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Finding Copyright Friendly Images

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

A Tale of Two Fish, a set by yiibu on Flickr.

Adding images to your projects helps to communicate your ideas. Create some of your own from an array of tools -- draw and scan, take photos, use online tools or a Paint program (like Sketchfu) to make your own original designs for images and diagrams. Sometimes you'll need to borrow things from other creators too. This can be tricky because of copyright restrictions. Any creative work you find online is fully copyrighted unless stated otherwise.

Analyzing the 
Tale of Two Fish photo story has helped 4th and 5th graders understand the difference between strict copyright protection with 'All rights reserved,' and 'Some rights reserved' Creative Commons licenses. CC licenses have developed as a part of the worldwide trend of sharing creative work online, and have made it possible for us to find and use images without making copyright violations.

What search tools lead to copyright friendly images?
Nettrekker Image Search
World Book Advanced Image Search
(Citations already included with each image)
In Flickr, select 'Search Creative Commons Content'

Under Usage Rights, select 'Labeled for Reuse'
& Under SafeSearch, select 'Strict Filtering'
Nettrekker and World Book Online are excellent image search options. Pics4Learning is another copyright friendly image library with permission granted to teachers and students for use. Citations are included with each image too. FlickrCC and Google Images-Advanced Search are powerful image search engines, but students must narrow searches with strict filtering and select 'Images Labeled for Reuse.'

How should you cite images?

Of course, it is important to give credit to the original creators of the images you use. Most licenses include a requirement of 'Attribution,' which means you must credit and link back to the original author. 4th and 5th graders are finding that an online citation maker like Bibme or OSLIS Citation Maker can help to build correct source citations. These tools provide templates for all kinds of source types, including images, books, and websites. Simply fill in the required source information, and the citation is created and formatted for you. Then you can copy and paste the citation information as you build your list of sources.

Numerous  links to additional copyright-friendly image search tools are located on the ROE Library site. 

Further Reading: 

Questions

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

'Once you have learned how to ask relevant and appropriate questions, you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning
what you want or need to know.'

'If we hope to see inventive thought infused with critical judgment, questions and questioning must become a priority of schooling and must gain recognition as a supremely important technology.'
-- Questioning as Technology by Jamie Mackenzie

Questions can move students beyond the surface-level of any kind of learning. Kids are full of curiosity, but they can learn to develop questions that lead them to dig down and reach for deeper thinking and knowledge building. Questions not only jump-start this process, but also fuel motivation to learn too. Essential to knowing how to learn in the 21st century is this ability!

Students can learn to distinguish between different kinds of questions. What makes some questions easier and some harder to answer? Sorting and creating categories for questions is helpful to get kids thinking this way. Which of our questions are open-ended and which are closed?  Which will be quick  to answer and which will be more challenging? Why? What other categories of questions can we make? QAR (question-answer-relationship) is yet another way to analyze questions and strategically search for answers.

2nd graders collaboratively brainstormed questions about the cycle of
the moon as part of their Unit of Inquiry about cycles in the natural world
for 'How the World Works.' Then they analyzed, categorized, and
color-coded them as thick or thin questions
. 3rd graders did the same
as part 
of their study of complex societies on the topic of the Inca
of South America 
for 'Where We Are in Time & Place.'

 (Question Cube template)




'Thick and thin'  is one way for students to categorize questions. 'Thick' questions demand deep thinking and making connections among new ideas. 'Thin' questions are important though too! Kids can't ask or answer those high-level questions without exploring some basic knowledge and comprehension questions about  Form and Function first. These lead to those 'thick' high-level questions later. 

As kids become aware of patterns and categories of questions, they begin to understand the kinds of questions they can ask in order to accomplish the thinking they need to do. 
As a result, they become better equipped to seek answers too. As researchers--students seek specific information that allows them to explore a particular topic. All information they find filters through their questions. Without the anchor of questions to guide them, they quickly become lost and overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of information.

Interesting Reading:
The Question Mark: A an educational journal devoted to questions, questioning, strategic reading and quality teachingBeyond Cut & Paste: Engage Students with Questions of Import (fno.org)The Power of Questions: Angela MaiersCuriosity: M. Ross on Classroom Habitudes by Angela Maiers

    IIM: A Framework for K-5 Research

    Sunday, April 3, 2011



    Our school was honored to host two groups of visitors during the past week. We presented our instructional programs to a delegation of school principals from the
     Haidian District of Beijing, China

    Later in the week, we shared our implementation of IIM (Independent Investigation Method) with a large group of colleagues from several Houston I.S.D. schools. Embedded above are the 
    presentation slides detailing IIM research.


    Read this page in Chinese, Spanish, or another language of choice by selecting from the Google Translate options on the top left corner!