Fair Use - Don't Be Afraid to Use Copyrighted Materials!

There has been a lot of confusion over the years about what kinds of copyrighted materials are allowed to be used in the classroom.  I remember when I was a beginning teacher in Texas, we had a whole faculty meeting about not being allowed to show any Disney movies for any reason in our classrooms.  We were told that we could be sued and get the school district into trouble legally.  We also had a meeting about not photocopying books that were copyright protected, such as consumable workbooks (lots of teacher did anyway).  That was my first taste of copyright in the classroom.

In 2008, several Media Literacy organizations met to decide what was considered fair use for literacy organizations.  They wrote The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education.  This code contains five categories.  Those are: 1) Classroom teaching with copyrighted materials.  This means that teachers can use copyrighted materials such as websites, video games, movies, advertising and other media as it relates to topics they are teaching and use only what is necessary. They may use materials that help them teach critical thinking. 2) Copyrighted materials within curriculum.   Teacher may use copyrighted materials to aid in the development of their curriculum. 3) Sharing media literacy curriculum materials.  These materials are often shared at educational conferences to show professional development. 4) Student use of copyrighted materials in their own academic or creative work.  Students improve their media literacy skills using different types of software and putting music or other media into their project. 5) Developing audiences for student work.  Students may distribute and share their work that contains copyrighted materials.

The idea behind Fair Use is to allow teachers and students to use copyrighted materials in an educational setting. No one is profiting from another person’s work, they are using copyrighted materials in a responsible way for teaching and learning.  

School TV News...More than just the Pledge!

Awesome Productions!

It was great to be able to see Orenca Elementary School and Eisenhower Middle School perform their TV news for the school.  Both schools did an excellent job with presenting the school news.  I commend the person(s) who take on these responsibilities. It is not an easy task, but the children really enjoy it and they learn valuable skills and lessons when it comes to being on camera or behind the scenes filming.

KNN - Kilpatrick News Network

At my school, I as the media specialist have the pleasure of working with fourth and fifth grade students each morning to do the news broadcast.  Our broadcast is presented over closed circuit television.  Teachers and students all tune in to a certain channel and they are able to see the crew live as well as they are able to see videos and PowerPoint presentations that are presented.  At the beginning of each year, I hold auditions for new members of the team while allowing old members to continue to serve.  Students have to have a teacher's recommendation and they have to meet other criteria that I set forth in the application.  For example, they have to arrive to school daily by a certain time, they have to have good grades, they must be excellent readers and speakers, etc...  Once I choose a team of fourth and fifth grade students, they serve on the news team for the entire school year.  It takes three students to do the morning show daily so I rotate them each day.  I have a total of 15 news team members.

So what do we do?

My students begin the morning show by introducing themselves.  Next we share the character education word for the week and provide examples and definitions of the character word.  We do birthday announcements daily for teachers and students.  Then we share our vision and mission statement for the district as well as say the Pledge of Allegiance.  We also have a daily song which is the national anthem that is played and sang by our entire school.  After that our students share any announcements that have been given to the media specialist.  They end the broadcast with an idiom phrase for the day and the official school time.  Two students are on camera while one student works the camera, PowerPoint and music.

Sometimes we have special guest to come in and join us on camera to share whatever they may need to share.  Some students share special writings or projects that they have done.  Sometimes faculty and staff especially our principal may have a special announcement that they would like to share themselves.  Once my team is trained, which normally takes about two weeks, they prepare for the broadcast each morning for about ten minutes, and then they are normally on air for about ten minutes.

Problems I've Encountered...

One thing that I have noticed this school year is that it is hard to keep students on the news team.  I have had students to be pulled because of academic or behavior reasons.  Some students just don't want to commit for a year and they get tired or bored.  The other issue that I have is if I am absent or late!  There has to be another adult trained to watch over the kids as they do the news.  They can't handle all of the set up and equipment alone; there must be supervision.  So if I am not there, then there is no daily news and that is a problem.  One solution I have thought of just by viewing Orenca and Eisenhower is to have the show recorded.  I talked with another media specialist in our county and she records the news at the beginning of the week for the entire week and then all she needs to do is push play or have someone else to do that.  This is good because the students can record one time and they dont' have to miss any morning work time.  The only downside that I could see would be those last minute announcements that need to be made.  If the show is pre-recorded then that can't happen.  This blog posting has given me some wonderful ideas for things that I can incorporate in my news broadcast.

