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5th September 2008

PodCorps.org, Citizen Journalism and StoryChasers

posted in blogs, web 2.0 | 0 Comments

This is a cross-post from TechLearning today.

Affiliated with the 501(c)(3) non-profit Conversations Network, PodCorps is a:

…worldwide team of producers who record and publish interviews and spoken-word events that would otherwise be lost forever. Podcasters and videobloggers join PodCorps.org to learn, share experience with others and give back to their communities.

This sounds like a perfect group to affiliate with StoryChasers: “a multi-state (and potentially multi-national) educational collaborative empowering students and teachers to responsibly record and share stories of local, regional and global interest as citizen journalists.”

I’ve added PodCorps to my social bookmarks for “citizen journalism.” I recently ran across the short and informative “7 Things You Should Know About Citizen Journalism” publication from EduCause. It includes links to several citizen journalism projects I had not encountered previously including Scoop08, a 2008 U.S. Presidential election coverage site started by university students from Yale and Andover. The website byline is, “The first-ever daily national student newspaper,” and it involves both high school as well as college students as citizen reporters. The paragraph on page two of this EduCause PDF under “Why is it significant” captures many of the reasons I think all of our students would benefit from involvement in some aspect of the StoryChasers initiative or a similar citizen journalism project:

Citizen journalism epitomizes the belief that the experiences of people personally involved with an issue present a different—and often more complete—picture of events than can be derived from the perspective of an outsider. Due to limitations of access and time— and in some cases ulterior motives to present just one side of a story—traditional reporting risks at least the perception of being skewed. By granting access to anyone to cover the news, citizen journalism presents a more personal, nuanced view of events and has the potential to cultivate communities of people with a common interest. Through blogs, citizen journalists have broken stories about political corruption, police brutality, and other issues of concern to local and national communities. Research has shown that traditional news outlets believe that participation by readers improves the quality of the news, and such participation tends to increase the trust that the community has in the news. Citizen journalism forces contributors to think objectively, asking probing questions and working to understand the context so that their representation of events is useful to others. These activities get people involved in new ways with the world around them, forming a deeper connection with the subjects of their investigations. For students, these are the same kinds of activities that lead to deeper learning and to taking more responsibility for contributions made to a collective understanding.

Critical thinking, deeper learning, taking responsibility, and becoming truly engaged in learning tasks versus “temporarily enthralled” are all great reasons to consider involving your students in a StoryChaser’s project or another type of new-media citizen journalism initiative.

I hope to add some additional elements to the StoryChaser’s project wiki soon, including more “digital backpack” ideas, and will encourage participants to create a profile and a wish list on Digital Wish. (It’s free.) Through a website like Digital Wish, teachers can now apply DIRECTLY for funding for their classroom educational technology hardware and software needs and wants. Educational technology funding for classroom teachers is being “disintermediated.” I love it!

If you are an event producer of any kind (this can certainly include school events) check out the PodCorps.org page for Event Producers. Post your event to eventful.com and use the tag “podcorps.” Within 24 hours available “stringers” in your local area should be notified of the event. Hopefully one or more will contact you to record and web-post the event on your website, the Internet Archive, or another location.

Not familiar with the term “stringer?” According to the English WikiPedia today:

In journalism, a stringer is a type of freelance journalist who contributes reportage to a news organization on an on-going basis but is paid individually for each piece of published or broadcast work. As freelancers, stringers do not receive a regular salary and the amount and type of work is typically voluntary. However, stringers have an ongoing relationship with one or more news organizations to provide content on particular topics or locations when the opportunities arise.

Got “stringers” in your school community? Consider empowering some with StoryChasers! :-)
Background note: I stumbled across PodCorps today when I was downloading the free Levelator software program to use with the latest Technology Shopping Cart podcast “Digital Wishes, Flip Video Labs, and Manifest Destiny for Educational Technology.” It worked REALLY well to even out audio levels in the finished podcast. Thanks to The Conversations Network for offering The Levelator free! It is available for Windows, Macintosh, and some Linux distributions.

