Creative+Commons

=Thing 23 - Get Creative with Creative Commons= = Blog post will be combined for Thing 23 and Thing 24 =

Introduction
Fair use guidelines enable teachers and students to use copyrighted materials within the classroom for direct educational purposes. But fair use seems restrictive, [|can be confusing], and more-or-less stops at the schoolhouse gate. All of those wonderfully illustrative images found via Google search and pasted into that Oscar-worthy Powerpoint presentation cannot legally be shared back out on the Web, even with proper citation -- **citation does not equal permission**. As educators, it is our responsibility to teach students about the ethics of content gathering and use, whether for a research paper or a digital storytelling project.

One of the hallmarks of Web 2.0 is the creation and sharing of user-created content, and tools like Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Google Docs, [| Archive.org] (and hundreds of others) make uploading, sharing and obtaining digitized content a snap. But with the free exchange of content comes the responsibility of determining how it is shared, how it may be used, and how to properly credit the author or creator.

Enter **Creative Commons**, the best thing to ever happen to Copyright...

"Share, Remix, Reuse — Legally"
"[|Creative Commons] provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from 'All Rights Reserved' to 'Some Rights Reserved.'"

Creative Commons celebrated its thirteenth birthday in December 2015. Currently, there are millions of photos, books, songs, poems, artworks, videos and other media shared on the web under Creative Commons licenses, including this course. D36 Learning 2.0 is an example of how you can take a piece of information or a product (in this case, Shelley Paul's course) and 'remix' it to make it fit your needs, giving attribution to the original author (you may not have noticed, but it's in the left-navigation).

Sound interesting?
**¤ N****OTE A****BOUT "TRADITIONAL" COPYRIGHT:** CreativeCommons is an amazing evolution in copyright, but it does not magically erase the need for proper citation, and ethical use. Neither does it solve our confusion about"traditional" copyright, which still applies to most works or art and intellectual property. The Media Education Lab at Temple University has worked with a number of expert groups to develop a newly released **[|Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Media Education]**, which "helps educators gain confidence about their rights to use copyrighted materials in developing students' critical thinking and communication skills." EVERY educator should read this guide, share it with colleagues and practice applying these guidelines thoughtfully with their students. These resources not only diminish copyright confusion, but provide educators and students with tools to help them fully exercise their fair use rights. The site provides case studies and teaching resources, too.

**Discovery Exercise**

1. Click through **Copyright module**, there is a link at the bottom of each page if you prefer audio.[| http://21cif.com/tutorials/micro/mm/copyright/]

2. Watch the two animations below to learn about the history and basic concepts behind Creative Commons.

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 * A Shared Culture** (3:20) (as the talk of "images" or "work", think "educational resources".

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 * Wanna Work Together?** (3:00)

**Task 1** Take a Creative Commons quiz- Include your quiz score in your post. media type="custom" key="28650097"

**Task 2** Search [|creativecommons.org]. Find and download an image to use in this week's blog post.

Help Video: How to Search Creative Commons media type="custom" key="22674700"


 * For fun **
 * A Fair(y) Use Tale (10:13)-** Disney Parody explanation of Copyright Law and Fair Use Synopsis. This one can get annoying, not so much if it's just playing in the background while you are multi-tasking.

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Other Resources
[|CC Content Directories] [|New Creative Commons Information Pack]( Resources are created for schools in Australia, but most are not continent-specific)

= Blog post will be combined for Thing 23 and 24 =
 * On to OER- Thing 24 **