Fair Use and Some Commonly Believed Myths

Fair use law can be a tricky area for anyone. Just looking at the Copyright Office’s description of the law is enough to give you a headache and leave you all kinds of confused. It lists four factors used to consider whether something is fair use, but they feel very subjective, and they are very vague or broad depending on how you like to think of things. Still, it’s important to have a decent understanding of what constitutes fair use. For one, it could protect you legally. Secondly, it allows you to use copyrighted material in certain situations without getting permission or paying for it. In the Code of best practices in fair use for media literacy education, (2008) the report notes that the Supreme Court has said that fair use is what keeps copyright from violating the First Amendment. (pg. 5)

The four factors central to copyright law, as stated by the U.S. Copyright Office (2012) are:

1.      “The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

2.      The nature of the copyrighted work

3.      The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

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

There’s a common myth out there that the amount of the material used is what’s key about fair use. It varies, depending on who you talk to. I’ve heard some say as long as you don’t use more than 10 percent of a work, you’re in the clear. But, the Copyright Office website says there is no set number of “words, lines, or notes” that you can safely use without permission. It adds that simply adding citation is not necessarily enough either. The Copyright Office recommends people who aren’t sure about whether their work falls under the fair use guidelines to reach out to an attorney. But a student in school is unlikely to do that. So is a teacher. Instead, they might reach out to a media specialist or administrator for a second opinion if they are really concerned. 

There are many other myths about fair use out there. The Code of best practices in fair use for media literacy education (2008) report lists several, including the notion that fair use could get you sued. While it’s true that it is a possible to be sued for violating copyright, the report points out that it is very, very unlikely. In most cases, the copyright holder simply sends a cease and desist notice to notify the person of copyright infringement and to warn the person that he or she could be sued. Still, even threat of a lawsuit doesn’t mean you will be sued, or that the company will win. Companies and people sue for copyright and trademark infringement all the time and don’t win for one reason or another. In a school setting, it’s even more unlikely that you’ll get sued, one because most fair use instances would not leave the classroom. The only time you might run into trouble is if you publish something on the internet that may not fall under fair use guidelines. For instance, you could potentially run into trouble if you used the entirety of a hit song in the background of a video project that you posted on YouTube for the public to view. 

Another common fair use myth deals with commercial versus non-commercial use. Many people falsely believe that it’s okay to use copyrighted material under the fair use guidelines as long as they aren’t profiting off of it. Meanwhile, some believe if you are profiting, then the use doesn’t qualify as fair use. Both thoughts are wrong. Just because you don’t profit off the work doesn’t mean that it’s fair use. Non-profit organizations aren’t profiting per se off things they give away for charity, such as t-shirts and hats. That doesn’t mean they can print a Disney princess on their shirt and call it fair use. Similarly, a for-profit corporation could easily use copyrighted material in work it makes money off of and call it fair use. We do this where I work all the time. It’s how we are able to broadcast a number of still pictures and cell phone videos. We have a lot of restrictions that center around fair use, though. We have an entire department of lawyers that focus solely on rights and clearances for the network, called RACI. The rules for fair use are a little different in the department I work in. I work with the branch of the company that distributes video and scripts to our hundreds of affiliate stations domestically and internationally. These stations pay us for the material, so the company does profit off the material. The only time we can fair use and distribute a picture, sound, or video is within what’s called a package. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a package is a pre-produced piece of video that is voiced by a reporter and usually includes interviews from people, as well as video pertaining to a specific story. Packages end with the reporter sig-out, which is where the person says, “I’m so-and-so, reporting from Atlanta for whatever news station.” When we do send out these packages, we are required to place a warning in the script notifying our affiliates that the piece contains third-party material, or material that we did not specifically pay for or get permission to use. The warning informs stations it’s up to them to decide whether to use the material. It also usually places a time restriction on how long the piece can be used (usually up to 10 days from the day it was sent), and warns stations they may not cut up the video to remove the copyrighted material to air it separately. In other words, the package must be aired intact and the fair use video cannot be removed to be aired on its own. We fair use material all the time in this way. I’ve never heard of anyone running into issues where I work with fair use. Anytime we aren’t sure about something, we run it by the lawyers. Most items are approved by the lawyers before we even get it anyways. They will often send out guidance by e-mail and on an internal website notifying staff of any restrictions on material. Movie and TV clips, music videos and music, as well as some historical footage are items we frequently fair use. 