Technorati Tags:
citizen, journalism, storychasers, storychaser, news, media, newmedia, podcorps

5th September 2008

Podcast278: TechShoppingCart Podcast09: Digital Wishes, Flip Video Labs, and Manifest Destiny for EdTech

posted in digitalstorytelling, economics, leadership, mobile, pbl, podcasting, schoolreform, skypecasts, web 2.0 | 2 Comments

Welcome to episode 9 of the Technology Shopping Cart Podcast, a podcast (and now live webcast) where educational innovation thrives on the food of creative ideas. This episode features a conversation with Heather Chirtea of ToolFactory, Vicki Allen, Karen Montgomery, and Wesley Fryer about podcasting, digital storytelling, mobile podcasting labs, mobile flip video labs, “ushering” technologies which encourage teachers to extend their journeys of learning with educational technologies further, and “manifest destiny” for educational technology use in our 21st century classrooms. Of course we also include a variety of “geek of the week” websites, resources and tips, which includes a discussion of the superb “Global Nomads” organization which facilitates engaging videoconferences for students on a diverse array of subjects. Check out our podcast shownotes for links. We are tentatively scheduling our next live webcast for Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 10 am US central time to discuss challenges and pitfalls of integrating web 2.0 technologies in school districts. We’re asking some special guests from Missouri to join us who are in the trenches of IT and have some interesting perspectives to share. Whether you joined us live or catch the recorded version, we welcome your feedback, comments and suggestions as always!

  icon for podpress  Podcast278: TechShoppingCart Podcast09: Digital Wishes, Flip Video Labs, and Manifest Destiny for EdTech [73:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (89)

Show Notes:

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5th September 2008

Tech Shopping Cart webcast Friday

posted in digitalstorytelling, skypecasts, web 2.0 | 0 Comments

Please join us for another episode of “The Technology Shopping Cart” podcast/webcast on Friday, September 5, 2008 at 10 am US Central time.

a shopping cart

We’ll convene on Ustream, and will be joined by Heather Chirtea of ToolFactory. Among other topics I’m sure we’ll discuss ToolFactory’s Flip Video Mobile Lab and Podcasting Mobile Lab. I’m very interested in these tools particularly as they relate to the StoryChasers project.

If you have questions about these mobile lab solutions or other things for Heather and can’t participate live, please leave questions here and I’ll pass them on to her during the webcast.

Technorati Tags:
toolfactory, podcast, webcast, technology, integration, school, learning

5th September 2008

The cutest 5 year old dancer you’ve ever seen

posted in humor, random | 1 Comment

This is too good to not share.

Last weekend our family attended the wonderful wedding of my cousin Devin Henley and his beautiful bride, Andrea. This evening as my wife and I watched “The Red Violin” (a great flick, btw) I caught up on my photo and video uploads to Flickr. I’m in the habit of limiting access to photos of our kids to family and friends (those designated in Flickr) and I did with the wedding photo set, but the video set is too adorable (and not really that identifiable like a photo can be) to not share.

Of the six videos in the set, this one of Rachel dancing to YMCA is our favorite:

This second video of her YMCA dancing, including some breakdancing moves she certainly did NOT learn from her dad, comes in a close second:

Did we ever have a BLAST together at Devin and Andrea’s wedding or what? Boy this was a lot of fun! Clearly our family (led by our youngest members) needs to get out and go dancing more often! :-)
Again I say “thanks” to the flash-based camera and camcorder I picked up several weeks ago for enabling me to capture these memorable moments.

Technorati Tags:
dance, dancing, wedding, family

4th September 2008

VoiceThread a security threat?

posted in digitalstorytelling | 5 Comments

Emily Vickery in Alabama reports via a tweet that her IT department is telling her VoiceThread “is a security threat because it searches for open ports to use.” That is a new one for me. I can understand IT departments blocking peer-to-peer file sharing software programs which search for open ports, but a digital storytelling application like VoiceThread? P2P programs certainly can bring a wealth of windows-based malware onto your network, but I’ve never heard of anyone downloading or obtaining any type of malware by using the VoiceThread website.

Emily, my recommendation for your ensuing conversations with the IT department would be to ask if the concern over port searching is malware? If it is (which seems most likely) I would explain to and show the IT department that VoiceThread is not a P2P program and file transfers to and from the site are very limited. Users can upload images and video to use, and users can view images, video, as well as text comments and hear audio narration. The only file downloads from the VoiceThread site as far as I know are the “archival VoiceThreads” which can be downloaded as QuickTime files for offline playback.

