain fit for optimum learning potential. The folks at SharpBrains have these ten tips to turn you and your students into efficient thinking and learning machines.

Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources
Need to edit a class video project? Want some advice on how to create a video podcast? Or do you need to convert video to a different file format? Mashable has all that and more in this great post. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit:  zen on flickr

Have you ever needed the answer to some pressing question, but found yourself no where near a computer and yielded only a cell phone to get your answer? I know I’ve been there many times, especially when traveling, and while you can sometimes text message search engines (or call a web-savvy friend), you can’t always get the answer you need. After being in such a predicament, I’ve often resolved to finally getting a smart phone, but now I don’t have to!

ChaCha  is a service that allows anyone with a mobile phone to text 242 242 (CHACHA) or call 1-800-2CHACHA and ask any question in conversational English and receive an accurate answer as a text message within a few minutes. It basically makes any cell phone a “smart phone,” and the idea is genius really: they don’t use a search engine algorithm with automatically generated responses, but rather a network of knowledgeable human “guides.” And since ChaCha uses people to respond with answers, you can easily reply with follow-up questions as if you are exchanging messages with a friend.

So let’s say you can’t remember who Gabriel falls in love with in Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd (it’s Bathsheba Everdene, by the way), or you need a quick weather update, or you just need to find the closest vegetarian restaurant to your current location, you can just call or text ChaCha and get a great answer quickly.

The service is totally free, too (except for any text message or minute fees  that may apply based on your cell phone plan), so you don’t have to worry about encountering any hidden costs when you get your phone bill. So make your cell phone a bit smarter, and maybe make yourself a little smarter while you’re at it! -LAUREN FROHNE

ChaCha

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How to use your cell phone for education: Mobile podcasting
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I know, we’ve all seen ugly examples of cell phones being used to message in class, start fights, and film teachers behaving badly, BUT you can use cell phones for the forces of good in education. I’ve recently upgraded my cell phone to a “smarter” model, so I’m discovering lots of cool things, many of which are not limited to smart models.

Instructify has compiled a list of educational uses for your cell phone. Today we’ll look at how to turn your phone into a mobile podcasting studio.

Mobile podcasting (recording audio from your cell phone) is great on field trips, or any time you’re away from your computer. To get started, you’ll first need to find a podcasting service.

Services to use:

1. Record by phone with Gabcast.com -Use your cell to call Gabcast’s toll-free number and start talking. It’ll save your call as a podcast, which you can upload to your blog or website. Gabcast lets you record conference calls, too, so you can do remote interviews, or get your whole class involved.

2. Gcast - Another service we’ve previously reviewed that lets you call their toll-free number to record your podcast

How and why:

Still not sure about this podcasting stuff? Check out these links to see how other teachers are using mobile podcasts in their classrooms.

1. Intelligenic » Post Topic » Kidcast 53 - Podcasting and Fieldtrips
2. Wendy Goodwin of R.A. Mitchell Elementary School in Gadsden, Alabama students’ GCAST podcasts about their field trip to Space Camp in Huntsville Alabama
3. Wes Fryer shows how to do it

Hopefully now you have an idea of how to use your phone for podcasting. Next time we’ll talk about how to use your cell to take photos and record videos for class. -ALICE MERCER

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Sound Field Trip Advice from Kidcast

¿Como se dice Podcast? ESL Pod

Gcast: We Don’t Need No Stinking Microphones!

Tune In: Education Podcasting Network

Photo credit: Steve Roe on flickr

The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is in the process of launching Carolina on iTunes U, which uses iTunes software to provide a common platform for the entire University to share digital media.  When the project launches, the entire campus community can share lecture podcasts, video tutorials, and other media-based course material for free.

The initiative blurs the boundaries between the classroom and the campus at large, and allows students to get their neuroscience lectures from the same place they get the latest top ten hits.  It’s an extension of iTunes U – a part of the Apple iTunes store filled with free educational audio and video content.  The material is available to anyone with iTunes software, allowing Joe Schmoe and Joe College alike to access fascinating material from museums, PBS stations, and universities.

The Apple website proposes iTunes U as a way for students to “go right on learning while they grab a meal, walk to class, or work out at the gym.”  When I’m on the treadmill, I need something with a more forceful beat than a dactylic hexameter – but if Longfellow’s Evangeline really gets your heart pumping, knock yourself out. Workout preferences notwithstanding, the possibilities offered by iTunes U are nearly limitless, for colleges and K-12 communities.

Bonus: Warner Music won’t sue you for sharing that French and Indian War lecture with your friends. -EMILY JACK

Carolina on iTunes U

No longer will you take hours and hours to put together picture presentations for Open House, awards ceremonies, or end-of-the-year graduations. Liven up any presentation with the use of Photo Story 3 and your digital pictures. The program is so easy you can have a professional-looking presentation in just moments.

Photo Story 3 is a free download for Windows users. All you do is import your digital pictures into the program with the click of the mouse and you are ready to go. The program instantly assigns a different transition to each photo to give it that made-in-Hollywood look, and you’re done. The small file size makes it easy to send your photo story in an e-mail.