There’s no doubt, fair use can be a little confusing, and there is a lot of misinformation out there about what constitutes fair use. But being unsure isn’t a reason to pass up using material that is very likely legal for you to use and could benefit your students or your lessons. It’s important for educators to be familiar with the law so they know how to fair use material correctly. Education in this area usually falls to the media specialist, so it could be useful to create handouts, presentations, or other materials with information on what fair use covers, examples of fair use in the classroom, and links for where to go for more information. 

Here are a few good websites I found on the topic:

http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/fair-use/

http://www.teachingcopyright.org/handout/fair-use-faq

http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/copypol2.html

References:

Code of best practices in fair use for media literacy education. (2008). Retrieved from http://mediaeducationlab.com/code-best-practices-fair-use-media-literacy-education-0

U.S. Copyright Office. (2012). Fair use. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

ORCA Live - School T.V News

So... after watching quite a few wonderfully crafted Orca Live School broadcasting shows, as well as exploring Eisenhower Middle School's morning show, I was pumped up, excited and ready to find a school in my area (NYC) that did the same great work with their students so that I can pick their brains on just how much it takes to create a program of that magnitude.

But... After one long week of reaching out to over 20 schools, trying to locate one (just one) that incorporated a T.V. Broadcast or even just an announcement that included more than having two students say the Pledge of Allegiance, I came up with NOTHING.  Well actually, I found that the majority of the schools I contacted did a daily announcement over the loud speaker, which almost always includes two students saying the pledge of allegiance and then the principal, vice principal or some other staff member updates the teachers of staff related events.

BORING, Is all I could think,  and for some odd reason I also became both angry and frustrated.  Is it a lack of resources or funding?  Creativity? Time?   I am really not sure what it is but with the lack of art and music programs in many public schools within the city, I can only hope that students are able to find creativity in something else. Creating a school news announcement can be one great way to get student's creative juices flowing.

Let's fast forward to today, because today was a good day filled with enlightenment and answers to many of the question I had regarding how schools who may be interested in beginning a school news production program, can get started.     Today (on a whim) I reached out to Orenco Elementary School and had the pleasure of speaking with Mike Futter, the teacher behind the awesome, creative and student run school news broadcast ORCA Live.  Mr. Futter was extremely nice and forthcoming with information.  He was also both surprised and elated at the fact that someone from New York City, let alone an entire class of students from the University of West Georgia viewed his site.  If you haven't already done so, please take a look http://schools.hsd.k12.or.us/orenco/Home/tabid/2559/Default.aspx 

Here is a little of what Mr. Futter said: 

1. How often do you create your broadcast? Daily, weekly, monthly? 
    We are in our 10 years of broadcasting and for the first seven years we created weekly broadcast, however after my friend retired we now do it Bi Weekly.

2. Who produces it?  Students, teachers, media specialist? 
      I create the main script, however students do everything else from lighting, to wardrobe, to figuring out where students should stand, the information that should be included, working the equipment, creating props etc.  Sometimes students write scripts that they would like to include.  Also, grade levels report weekly and each broadcast highlights one particular grade.  The students are responsible for using the laptops to create the power-point presentations and graphics, props, using the switch board and switching between scenes, figuring out where students stand as well as properly using the mics.  The students basically do it all.

3. I noticed that you have a green screen, what other types of equipment is used?
Well, actually the green screen is a white board with  just a green sheet draped over it.  It works pretty well with our mixing board.  We also use a old overhead projector for the lighting.  We used to have really old cameras however one of the parents of our students work for Nike, which is located here and when they switched over to digital they donated all of their old cameras.  We also had a really old mixing board and they donated that as well.  We use TriCaster Studio by Newtek, (http://www.newtek.com/products/tricaster-40.html)  which can handle a lot. Students can put videos on it, it's like a little production studio.  We received the funding for it after writing and winning a $5000 school grant.

4.  I see that you have some really great student actors, how is the talent selected?  Does the same people work on it all year or is there a rotation schedule?
      We have something called crew jobs which are outside jobs where students take pictures of assembly  talent shows etc. to add to our broadcast.  Because it is not a class we rely heavily on teachers to nominate students they know to be super responsible, good behavior and great work habits.  If students are interested and they are not nominated they can write me a letter and I keep it for future reference.  There are about 30-40 students throughout the year who work on the productions.