I would hypothesize the port searching which VoiceThread does is for webcam video support. I do not think the standard photo upload and voice recording/commenting functionality requires additional ports to utilize beyond the standard port 80 for web content. I could be wrong on this, however.

The IT department may have concerns about users being able to upload audio and video comments, and if they are insistent about that “lack of control” being the real issue why they are blocking VoiceThread.com then you might consider having your school pay for an account on ed.voicethread.com. That is a controlled environment in which all users are registered and accountable, both teachers and students.

Has anyone else run into this same situation with your IT department when it comes to using (or trying to use) VoiceThread? For those of you in IT departments or leading IT departments, what are your thoughts on this situation?

Technorati Tags:
security, threat, voicethread, malware, it, schools, education

4th September 2008

What does teaching and learning 2.0 look like

posted in digitalstorytelling, distributed-learning, leadership, literacy | 0 Comments

In his follow-up presentation / facilitated conversation after his keynote at BLC08, Ewan McIntosh asserted that no single image or video can represent what the new era of teaching and learning looks like. I agree there are multiple ways of thinking about blended learning and what an ideal learning environment in the 21st century can and should look like. I also agree with Ewan’s point that as educators we need to teach, facilitate, and lead in the ways we believe are best for learners and learning and share that with others. I also think there is value, however, in reflecting on images of teaching and learning, as well as technology, and discussing how those images reflect or fail to reflect what is best and needed for learning inside and outside of classrooms today.

Dr Sara Kejder recently asked students in a graduate humanities class to share and reflect on pictures they selected which addressed “teaching and learning 2.0″ ideas as a VoiceThread conversation. I invite you to listen to some of their ideas and then join the discussion on one more more slides.

[image]

One of the things which struck me as I listened to the students was how many of them seem to view technology as an isolating and even dehumanizing force. Many of them also seem to have had negative experiences with online courses as well. There is a sentiment in many of the comments that technology serves largely to distance and distract us from one another, rather than bring is closer together in learning communities and communities of practice. That was a contention I remember from John Naisbitt’s book “High Tech/High Touch: Technology and Our Accelerated Search for Meaning.” Certainly technologies can and do distance and distract, but I think they can also powerfully join and connect.

Rather than share only images which communicate an isolated and impersonal view of technology for this assignment, I would opt to share an image like this one of Brian Crosby’s students in Reno, Nevada, using Skype to connect with one of their classmates who was homebound due to cancer treatments.

Students in Brian Crosby's classroom

The 3 minute video a professional crew from Skype created about Brian’s class and their use of desktop videoconferencing to include Celeste as a participating member of their class represents, to me, a powerful vision of what teaching and learning 2.0 SHOULD look like and does look like in (currently) a very limited number of classrooms.

To help others imagine and even imagineer the future of learning, we need to provide them with opportunities to experience it today. Few teachers are as powerful or as memorable as personal experiences.

Students in Brian Crosby's classroom using Skype

To learn more about this story, check out Brian’s keynote in the “Overcoming Obstacles” strand of the free 2007 K-12 Online Conference.

Technorati Tags:
teaching, learning, vision, education, school, imagineer, briancrosby, skype, school20, schoolreform, educationreform, reform, 21stcentury

3rd September 2008

Want a successful laptop initiative? Better choose Mac laptops!

posted in 1:1, apple, leadership | 5 Comments

A friend recently let me know about the July 2008 report “Third-Year (2006-2007) Traits of Higher Technology Immersion Schools and Teachers” published by the Texas Center for Educational Research for the Texas Education Agency.

While the report points out that three of the four “high immersion” sites in TxTIP are using Apple Macintosh laptops instead of Dell Laptops, it evidently does not mention that only 7 of the 21 studied sites went with Macs initially. With just one-third of studied TxTIP campuses using Macs, three-fourths of the identified “high immersion” campuses are using Macs. Is that merely a coincidence? I think not.

Selection of a computing platform is one of MANY issues to consider when embarking on a 1:1 project, but it is a highly significant decision which impacts multiple aspects of a laptop initiative. If I was in a formal position of authority in our state or any other and was considering a laptop initiative for large numbers of students and teachers, there is no question Apple laptops would be at the top of my list for hardware. The iLife suite and the overall approach of Apple Professional Development is much more constructivist and project-based than what I’ve I’ve seen and heard about from campuses in TxTIP and other 1:1 projects which selected a Windows-based operating system. To be fiscally responsible I would certainly consider Windows-based alternatives as well as open-source laptop options as well, but based on my past experiences along with educational research findings like these I’d be highly-biased to favor the Apple platform. As I heard one of the leaders at the University of Texas’ College of Education share in April 2005, a successful laptop initiative is based on SO much more than just the question, “How inexpensively can you deliver that hardware to my loading dock?”