If you’re not happy with your initial story or need to edit something, it’s not a problem. The program allows you the freedom to move pictures around once you have imported them to help tell your story or sequence your presentation just right. With just a click of the mouse you can touch-up, rotate, change the assigned transition, or crop your pictures. You can also liven up your presentation by adding music or personal narration. You can help tell your story by adding titles or captions. Once you have completed your photo story you can view it on your computer, TV, or a Windows Mobile-based portable device.

Throw out those boring old book reports and let your students use this program to create movie trailers to tell about the books they’ve read. Initiate lessons and inspire students in the areas of science, social studies, and reading. Allow your students to create a multimedia project to present what they have learned from thematic units you have taught.  You don’t need to spend a million bucks to make your presentations look like a million bucks. -MONIQUE ST. LOUIS

Photo Story 3

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Do your students need help pronouncing a tricky or unfamiliar word while doing research? Or are you an ESL teacher helping kids with their English pronunciation. If you use Firefox (and you definitely should), you should add the Pronounce extension. Just highlight the word that’s giving your kids trouble, right click and choose “Pronounce” from the menu. Firefox will then speak the word out loud with correct English pronunciation.

We’ve covered pronunciation tools before, such as howjsay. The Pronounce extension has a slight edge for two reasons: since it’s integrated into your browser, you don’t have to go to another website to look up the word, thereby saving you time. And second, the pronunciations come from Merriam-Webster OnLine, so you get the the definitive American pronunciation, as opposed to howjsay’s British pronunciation of words like “aluminum” or “blueberry.” -BILL FERRIS

Pronounce
Pronounce Tells You How to Say It via Lifehacker

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Whether you’re creating a podcast or adding a voice over for a slide show, the list of free audio recorders begins and ends with Audacity. Audacity is an open source program that lets you record and edit audio quickly and easily. Just hook up a microphone to your computer, hit the record button, and start talking. When you’re done, you can edit out all the “uhs,” long pauses and bad jokes. Audacity displays a visual of the sound waves themselves, enabling you to make edits so precise you can shave the letter off a word. Save as a .WAV or .MP3 file and send your message to the masses (or, at least, your students).

In addition to podcasting, you could record classroom lectures for sick students. Your class might write and record a radio drama. The dance team could edit together a mix of songs for their next performance. If you teach an online class, your students might appreciate hearing their instructor’s voice in a setting that’s not a parent-teacher conference. The possible uses are endless, and like any good gadget, Audacity is fun enough that you’ll probably try to think of some.

We review a lot of software on Instructify, so believe me when I say you’ll have a hard time finding a free program as useful, versatile, and simple as Audacity. It’s been around forever, yet we haven’t officially reviewed it until now - I guess we must’ve taken it for granted. If your only exposure to audio recording and editing is Windows Sound Recorder, give Audacity a try. The upgrade might inspire you to start a podcast of your own. -BILL FERRIS

Audacity

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Let me tell you a story. It’s about standards (like writing, and oral presentation). But it’s also about engagement, and having students create media and image-rich reports. When they get together, well that’s a love story that ends with a beautiful marriage of content, visuals and, most importantly, dear teachers, learning. Who wouldn’t want that in their class?

It’s all so easy with VoiceThread. This tool has an intuitive interface to upload, or link to images, and simple-to-use commands to add voice narration (you can do it by telephone if you don’t have a mic), and even upload video and sound files. If that’s not enough, you can add typed text, and doodle.

For examples of VoiceThread in action, take a peek at VoiceThread 4 Education Wiki. You’ll find teachers using VoiceThread for art projects, special needs education, and much more. Use VoiceThread for digital storytelling, and your class projects will all have a happy ending. -ALICE MERCER

VoiceThread
VoiceThread 4 Education Wiki

VoiceThread of this article

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I hate RealPlayer. HATE! When it’s not bombarding me with ads, it’s installing spyware on my machine or nagging me to upgrade to RealPlayer Pro despite the suckitude of the free version. I uninstalled it for good two years ago and haven’t missed it. Except, that is, when I find that one-in-a-hundred video that’s only available in RealPlayer format. Being a stubborn jerk, I do without the video, cutting off my brain to spite their software.

As a teacher, chances are you already have this nagware on your machine already, either installed by someone else, or because you don’t want to deprive your students of educational or insightful videos. I applaud such sacrifice. Fortunately, you don’t have to let RealPlayer run your computer into the ground anymore thanks to the free and functional Real Alternative.

It’s simple: install Real Alternative, and it’ll play any Real-formatted audio and video files. However, Real Alternative’s most impressive features are what it won’t do - namely install a bunch of spyware or bug you about upgrading. If you’ve got RealPlayer installed, it’s probably asked you three times to upgrade since you started reading this article. For your sanity, for your computer, and for the children, please uninstall RealPlayer right now and give RealAlternative a shot. -BILL FERRIS

Real Alternative

The only specific memory I have of a field trip I took as a student was an elementary school trip to the local planetarium. Why? Because it was the first time I experienced astronaut ice cream. It tasted like regular ice cream…but…it was crunchy…??!! My mind was blown.

