Library, Marblehead Village School, 2.5 hours

The classes I observed on 3/12/13 were tackling copyright and how it works.  While the observations ended with focusing on the assessment of learning guideline, the majority of the lessons focused on the Mission statement as addressed in the Guidelines for School Library Programs.  Here it states:

“The mission of the school library program is to ensure that students and staff are effective users of ideas and information; students are empowered to be critical thinkers, enthusiastic readers, skillful researchers, and ethical users of information.”

As a review of last week’s lesson, Mrs. Soghomonian gave each table of children one of the three terms they were previously introduced to.  They were copyright, fair use and public domain to define as a group.  Discussion at each table went on for 5 minutes and students were given a pencil in order to prepare a definition to share with the class as a whole.  I was honestly surprised to see how much the students remembered from the Brain Pop copyright video they saw on 2/27/13.  The students presented their well thought out definitions hitting some key points such as one student that said, “Copyright protects what you create,” but was quick to add, “but not your ideas.”  Mrs. Soghomonian supplemented their definitions to provide a comprehensive definition for each term.  The students shared various real life situations which showed their concern of copyright violations.  One child nervously looked for copyright atonement for a family tradition of showing a movie at his house with the neighborhood kids before trick-or-treating every year at Halloween.

After all the terms were defined and questions were answered, it was time to provide a safe alternative to copyright violations.  Mrs. Soghomonian introduced the class to Creative Commons as a safe alternative where sharing was alive and well.  From the home page the students were led to “About” in the top left of the screen next to the Creative Commons symbol and site name.  Clicking on this tab brought the class to the “What is Creative Commons?” 3 minute video.  The video explained how to share your work with others by explaining copyright, how to share your work the way you want it to be shared and make a license for your creativity.  As the video states, “You don’t give up your copyright, you refine it, so it works better for you.”  This simplistic video has a catchy musical component, it is engaging to watch and it creatively uses visuals to explain and shows you just how easy and quick creating a license can be.

“Wanna Work Together?” Video by Creative Commons

Once the video was completed it was time for the class to return to a familiar “what if scenario” about a picture that was used for the Arts Festival.  Mrs. Soghomonian showed the children where on Creative Commons they could go to create a fast and simple license of their own.  Once completed the licensee is left with an image or html of the license for them to use on all their creative works.  Below is a screen shot of the license application as it appears.

Creative Commons Licensing Form

Now as promised, Mrs. Soghomonian showed the children exactly where they were able to find images, songs and media that WERE available to be shared in various ways on the internet.  She explained that Creative Commons acts like a search engine to provide a Creative Commons search.  While Mrs. Soghomonian does not like Wikipedia for information, she told the surprised children that Wikimedia Commons  is a good source for pictures.  Here the pictures are all in the public domain.  To be sure she did caution the children to always be mindful of looking for the public domain seal or Creative Commons image regardless.  When you find an image she also stressed to include the name of the author or person who provided it.

Creative Commons Search Page

Looking ahead to their Historical Fiction Glog project that is based on a book, she asked who read Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone.  A few students raised their hands so Mrs. Soghomonian told the class that she would search for John Smith on Wikimedia Commons.  She did draw their attention to the top right hand corner of the screen where 2 boxes will determine the results you get.  One is the use for commercial purposes or as she simply stated, “Do you plan to sell your glog or work?”  The second box would yield works that others said it would be ok for you to modify, adapt or build upon.  She explained that depending on what you wanted to do with your final product, the number of results the search would yield would vary.

Naturally all the search results on Wikimedia Commons were not for THE John Smith that the book referenced.  After looking at the top results, the children were able to identify the correct one.  Under the picture, Mrs. Soghomonian brought their attention to the summary and licensing boxes.  The key things that she had the students look at was find in Summary where the image was listed in the public domain and under licensing she stressed the importance of reading the information found there.  Even though this picture is in the public domain, Mrs. Soghomonian reiterated that the children should always give credit to the author or creator as a courtesy.  In this case, credit was given to David H. Montgomery.

"Captain John Smith" Search Result on Wikimedia Commons - Author David H. Montgomery

Mrs. Soghomonian gave some final comments regarding the next lesson where they would be exploring a Glog and they would need their Historical Notes Fiction Sheet so that they could write a review of their book for their Glog.  The review will either by in text format or recorded in their voice.  Mrs. Soghomonian handed out a rubric for students to be familiar with.  She told them that this sheet would outline how they would be graded on their Glog.  The expectations and materials were clear; however she asked for questions and was able to clarify some of the criteria.  I am excited to see the next step in this process.  Having never worked with a Glog before, I am learning along with the children.

Mrs. Soghomonian's Glog Project Rubric