This is not to say that 1:1 initiatives can’t be successful and very learner-centered / project-based on a Windows-platform or on a Linux platform, but I will contend it is more difficult and much harder to find these types of success stories at schools using the Windows platform. All Macs come with software which naturally lends itself to creating, collaborating and communicating with others. On the Windows platform that is not the case. Software from Tech4Learning, ToolFactory, and other companies certainly CAN be included in the software package included with Windows-based laptops in 1:1 projects, but all too often project directors fallaciously assume “Microsoft Office is really the only software program our students and teachers are going to need.” That assumption is both false and ridiculous if attaining “high immersion” levels as measured by TCER in this report is a desired project outcome.

I’ve had this perception for several years. It’s interesting to see my perception is now supported by the year 3 report of TCER for TxTIP. This report and others published by TCER for TxTIP are available on the TCER website for download.

Earlier this year I heard that only three of the initial 22 middle school TxTIP campuses were expected to be sustainable (continue their laptop initiatives) past the four year grant period, and of those all three were using Mac laptops and two were in West Texas. (Floydada ISD and Post ISD) Can anyone involved in TxTIP confirm or deny this rumor?

As far as I know Floydada ISD is the only district out of the 22 original middle school/junior high campuses in TxTIP to use local funds to extend the laptop initiative to the high school level. Floydada High School was named an “Apple Distinguished School” last year because of the exemplary successes the district has had with technology immersion both via TxTIP as well as locally supported and funded efforts. It was no coincidence that in March 2008 Floydada superintendent Jerry Vaughn was named one of the national “2008 Tech-Savvy Superintendents” by eSchoolNews.

The need for and positive impact of good, strong, visionary leadership in our schools is evident everywhere, and it is certainly clear to see in a success story like Floydada ISD. I look forward to reading this entire TxTIP year 3 report in the weeks ahead, and will post more about this report as I make time to consume, digest and analyze it.

It’s been almost four years since this news broadcast segment ran in Lubbock, Texas, in October 2004. It is extremely gratifying to see those seeds of technology immersion flourishing in West Texas! :-)

This page contained an embedded video. Click here to view it.

Check out the “Opening Doors!” video from Floydada High School to learn more.

Technorati Tags:
txtip, tcer, texas, laptop, onetoone, 1to1, learning, school, education, evaluation, tea

3rd September 2008

CustomGuides: Free how-to tutorials ready to use

posted in edtech | 4 Comments

For a few months I’ve been on a quest to find a website which aggregates user-created software how-to guides / quickstart guides and tutorials. I mentioned this last night in my recorded iChat conversation with Carol Anne McGuire: Someone needs to create a website that is an open-content version of AtomicLearning. YouTube and other video sharing websites DO already include a wealth of “how-to” videos, but they also include a lot of other “stuff” which guarantees most U.S. school districts will continue to block those sites on their content filters for the foreseeable future. In addition to how-to videos and screencasts, many learners (especially older ones but sometimes younger ones too) want and need step-by-step guides to use new software programs and websites. It doesn’t make sense for educators around the world to reinvent the wheel when creating how-to guides about software programs, but where can we turn for help besides Google, our delicious networks and twitter networks? Those are great options, but I think there is an empty niche for a website which aggregates “just in time” open-content screencasts and printable how-to guides for learners. (No, teachers and others do NOT need to print all these guides, but let’s face it, in professional development workshops with teachers a MAJORITY tend to want/demand printable how-to guides that cover things step-by-step.)

Cheryl Oakes mentioned CustomGuides as her “Geek of the Week” in the latest Seedlings webcast and the site appears to be a step in this direction, although CustomGuide materials ARE still traditionally copyrighted and the site does not currently embrace Open Educational Resource (OER) licensing terms. While CustomGuides does provide a wide variety of Microsoft and Adobe quickstart guides, tutorials are NOT provided for PhotoStory3 or Audacity. Those two programs are the primary ones we use in our statewide oral history project, Celebrate Oklahoma Voices. Before our summer workshops, we revised both our Audacity and PhotoStory3 handouts and started uploading them to a shared Google site “file cabinet” page.

