GECHS Intro to Pub in the Beginning

The past two weeks have been an experience.  Our school has changed locations and encountered many obstacles.  First of all, we are the first Early College in our county, and this is the first year that we are housed on our community college's campus.  

However, there is one little problem, we don't have a building yet.  Although many people are working hard to help make this Plan B mode a little more comfortable, it is definitely not what we wanted it to be.  

Luckily, our students are doing wonderful things and are dedicated to making the best of an uncomfortable situation.  Thus, we are cataloging our progress through weekly blog posts.  Not only will each student maintain their own portfolio, but I will as well. 

In our Introduction to Publications class, we began our year discussing copyright laws, creative commons licenses, fair use, and public domain.  These areas are often tricky and confusing for everyone.  So, we worked at trying to understand these definitions by creating a Prezi. 

What CAN we use from the Internet? on Prezi

The example I have given is not a student example; those will be published on my students' blogs. However, I wanted to show how we explained our definitions of these terms this week.

Students were required to create a Prezi project that:

Create a Prezi defining fair use, copyright, creative commons, and public domain.

Give examples of each of these terms.

Give at least 3 ways that people violate copyright laws w/examples.

Give at least 3 rules to make sure people follow copyright laws.

Make sure to cite all photos or use photos marked for reuse.

We discussed how to find copyright-free photos online using the advanced search options under Google search and websites such as: FlickrCC, Clker, Veezzle, and Wylio.

Copyright and creative commons are often confusing for students; thus, I found this video to help explain these licenses to my students.

The nuances in each law showed how difficult it is to follow all of the laws. Therefore, next week we will look more in-depth at how to correctly cite a photo online and begin incorporating direct-quotations.

Furthermore, hyperlinking was a challenge this week for many students. On the other hand, many students are understanding how to do it and helping their peers do it correctly. It's great when students help one another.

Students have been diligently working at learning new things this week. My next blog post will have each student's blog available for others to read and, hopefully, comment.