Images, Copyright, & StreamlineSC

Little Green Frog

"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!
Screen shot 2010-10-03 at 6.55.36 PM

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.

SCASL 2.0: Experience the Journey

Updated 3/12/08 to add additional links and photo credits that I forgot.  Forgive me, it was late and I was in a hurry to get something posted! – Heather

Today marked the beginning of the 2009 SCASL annual conference in Greenville.  I am fortunate enough to have been allowed by my principal to attend,   Many of my fellow colleagues in the library world haven’t been as lucky.

Once again, I’ll be sharing my notes and thoughts from my experiences at conference.

I drove up to Greenville yesterday – after a side trip to Charlotte, NC.  I had to stop by the Apple Store to get a replacement battery for my Macbook.  Thankfully, it was covered under my warranty!  I couldn’t attend conference without my laptop!  But it sure made for a LONG trip – a little over 4 hours in total.  Anyway, here are the sessions I attended today:

Storytelling Through Pictures – Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Presented by Donna Goldsmith, Tim Van Heule, and Cathy Arnold – This pre-conference session was an all day experience beginning with a morning ride on the trolley to the Greenville Zoo.  We were met by a zoo guide who provided a very enjoyable and informational explanation of the animals: how they came to the zoo; their care and feeding; endangered species renewal plans; mated pare matching, etc.  Throughout the tour we were given the task of taking photographs to be used in our digital storytelling session in the afternoon.  In addition to my taking photos for the session, I also agreed to be a Roving Reporter for the SCASL IT Committee – I agreed to take photos and video interviews from our group to be shared with the folks who couldn’t make it to conference this year.  We are using the SCASL Ning to share information and live streaming of some sessions from conference.

After returning to the convention center and a boxed lunch, we met back up and were introduced to various storytelling tools.  See the presenters website for the tools they discussed: Flickr, Glogster, Photostory, etc.  After uploading our photos to Flickr, we were to use one of the tools they covered and create our own digital story of out trip.  Sorry, I don’t have one to share as I didn’t get to that part – I was too busy talking and going through others photos!  I kinda got sidetracked by all of the giraffe photos everyone took.  I love the giraffe.  I don’t know if you can see it in this photo, but the female giraffe is resting her head on the male giraffe’s back.  How sweet is that?  Another highlight of the giraffe segment of our trip was watching the little kids try to throw crackers to the giraffes – not an easy feat.  We learned that a zoo worker would go out later in the day and collect all of the crackers that didn’t make it to the giraffes and then feed them to the pair.  It was interesting, if someone sad, to see how the giraffes had to contort to reach the crackers on the ground.  

Can We Work Together?  Using Collaborative Tools

Presented by Cathy Nelson and Fran Bullington – As a member of the IT Committee, I assisted Cathy, Fran and Anne Lemieux with streaming the session using UstreamTV.  This was one of our efforts to include folks who couldn’t make it to conference this year.  I was in charge of the camera and chat room (once we figured it out!)  I am by no means an expert and I apologize for the poor camera work.

The session focused on using Wikis and Google Documents to collaborate with teachers and/or students to collaborate on group projects.  If/When I get the links to the session, I’ll update this post with them.

Reflections

While I truly enjoyed both sessions – the Zoo and the picture perfect, beautiful day were wonderful and I had fun working the camera for Cathy and Fran’s session – I must say the highlight of the day was having dinner with Cathy, Fran, Anne, and Doug Johnson! Fran took us to Flat Rock where I had a tasty meal and we shared fabulous conversations and laughs together.  I bet we were the highlight of our waiter’s evening!  Doug is a HOOT and a witty fellow!  I’m looking forward to attending one or two of his sessions, as well as his keynote, tomorrow.

Well, its getting late and the first session starts at 7:45 tomorrow morning and I want to make it there on time, so gonna hit the sack.

Photo Credit:

Greetings from SCASL 2.0: Experience the Journey @ your library.

DSC01317 by Greenville Instructional Technology – FlickrCC

DSC01315 by Greenville Instructional Technology – FlickrCC

LIFE photo archive

“Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.”

Great for:

  • primary source materials for DBQs (Document Based Questions) for AP History
  • helping students grasp concepts in history – visualize events
  • sparking class discussion
  • use in student projects

You can search Google Images just for LIFE photos by using ‘source:life’ in your search.  For example, if I wanted photos of World War II, I’d type “WWII source:life” in the search box.