I’m glad to learn about CustomGuides. Hopefully we’ll see more websites like this develop in the months ahead which not only provide free access to tutorial/quickstart guides, but also invite user-submissions and remixes of submitted quickstart guides for different software programs and websites under OER licensing terms.

Open Educational Resources logo

For more about OER, refer to Karen Fasimpaur’s outstanding NCCE 2008 presentation “Free Content + Open Tools + Massive Collaboration = Learning for All.” Also note that the Seedlings podcast (one of my top favorites - Bob, Cheryl and Alice ALWAYS have great ideas to share with teachers) has become a new regularly scheduled webcast on EdTechTalk for Thursday nights when Lisa Parisi is not broadcasting her regular show. Yeah! Go Seedlings! :-)

Check out the post on EdTechTalk about the Seedlings show and expected schedule for more details. Time for the shows will be Thursday nights 7:30-8:30 EST.

Technorati Tags:
howto, tutorial, guide, software, quickstart, microsoft, adobe, photostory, audacity, customguides

3rd September 2008

Free Mobile Alerts: One-to-many text messaging and voicemail

posted in mobile | 3 Comments

Looking for new ways to stay in touch with parents and students this year using voicemail and text messaging? I certainly am as I teach several courses for adults and 5th graders at my church on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings this year, and as I lead our youth deacons in our “Stories of Faith” podcasting project. Two free website services I’ve discovered recently and am planning to use this semester are:

TextMarks: Create text-alert groups using cell phone numbers, permit others to subscribe to alerts, facilitate one-to-many and many-to-many text discussions. I’m using this with our youth deacons group, along with a private Facebook group.

Phonevite: Create voicemail reminders for groups, schedule delayed voicemail updates if desired, record Phonevite messages from your mobile phone anywhere, anytime. I’m planning to use this with our 5th grade parents to send out updates and stay in touch.

Both of these tools provide great opportunities to send out reminders and updates. And they are both free!

Thanks to Michael Richards for sharing Phonevite on Bit by Bit Show 34 from 28 August 2008, and Jym Brittain for sharing Textmarks in a comment to a blog post here last month.

Technorati Tags:
mobile, alerts, voicemail, messaging, sms, text, phonevite, textmarks

2nd September 2008

Believe in your students, colleagues, and believe in yourself

posted in leadership | 3 Comments

Student Dalton Sherman’s message to the teachers in Dallas ISD and to educators around the world via the YouTube video of his convocation message is powerful and simple: Believe in your students, believe in your colleagues, and believe in yourself.

This eight minute video clip would make an ideal start to a staff meeting this year when you want to help other teachers focus on some big-picture issues.

Thanks to Sandra Fivecoat for sharing this link. If YouTube is blocked at your school so you can’t show this directly online, download an offline copy you can play from your hard drive. Refer to my post “Tips for downloading offline copies of Flash videos” for suggestions and software programs which can be used to do this.

Technorati Tags:
inspiration, video, education, school, believe, belief

2nd September 2008

Darfur Issues highlighted via a student-created Southpark style video

posted in creativity, digitalstorytelling, globalvoices, intellectualproperty | 0 Comments

I learned about the following student-created Southpark parody video today entitled “Genocide: Lost in Translation” from Joyce Valenza. This is a great example of a transformative, creative work which arguably meets US fair use copyright provisions because of its transformative nature.

This page contained an embedded video. Click here to view it.

Take a few minutes to watch the video, it is just 3 minutes long. Isn’t it amazing how many issues the student is able to communicate and highlight in just 180 seconds? I like how the student used a green ribbon to indicate when real-life statistics were used as the basis for character dialog:

YouTube - Genocide: Lost in Translation

I first learned about the genocide in Darfur in January 2006 because of a videoconference I helped facilitate at the Texas Tech International Cultural Center. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.’s Committee on Conscience website and Voices on Genocide Prevention podcast are excellent sources to use in advocacy and research efforts focused on Darfur and the continuing tragedy there.

