Taking the Mystery out of Copyright - from Library of Congress

Taking the Mystery out of Copyright is a site from the US Library of Congress that uses animations to teach about copyrights and copyright laws. It's fun and educational and easy to understand.

The Library of Congress also has a lot of other great resources for educators.

Copyright Advisory Network

The Copyright Advisory Network is a great resource when you need help with copyright issues.

The site has articles, copyright tools, advice, and more to help you deal with copyright issues and sort through how to deal with different items in a scholarly setting.

Copyright issues and Fair use are often misunderstood by teachers and students and this site can help explain things in an easy to understand way.

For more copyright resources:

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/05/copyright-for-educators.html

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/10/copyright-friendly-resource.html

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/06/copyright-issues.html

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/05/public-domain-images.html

Copyright Friendly Resource

Copyright Friendly is a great wiki site that has links to tons of copyright friendly images and sound for use in projects, web pages, and blogs.

The site is easy to navigate and the listings tell you what each site contains. For most of them, you do not have to cite them for educational purposes, but you should at least give credit to them. Many sites have copyright notices on them, so you should read the terms of use of the images.

For more information on the Creative Commons Licenses that most sites use these days, visit there SITE.

Here are some more posts on copyrights for teachers:

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/05/copyright-for-educators.html

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/06/copyright-issues.html

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/05/public-domain-images.html

Copyright Issues

Copyright issues in education are very confusing. Copyright laws are almost impossible to understand and education has different rules for many things.

Teaching Copyright is a great resource for teachers to use in their classroom. The site has information for teachers to understand educational copyright laws and rules, as well as lesson plans to use with your students.

Students need to understand that there are copyright rules and laws and that they need to abide by them. Many students think that if it is on the internet, they can use it. They can get away with alot of this in K-12 because teachers don't have the time or resources to check everything the students use, but many colleges have these resources and students can get in big trouble if they have a copyright violation in their work.

I found Teaching Copyright to be a great resource and very easy to use. It has lesson plans, handouts, resources, and links for teachers. Every teacher should work with their students and help them understand copyright rules.

Public Domain Images

Many students, and teachers, don't realize that you can't just use any image from the internet. You need to sight your source, and in some cases, you can't use the image at all.

To avoid copyright issues and Creative Commons License issues, use Public Domain photos.

Making Teachers Nerdy has a great post on this topic.  It has a list of sites where you can find public domain photos and sounds. I encourage all teachers to read this article and share these sites with their students. They should also talk to their students about copyright issues. In K-12 the students may get away with copyright violations, but the consequences are very real and very severe once they get to college or a job.

Photos8 is a great site on her list that I have seen mentioned elsewhere and I have used. It has great quality photos and a large selection to choose from.

Copyright for Educators

Free technology for Teachers has a great post on Copyright for Educators with a video that explains it really well.

This is something all teachers should watch and then share some of it with their students. Too many students, and teachers, don't understand copyright issues and are violating copyright laws.

Intel also has a great resource. You can find a copy of the presentation here on my site.