Create the space for dialogue
It is often difficult to explain what Creative Commons licensing is to students and teachers – this short film does a pretty good job of presenting the facts.
I do think there is a need for more high quality resources to help teach licensing of digital content and especially resources to communicate what it all means to young student. What do you think?
It has probably been around for a while but I have just spotted the Google Image Search within a Google Document. But more significant is that the images are automatically filtered according to a commercial re-use license. Whatever you find there will be acceptable to use.
You can see how the image search box within Google Docs works below and I have highlighted the small note explaining the license.
This is of course just one small part of a process of understanding attribution and content usage for students but could be an important little tool for teachers and pupils. Once an image is selected it shows you the website that the image has come from.
Google explain a little more about this change from the Learn More link you can see in the images, saying:
When using the Google Image Search feature in Google Docs, your results will be filtered to include images labeled with a license that allows you to copy the image for commercial purposes and modify it in ways specified in the license. Only select images that you have confirmed you can use legally in your intended context, including with appropriate attribution if necessary.
Once you Select the image it is inserted into the document without an attached link or attribution. This is still a step students will have to do manually which is actually a good thing.
Unfortunately the image search and subsequent filtering shown in this post is only in Documents at the moment and not in Presentations which would be really useful. No doubt things will become more consistent soon.
In the hope of widening my understanding of the perception of formative assessment, or assessment for learning as some like to call it, and also the broad nature of the challenges we face in the classroom, I have started this collaborative document.
People from all over the world have outlined what they believe are the biggest challenges to implementing and sustaining systems or habits of formative assessment. I will be looking for trends within the issues raised and hope to write a post soon about some of the common themes identified within it.
Please consider adding your own contribution to the document by editing it here and leave a comment of anything you are beginning to notice once you have read through the ideas so far.
Many early users of the latest platform for social networking have begun sharing their ideas about the potential for supporting learning. There is much to be anticipated – I always believed that the community element was missing from the use of Google Apps for Education.
Perhaps Google+ could provide the platform for schools to help positively teach social networking and tie in the use of the different apps more seamlessly together.
Take a look at what educators think so far and feel free to share your own ideas with the Google doc, or leave them in the comments here.
Since leaving the classroom I have had the opportunity to read more widely then I have done at any point over the last 10 years. The work I am doing now takes me down paths including design thinking, business, social media and of course education. It is the variety of new domains of information and perspectives that I have found so engaging.
Not only have I been able to work with and immerse myself in ideas from outside of education but I have begun to see ways learning can benefit from them.
I have seen Twitter grow and grow into a huge global tool for educators. However those of us using it are still, for the most part, in the minority. However difficult it is to admit it, teachers using any digital tool to connect with fellow teachers are still in the minority. The prospect of a new social tool, such as Google+, was hugely exciting to see. It was great to start in a fresh space with the customary intuitive interface we have come to expect from Google products. So all rosy? Well not quite.
My main concern is a key difference between Twitter and Google+. When Twitter users connect with each other they basically ask themselves is this person interesting or in my line of work? Yes = follow. We all have our different methods but I suspect that covers most people. When I look at those people who have followed me on Twitter recently I can see very quickly (on a single page which I can just scroll up and down) what they do from their profile and just click follow if a) they interest me or b) they are in education. That’s it.
Importantly with Twitter there are no ways to target your messages to groups within those who follow you, it is an “all in” sort of method. My updates go to designers, teachers, classes, professors, executives, artists, whoever makes up your network. Do I think this adds value to the replies and perspectives you gain? Absolutely.
With Google+ Circles are we creating silos of information? By saying to users, “do you only want to share with those that find it 100% relevant?”, are we in fact encouraging a narrowing of perspectives? What about those that might find it 60% relevant? Or whose current project makes it highly relevant to them, but perhaps not at other times. Of course we have the choice to make things public in Google+ and the choice to have different circles, but Twitter’s default broadcast state is always set to public. An open style of sharing is not a choice.
Perhaps targeted sharing, in the style of a Google+ post, will just give me what I always get. The isolation of ideas, fuzzy-warm acceptance but nothing to challenge them. Alternate expertise has no way of peaking in or seeping into the reaction.
Of course this idea of cross-fertilising ideas from different domains has a strong history with, for example, Innovation Time Off or 20% time from Google or bootlegging product development at 3M that led to the early concept of the Post-It note.
I think I will probably not use the Circles feature of Google+ because I think that I will be limiting the reactions I get and actively avoiding the opportunity to connect with other professionals who could add a valuable perspective beyond education. I still prefer a model that is more open by default and puts the responsibility of information filtering on the consumer, not the producer of the information.
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Pic Back of Beyond by violscraper