Technorati Tags:
darfur, war, genocide, politics, video, youtube, digitalstorytelling, copyright, intellectualproperty, fairuse, transformative

2nd September 2008

Podcast277: A Conversation with Carol Anne McGuire - Imagineering the Ideal K-6 Classroom Learning Environment (Part 2)

posted in edtech | 2 Comments

This podcast is a recording of a conversation I had this evening over iChat with Carol Anne McGuire, discussing her experiences helping kids soar with their learning using a variety of project-based learning, collaboration and technologically-infused teaching methods. Carol Anne is the architect of the successful “Rock Our World” project, and has helped students create some of the most compelling podcasts I’ve heard to date. (Her students’ “Mother’s Day Podcasts” are some of my favorites.) In our conversation Carol Anne discusses the importance of community building between students in collaborative projects, the importance of high expectations for student learning, and the prospects she now faces at a new school where she has been challenged in imagineer the ideal classroom learning environment for both students and teachers. We hope to follow-up this conversation with part 3 in this series, which will be a live webcast discussing these ideas and inviting others to share their perspectives about what the ideal classroom learning environment might look like in the 21st century. We also might put together a presentation on this topic for the “NotK12OnlineConference” event later this year. :-)

  icon for podpress  Podcast277: A Conversation with Carol Anne McGuire - Imagineering the Ideal K-6 Classroom Learning Environment (Part 2) [50:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (355)

Show Notes:

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2nd September 2008

Copyright and recording full-length library books

posted in books, digitalstorytelling, intellectualproperty | 1 Comment

I received the following question last week pertaining to copyright and audio recordings of full length books:

I want to write a grant to have my 3rd graders record podcasts of some of our library’s picture books for our K, 1, 2 kids to listen to from home. I’d post them on our website on Podcast People. Would that be against copyright laws if we put them on a website? I’d appreciate any thoughts you have on this.

I need to start this response with my typical disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer– for formal legal advice you do need to consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your local jurisdiction. That being said, however, here are some thoughts which build on my presentation “Copyright, Fair Use, and Intellectual Property for Educators” which I have shared several times in the past few years.

I would NOT encourage you to publish full length audio readings/recordings of copyrighted books on your library’s public website WITHOUT the explicit permission of each book publisher. Fair use laws along with the TEACH Act in the United States do provide educators and students with more legal ways to use and reuse content when such use is limited in its scope and potential market impact, but whenever you are talking about publishing content on the open/public web for anyone to download you have to be very careful.

According to Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act in the United States, the fourth factor which must be examined when seeking to determine if a use of copyrighted material qualifies as “fair use” is:

The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

In the situation you describe, by publishing full audio-book versions of existing published books, you would be potentially undercutting the commercial sale of those audiobooks by the publisher who owns the copyright. For this reason, as I previously stated, I would NOT recommend publishing any audiobook versions on the open/public web without the explicit permission of each book publisher. If you can get explicit permission from each publisher to do what you want in your project, by all means move forward. I do not think you could reasonably expect that your re-publication of picture books as audiobooks qualifies as “fair use” however and could be done legally without publisher permission.

If you do create audiobook versions of printed books for your students, to provide needed IEP accommodations or for other reasons, it is my understanding that you are required (under U.S fair use provisions of copyright law) to restrict access to those created audiobooks. For example, you could have those audiobooks available on an Intranet website which is only available to teachers and students within your school district. It would be very important in that case, however, to take steps to inform users of their “limited use rights” of those audiobooks. Teachers and students would NOT have permission or the legal right to take one or more of those in-house audiobooks and republish it on their own website or another website that is publicly available.

Rather than focus your grant on creating audiobook versions of printed books, I would encourage you to help students and teachers participate in a book-related digital storytelling project like “Great Book Stories.” In that case, students are providing summaries and reviews of favorite books and using only limited excerpts from books, which complies with fair use provisions of U.S. copyright law. You also might consider having students create and publish their OWN books for which they would own the copyright and therefore be legally able (with parent permission) to publish various forms of their books online.

For additional information and guidance on these issues, in addition to referring you to the presentation link already cited, I’d direct you to Temple University’s Media Education Lab resources on Copyright and Fair Use.