In retrospect, my teacher probably dreaded these trips at least a little bit – most of us students probably climbed back on the bus whirring with sugar buzzes. To reflect further, wouldn’t it be great it my most vivid school field trip memory wasn’t a fond reminiscence of something I’d encountered in a gift shop? Wouldn’t it be better if my mind had been blown by something that had actually happened inside the planetarium? Like, say, the notion of our lonely little planet spinning at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, perhaps one galaxy of millions in the universe? Shouldn’t that be more intriguing than the idea that some guy in a food lab figured out how to dehydrate ice cream?

Your students deserve better than this. To help make sure you maximize the educational value of your trips outside the classroom walls, you’d be wise to read this Kidcast blog post about podcasting and field trips. The post offers eight excellent suggestions on how to use podcasting to engage your students in the learning process before, during, and after the field trip. Each one is a great application of podcasting that uses the technology to scaffold learning: having students create a quiz show about the field trip location, for example, or recording a public service announcement to advertise the site.

Many thanks to Kidcast for reminding us there’s more to field trip preparation than permission slips. -EMILY JACK

Kidcast 53 - Podcasting and Fieldtrips

Do you struggle to explain Web 2.0 to interested but clueless administrators? Social networking, blogging and podcasting can be tough to describe to the uninitiated. If you need succinct explanations of social media to convince your principal to open the school’s firewall for you, show him or her a video by Common Craft.

Common Craft videos are free mini-tutorials on everything from wikis to RSS, and even what to do in case of a Zombie attack (that was a Halloween video, but zombies probably don’t know what day it is, so it’s good advice to heed year-round). Each video discusses a topic in plain English using a white board and simple paper drawings for visual aids. The simplicity of the production is Common Craft’s greatest asset - nebulous concepts like social bookmarking don’t look so daunting in a paper doll context.

Watching Common Craft videos may give you a few ideas for some class projects. Your class can make this type of video without much more than a white board and a Web cam. Making your videos as engaging and pithy as Common Craft, however, may take some practice. -BILL FERRIS

Common Craft

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If you’ve never read Sun Tzu’s Art of War, do yourself a favor and read it now, online, for free. Art of War isn’t just about ancient Chinese battle strategies — the reason this book has maintained its intrigue and republish-ability is because of its ability to be applied to business and social interaction. It’s more of a philosophical guide than a blueprint for combat in our day and age, but you and your students can certainly learn a thing or two from ‘Ol Sun Tzu. The guide at this website allows readers to get insight and further description of passages that may seem a bit archaic. Furthermore, you can use the site for quick searches or even link an easy-to-read, self-page-turning e-book.

If reading isn’t your thing, or if you are my Dad — who has to drive over an hour and a half each way to and from work — you might need an audio version. Luckily, this site — AudiobookTreasury.com — will let you get it just as freely and cheaply as the one aforementioned. Just download the mp3s and you can probably figure out the rest. Either way, you’ll be able to easily realize what has made this literature last as long as it has. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Sun Tzu’s Art of War on SunTzuSaid.com

Art of War - Audio Book on AudioBookTreasury.com

ReadTheWords.com is a great text-to-speech site that allows users to upload or copy and paste just about any text and have it read aloud by one of several computery voices. You have to create a free account in order to access all the features this site has to offer, but its actually quite a simple process for what you get. You can upload any sort of file you’d like to have read, even HTML or PDFs. Simply wait for the audio to render, and you’ve got a neat little embeddable player that you can preview right then and there. Also, you can download the file as an mp3 for use in your iPod or other portable device.

This is a great resource for the visually impaired, but it has the potential to be a great learning tool as well. I’m not saying you should, but you could possibly make your own audio books, if you were so inclined. It could also be a great way to break into podcasting or be a great addition to any blog. Once your recordings are saved, they are then stored in an online file management system, appropriately titled “My Recordings.” Here, you can manage and download what you’ve done, or try out some more of the 15 available voices. Personally, I like Elizabeth. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

ReadTheWords.com 

Whether you’re an ESL teacher looking for a new way to teach English or a student of the language, ESL Pod is a user friendly way to hone your skills.

Podcasting has taken the world by storm, and in doing so, has created a new way of teaching. ESL Pod is a database of ESL and TOEFL podcasts including everything from medical and health terms to travel and dining. You can find different episodes for each subject, and the content is updated regularly. The audio files are easy to search and download, and the readers are well spoken and educated.

Perhaps best of all, you can easily preview the files, so you don’t have to dedicate yourself to downloading a file if it’s not what you’re looking for. All the audio files are free to download in mp3 format, but with a $10 monthly membership, you can get supplemental material in the form of learning guides. These include transcripts, definitions and other helpful learning tools. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

ESL Pod