5. What problems have you encountered and how has it been solved?
     So far we have had a pretty smooth run.  We are lucky enough to write for grants and receive them as well as have the support of surrounding companies in the area.  One problem that I have and foresee continuing into the future is the lack of time to train students as teacher jobs become more difficult.

6.  Have any of your students gone on to work in broadcasting?
Well since this is an elementary school our oldest students are just turning 21 and attending college.  I don't have any stories of any of them working in the field, however we have had students attend the highschool, which also uses a news broadcast.

I thank Mike for his time, and he asked me to thank everyone who watched for watching and to also thank professor Cooper for highlighting his school.

In the newscast, began by welcoming and thanking all of the substitute teachers for helping out today, which I thought was awesome.  They also did birthday shout outs, the day's lunch menu, a weekend weather check, testing updates which included tips such as going to sleep early and eating breakfast on the day of the test, program updates, group updates, such as band and choir news, and grade level highlights.  During one particular broadcast, students encourages their peers to submit pictures of their activities during a recent snow day and created a montage of pictures to Disney's Frozen sound track. *** Side-note ***If you haven't seen the movie Frozen (which my 7 and 3 year old sons love) or heard the sound track you are truly missing out.

Overall I think that school t.v. news is awesome and a great way for students to be creative.      

Lights, Camera, Action! – School Television News

I found the morning announcement videos of both Orenco Elementary and Eisenhower Middle School quite impressive.  My school, Mt. Carmel Elementary, has a daily morning closed circuit broadcast that is presented live.  In comparison to our morning news broadcasts, they have some pretty original content. I like that the broadcasts are made available online.

Our news crew is called the WRAM crew (We are the Mt. Carmel Rams.) and is made up of six fifth graders who share responsibilities for a semester.  They must submit an application along with two teacher referrals based on academic achievement and good behavior. Students try out at the end of each school year (for the following year). The twelve fourth graders who make the WRAM crew will shadow the current members for a couple of weeks before school is out for the summer.

The school news is broadcast each morning from the media production room in the media center under the supervision of the media specialist and/or media clerk.  It is distributed throughout the school via closed circuit television on channel 80.  The morning news broadcast is presented through a combination of PowerPoint slides and live presentations.  Each afternoon at 2:15pm the WRAM crew meets in the media center to prepare the slides for the following day’s news show.  They meet each morning at 7:30am to make any last minute changes and to run through the scripts before going on air at 8:00am.

The content of the announcements is fairly basic.  It follows this consistent format each day/week:

ü  Welcome

ü  Character Trait of the Week stated.

ü  Moment of Silence – Slide usually shows a famous person in history that will be discussed later in the show.

ü  Pledge of Allegiance

ü  Star Spangled Banner is played each Tuesday. [Kindergarten standard is meet with this presentation.]

ü  P.R.I.D.E. Pledge

ü  Lunch menu is presented.

ü  Announcements/School News

ü  Weather

ü  Discussion of earlier slide from history.

ü  Birthdays of the Day are shown on the last slide and remain the screensaver for the day.

ü  Each Friday, our counselor is a guest speaker to recognize one RAM student from each grade level who has displayed good character.

ü  Student of the Month is recognized on air at the end of each month.

I discussed problems and concerns that have developed along the way with the media clerk.  Most problems that occur with the school television news are technical difficulties.  On occasion, the show has been presented over the intercom system in the office.  

While the content list above looks long, the entire broadcast only lasts about 7-8 minutes.  The length of the broadcast was a concern a couple of years ago.  Most teachers felt that it was too lengthy and began to interfere with morning procedures and take away valuable instructional time.  Focusing only on the highlights of the day scaled the news show down.

If I could suggest ways to improve our current school television news, I would recommend adding some ways to stimulate reading such as booktalks.  I would also encourage more interaction with students of the school like those displayed in the videos we viewed.

Taking on a project such as school television news is a huge commitment; however, it promotes a sense of school community that makes it worthwhile.

Blog 3 Making Great Websites for the LMC

Creating a website is not an easy task for all.  I struggle with what to include on the website.  I also struggle with putting just the right information on the website to attract the attention of my audience.  I want my students, teachers, parents and community to go to my website and get what they need and have fun while browsing the website.  I don't want a website that is too busy and difficult to navigate by my elementary school students.