Technorati Tags:
copyright, law, book, books, library, recording, audio, podcast, question

1st September 2008

Podcast276: Imagineering the Ideal K-6 Classroom Learning Environment (Part 1)

posted in 1:1, creativity, design, digitalstorytelling, distributed-learning, leadership, pbl, schoolreform, socialnetworking, web 2.0 | 0 Comments

In this podcast I share 45 minutes worth of brainstorming on the subject, “Given all the resources, administrative and parental support needed, how would you imagineer the ideal K-6 classroom learning environment?” Imagineering is a term I associate with Walt Disney and Disneyland, where creative and capable individuals come together to both imagine and engineer new worlds together. Carol Anne McGuire asked me last week to share some ideas with her along these lines, and prior to our conversation later this week I did some brainstorming and created this podcast tonight to clarify some of my thoughts. In the podcast shownotes you’ll find a link to the eighteen different ideas or suggestions I offer in this recording, as well as Stephanie Sandifer’s excellent  wiki for “Designing the 21st Century Global Learning Environment.” As always I welcome your comments and feedback on the ideas of this podcast.

  icon for podpress  Podcast276: Imagineering the Ideal K-6 Classroom Learning Environment (Part 1) [46:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (324)

Show Notes:

The 18 bullet points I used as an outline for this podcast Creating, Collaborating, Communicating: These “3 C’s” are the key and can be a basic focus of learning tasks, included in project rubrics Walt Disney Imagineering (from WikiPedia) Ed.VoiceThread (accountable environment for students and teachers to create VoiceThreads for school with individual accounts) Consider setting up a “Team Curiosity Blog” to which both students and teachers can post using a locally-hosted copy of Wordpress. What are you curious about today? What are you wondering based on things you’ve read, seen, or heard? Create school-wide wiki as a free gold wiki for education using PBwiki (Back to School Challenge) Register your school and students for a free Think.com social networking account(s) - Now part of ThinkQuest Stephanie Sandifer’s excellent  wiki for “Designing the 21st Century Global Learning Environment” My notes from Stephanie’s facilitated session at EduBloggerCon2008 in July 2008 in San Antonio Ideal 21st century learning is not… Phil Schlechty’s excellent book “Working on the Work: An Action Plan for Teachers, Principals, and Superintendents” Habits of Mind (EssentialSchools.org) Camera recommendations from the StoryChasers Wiki Alfie Kohn’s book “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing” Revisiting VoiceThread - TTT112 - 07.09.08 (Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast with VoiceThread co-founder Steve Muth discussing best practices with VoiceThread) Kevin HoneyCutt StoryChasers (main learning community website) Powerful Ingredients for Digitally Interactive Learning XTimeLine Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow Research (ACOT)

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31st August 2008

DRM, Libraries and Digital audio book checkout limitations

posted in apple, intellectualproperty | 1 Comment

Our family is up in Kansas this weekend for college football and a family wedding, and as usual we’ve swapped a few technological tips and tricks amidst our conversations about family and food. One I’m most interested in, which I learned about from my mom, is the availability of audio books for checkout from the Kansas State Library System. This service has been available for over two years, according to the State Library of Kansas’ blog about the project, but this is the first time I’ve heard about this type of library check-out for audio books online.

Kansas Audiobooks, music and more!

According to their website “Kansas Audiobooks, music and more!”

The State Library of Kansas is proud to announce the arrival of Digital Video and MP3 Audiobooks in addition to WMA Audiobooks, Digital eBooks and Digital Music. Our new MP3 Audiobooks will play on virtually any MP3 player available including the iPod® and Zune®! You can browse and search hundreds of great titles and download them to your computer, transfer them to a portable device, or burn onto a CD for your reading and listening pleasure anywhere, anytime. Try it, it’s easy!

Only Kansas residents (a category which no longer defines me at this point) are eligible to obtain a Kansas Library Card, which is required to utilize these services.

The Kansas digital book library initiative is being coordinated by OverDrive. The about page of the Overdrive corporate website describes itself as a company which:

…provides world-class infrastructure for distributing premium digital content. We empower publishers, enterprises, libraries, schools, and retailers to maximize their presences in the digital world by enabling them to securely manage, protect, and lend or sell digital audiobooks, eBooks, music, and videos.

The Overdrive “School Download Library” Service:

…supplements your school library with eBook and audiobook downloads from your school’s website. It’s easy and based on a proven platform currently serving 7,500 public libraries worldwide: Students install free software on their computers, browse the secure website for curriculum-based or recreational titles, check out their selections with an existing library card (or other ID), then download audiobooks and eBooks to their desktop or laptop PC. They can even transfer most titles to supported mobile devices!

