Digital Story Part Three

What?
This week we were to continue working on our Digital Stories with our field partners.  We were able to start getting free use copyrighted images to use in our digital story.

So What?
It was really interesting to see exactly how many images were available for use through creative commons.  For some searches there wasn't a lot but for others there was more than was needed.  We were able to get a lot of pictures to use in our digital story without breaking any copyright laws.

Now What?
Students who know how to use this type of resource are going to have greater success in school and life.  I have never even considered copyright laws beyond plagerism before this class.  I want my students to be able to understand what copyright laws are and how to find resources that are licensed for reuse.

Digital Stories Part 2

What?
This week we discussed and learned about copyright laws and how they will effect any work that we may do on our digital stories.

So What?
It is really important to know all copyright laws because if you use something that is copyrighted for a lesson within the classroom, you can get sued.  It is also helpful to know the Fair Use law as a teacher.  It takes a lot of worry away about whether or not something can be used in the classroom.

Now What?
I have never really known or understood copyright laws before and now that I do, I will be able to teach and discuss them with my students.  They will need to know these laws because they will most likely being using technology more than my generation has used it.

Vidcast Reflection

This week we created a vidcast based on a standard from the Utah Core Curriculum. As a group we created a vidcast on the Sixth Grade Social Studies Core Curriculum. Once we had picked out the core, create our script, and picked out our images, it was easy to create the vidcast using Photo Story 3. The photos were easy to download once they were saved to my computer. Making slides in PowerPoint was easy and once I was able to figure out how to save them as a picture, it was easy to put them in Photo Story.

I really like that in Photo Story, a voice can be recorded and then immediately listened to from that slide. I also liked the fact that the time for each slide was automatically determined by how much voice was recorded. The recording was clear and easy to understand (after a few tries) and easy to do. It was easy to record, transition, order pictures, save, upload, and finally create. The steps were easy to follow and the directions easy to understand.

Once the vidcast was complete, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be to upload to Youtube. Just the press of a button and customizing it and saving. I absolutely loved that. It was also really easy to put it on my Site. Once I understood the instructions, it was easy to actually put the full video onto my Class Site and keep it there.

I really liked this assignment because it was something that I have never done before and it was really easy.