Through my research, I have learned that there is nothing wrong with looking at exemplary websites and following their example.  In the school sytem where I work, it is pretty much required that each teacher/media specialist have a website.  There are some great examples from veteran media specialist of how a website should look.  I took a look at multiple websites and here are a few that I have some components that I like and would use on my website.

Mundy's Mill Middle School's website is very simple.  It doesn't have as much information as I would like to see, but I did love how the media specialist put Frequently Asked Questions for Students, Teachers and Parents.
http://myschooldesk.net/clayton/teachersite.aspx#site.3547_pid.13446_mid.26316

Smith Elementary has a tab for volunteers.  I often have parents who come in and want to volunteer.  This section of the website clearly lets parents know what can be done in the media center. 
http://myschooldesk.net/clayton/teachersite.aspx#site.6595_pid.27820_mid.48021

Lorena Elementary School has nice website.  I love the simplicity of the home page.  Students can click on Accelerated Reader, Find a book, Research, or Play and Learn.  These are the main things that students will need to do and it is right there and clear.
http://es.lorenaisd.net/for_students/library_media_center

Harambee Elementary School just has a great looking website in my opinion.  Everything is neatly arranged.  It is not wordy at all on the home page.  You can clearly see by the picture or the words where you want to go.
http://www.teacherweb.com/MN/HarambeeElementarySchool/MediaCenter/index.aspx

Magee Elementary School Library has a "Request a Book" link and I think this is a great feature.  When it is time to order books in the fall, I am in need of input from teachers and students as to what they would like to see in the media center.  This link can always be available so that you get recommendations throughout the year.
https://sites.google.com/a/kmsd.edu/magee-media-center/

I am not saying that these websites are the best.  They just have components that I would like to add to my website.  There are thousands of library websites to view.  I will continue to search and make sure I create a great website for my library media center.

Social Networking is EVERYWHERE!

Social Networking is Everywhere!

Social networking sites are gaining in popularity and use in every wake of life.  I am amazed at how much the internet has changed in my lifetime, and I’m old, so that’s really a long time!  I joined Facebook six years ago almost as a joke.  I even made a Facebook page for my dog.  Then I realized that almost everybody I know has a Facebook page and they are quite active and involved in updating and maintaining it.  There are a couple of other social networking sites that I am a part of, linkedin and pinterest most recently. These social networking sites started out as fun and games and have grown up to be full blown major websites on the very interactive World Wide Web.  They are used for much more than just making friends and keeping up with people far away.

I only recently (the last two years) realized that schools are encouraging the use of students becoming more involved in all aspects of using technology and the internet.  The middle school I subbed for two years ago had a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy for students to use their devices in the school setting if they followed the rules for them. I think that’s great, students need to be taught when and how to use their personal devices early on. Technology is a huge part of everyday life now. 

I like the idea of a library media center getting involved in having a Facebook page and getting students interested and involved.  Brian S. Matthews (2007) talks about librarians using social media to get library patrons involved and more knowledgeable about the library itself.  He sees it as an opportunity for libraries to reach out to people and be more interactive with their patrons and for librarians to “reinvent their image for a new generation.”  I would love to see my media center with a Facebook page where students can contribute photographs, books reviews, videos and so much more. One of the things that we talked about at my biannual principal/grade level meeting was the changing roles of students and that we as teachers need to encourage them to take more ownership in their learning and choices that they make.  Having a Facebook page could foster that students by letting them add content.

My school currently does not allow access to Facebook.  It does allow access to linkedin and pinterest, interestingly enough.  I think that with using the internet, care and supervision must be taken when using it with students.  There are some dangers out there that students need to be aware of and protected from.  Matthews (2007) mentions several threats and dangers to be aware of: online predators, spyware and viruses that can be imbedded in links in profiles, identity theft and stalking, cyber bullying, invasion of privacy and possible addiction to this virtual world.  Students need to be taught about safety on the internet just as they need to be taught about safety in any other aspect of school life.  That’s part of our job as educators.  The article Secure Social Networking by Gail Junion-Metz offers links to teaching about social networking safety.

References

Junion-Metz, G (2008). Secure Social Networking. School Library Journal, p.18

Matthews, B (2007). Online Social Networking.  In N. Courtney (Ed). Library 2.0 and Beyond (p. 75-89). Westport, Conn., London: Libraries Unlimited.