What these websites do NOT say in clear words on the front page is that these Overdrive DRM-supported services and features are totally incompatible with iPods and iPhones. If non-DRM MP3 audio files are shared, those can be iPod-compatible, but most of the media resources shared with these systems tend to be (as far as I can tell) on the non-compatible, DRM-laden variety.

In searching for Oklahoma libraries utilizing the same or a similar system as the Kansas State Library system, I found the Pioneer Library System in Norman is utilizing Overdrive. The sidebar link on the Pioneer Library’s Overdrive website for “iPod users click here” includes BAD NEWS for iPod users, however, which seems at first-blush to contradict the State of Kansas’ Overdrive site regarding iPod compatibility:

At this time, OverDrive Media files cannot be used on iPods or Mac computers.

Our media titles, provided by OverDrive, Inc., use DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection technology from Microsoft Corporation. Unfortunately the iPod (and Mac) currently support neither DRM-protected Windows Media Audio (.wma) files nor Windows Media Video (.wmv) files.

OverDrive, along with hundreds of online media providers, is hopeful that Apple and Microsoft can reach an agreement that would enable support for Microsoft-based DRM-protected materials on the iPod/Mac [platform].

Why are Overdrive audio and video files in the Kansas State library system iPod compatible, but those in the Norman Pioneer Library System are not? Apparently the DRM-encoded files in both systems are NOT iPod compatible, the non-DRM encoded MP3 files offered by the Kansas Library System ARE, however. I’d like to see the statistics on how many media files which are now publicly available for checkout on the open web from the Kansas Library System ARE MP3, non-DRM files. My strong suspicion it that the number is a small fraction of the total.

The Overdrive Digital Media Guided Tour provides more information about the services provided by this particular company. The section on portable audio devices indicates that only “Windows-media audio DRM protected audio files” are supported.

Like many others I’d guess, I have mixed feelings about digital rights management. I understand why it is needed and how it has opened the door wider for the digital media revolution, but I don’t like the fact that DRM standards vary and compatibility issues can be common. My own negative experiences with my iRiver and its Windows Media DRM audio format is just one example. (I have repeatedly tried and had friends try to format the iRiver from MTP to UMS as I’d done in the past with a friend’s iRiver to no avail, it WILL NOT change to the more compatible UMS format.) Apparently similar DRM-woes afflict iPod-owning users of Overdrive and its digital media library service.

Here’s a fast question: Why would any forward looking organization utilizing and sharing digital media choose to lock itself into a DRM format which is utilized by the Zune but not iPods? I would caution anyone looking at digital media library services to AVOID formats which lock users into the Windows Media Audio DRM format which is (at least to date) totally unfriendly to iPods.

If your library system has chosen to use a media sharing system which is incompatible and therefore digitally irrelevant to a LARGE MAJORITY of patrons with iPod digital media players, is your library system making wise and fiscally responsible choices which meet the current and future needs of patrons? I think not.

Rather than blame Microsoft and Apple for the differences in DRM, as some do with statements about iPod/Zune DRM incompatibility, perhaps library systems embracing ONLY Microsoft compatible DRM media files should instead offer the following statement on the front of their websites:

We recognize that a vast majority of our library patrons who own a portable digital media player own iPods, however we have chosen to spend our limited financial resources on a digital rights management system which is incompatible with all those devices. We recommend you discard your iPod and instead purchase a Zune, which we happen to prefer (for unknown reasons) and will help Microsoft maintain its quarterly profit levels. Thank you for your support of our library system. Good luck convincing the teenagers in your household to discard their iPods so they can benefit from our digital media services here at the library.

Would such an announcement be far off base? I don’t think so. I’m quite disappointed that the Overdrive DRM is not supportive of iPods and iPhones, and I am pretty sure this sentiment is shared by others.

Are their other companies in addition to OverDrive which are facilitating the sharing and checkout of various media files using both Apple and Microsoft DRM formats?

Technorati Tags:
drm, library, audio, books, audiobooks, checkout, kansas, oklahoma, overdrive, itunes, apple, microsoft, intellectuaproperty, legal, law

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Wesley Fryer is the author of Moving at the Speed of Creativity. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
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