"Little Green Frog" by Heather Loy
Okay, by now you guys know I’ve gotten a new camera and have been having a blast taking photos. In fact I’m probably boring all of my faculty, friends, family (and you!) with sharing all the photos I’ve been taking.
With taking and wanting to share my own photographs, I’ve been thinking of ways we are using images in our instruction and with student projects. Which of course makes me think about copyright and ethical use of other’s works – something many of our teachers and student’s don’t think about. Most teachers I’ve talked to believe that everything they do for their instruction is covered by “fair use” and so aren’t concerned with where and how they pull images to use. While I agree, for the most part, what I believe is that we are responsible for MODELING the appropriate behaviors we want to instill in our students. This means proper citation and, in my opinion, trying to find images using creative commons, free stock photos, and OpenClipart resources. That said, the problem my teachers (and students) run into is that many of these sites are BLOCKED! Sigh.
BUT HAVE NO FEAR!
StreamlineSC to the Rescue! (For you non-South Carolinians out there you call it Discovery Education Streaming)
Did you know that there are over 20,000 images in the StreamlineSC library? There are images for just about every subject. (See screen shot) Not only can you find these excellent images, they GIVE YOU the citation in MLA, APA, and Chicago Manual styles!
Did you know you can create student accounts, create and manage a class, and create class or individual assignments? This means you can provide a set of images and/or videos for students to use in their projects or to provide supplemental teaching/learning materials.
Did you know that as a STAR Discovery Educator you can upload your own media to the Educator Resource Library? Click on the DEN menu option and then click on “About the DEN” to find out how to become a DEN member.
If you want to learn more about how to navigate and use the resources in StreamlineSC, click on the Professional Development link and watch the instructional videos or read/print off the instructional materials. (or see you school library media specialist!)
Disclaimer: You cannot post your projects or lessons online – the material in the StreamlineSC library are copyright protected. You can only share via your school’s internal server.
FYI, all of my photographs on Flickr are posted with a Creative Commons License – specifically an attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
….my Macbook. Ever since I got my iPhone a few weeks ago, I’ve been spending more of my time on it and less time using my Macbook. Activities such as checking email, Twitter, and organizing my day are done using the iPhone instead of lugging out the laptop. I’m still not proficient enough with the touch screen keyboard – a texter I’m not, so I’ve still got a learning curve. However, the one feature I’m really having fun with is the built in camera. I’ve been so long without a working camera that I’ve forgotten the joys of snapping photos. My family and co-workers now know my fascination with clouds after being forced to look at the hundreds of photos I’ve already snapped on my drive home and from around the house. The one in this post was taking on the front stoop – the original subject was the clouds in the background, but I got distracted by my mom’s rosebush. My point, you’ll probably be seeing more of my amateur photography skills now, so I’ll apologize in advance.
