Creative Classroom Online - Tech for Learning

Kathy Schrock's Tech Quest

As a teacher, you should become familiar with the fair-use guidelines for incorporating text, images, and sounds in multimedia productions (see Resources, right). Post a simplified version of these guidelines near the computer for student reference. For example, part of the fair-use guidelines states, "no more than five images by an artist or photographer may be reproduced or otherwise incorporated as part of an educational multimedia project." This has ramifications, for example, if a student plans to use several images by the same artist in a report. These guidelines may change in the future (for example, you may be required to pay a licensing fee for using an image in a report), so be sure to keep up with current policies.

Students should carefully examine each site and source for permission to use the information and images. Many sites state whether items may be used for educational purposes or provide contact information to request permission. Students should e-mail the site's creators, describing how they intend to use the information and requesting permission with a statement such as, "I would like to use the photograph of the capital building from your home page in my multimedia slide show. If I don't hear back from you in two weeks, I will assume permission has been granted to use the picture. If I hear back from you after that time with a request to remove the picture, I will do so immediately."

Students need to cite Internet material in their reports or slide shows. Ask your library media specialist to create a bibliographic citation sheet that may be used schoolwide. (See Resources, right, to access the Modern Language Association and American Psycho-logical Association formats for electronic sources.)

Kathy Schrock, a technology coordinator, created Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators at http://discoveryschool.com/schrockguide/.

TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS
Students use computers as productivity tools when they prepare publications and produce other creative works, such as their state slide shows. This can all be done on classroom computers or in a computer lab, but it's helpful if you have portable keyboards, such as Alphasmarts^TM or Dreamwriters^TM. Students can take these keyboards to the library to take notes, write outlines, edit their reports, or work on the textual part of their presentations while they are in the classroom. They can then use multimedia computers in the classroom as true production stations to format text and add graphics and sounds. They can also use the classroom computer to make spreadsheets of their state's average temperature or create sound files of their state's song or motto.

Resources
http://www.iste.org/inhouse/nets/cnets/students/index.html
Access the National Educational Technology Standards for students, and sample projects.

http://www.umuc.edu/library/copy.html
Learn about copyright and fair use in the classroom.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_docelectric.html
Link to the APA and MLA bibliographic citation formats.

MEETING THE STANDARDS
While this Tech Quest addresses the first three National Educational Technology Standards for Students, it also addresses one of the technology standards for teachers. Standard II, Planning and Designing Learning Environments and Experiences, includes, "teachers will design and teach technology-enriched learning activities that connect content standards with student technology standards and meet the diverse needs of students." For a complete list of the National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Teachers (PT3), visit http://www.iste.org/inhouse/nets/cnets/teachers/index.html