Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Copyright Clearance Center and EL Education Make it Easy for Schools to License Trade Book Content During Pandemic

Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), a leader in advancing copyright, accelerating knowledge, and powering innovation, in coordination with participating publishers, is providing US schools and districts that have adopted the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum the ability to easily obtain permission to use grade level texts for distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many schools across the country have moved to hybrid or distance learning. Since closing their doors in the spring, students lost access to schoolbooks. Those that have purchased classroom copies of the supporting texts for the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum have asked for a way to provide teachers and students with permission to reuse those texts. Without an easy licensing service, it would be inefficient for school districts to purchase, distribute and recover potentially thousands of additional copies of the required works for those students without access to e-book editions. As a consequence, schools are seeking permission to photocopy or scan the texts in the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum to permit easy access and distribution.

CCC, EL Education and participating publishers have combined permissions into a single-source license covering the reuse of all participating texts as part of EL Education’s K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. Participating publishers include Boyds Mills & Kane, a division of Astra Publishing House; Holiday House Publishing, Inc.; Kids Can Press; Prestwick House, Inc. and more.…Read More

Picture this! 4 steps to understanding copyright issues

Schools are using digital content more than ever before. They are relying on digital resources, open educational resources, and teacher-created content to support curricular goals. As more of our content is pushed out to students through online platforms, our responsibility to consider copyright as part of our planning process, no matter what the process looks like, grows.

When we are in the trenches of testing windows, grading, school safety, and all of our other daily responsibilities, copyright might not feel like the number-one priority. But it has to become a priority.

It is important that we as educators invest time and effort into becoming comfortable applying copyright—not only to keep ourselves free of the consequences of not doing so, but also so that we can pass on these skills to our students. This is a responsibility that we all share, no matter the grade level or content area.…Read More

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Finding copyright-friendly photos for the Google Images generation

Searching and citing usable images is easy once students learn the basics

images-ccssTeaching students to respect the intellectual property of others is important in this digital “cut and paste” world we live in. One great project to share with students that can better help them understand how and when they may use images created by others is the Creative Commons project.

Creative Commons is designed to span the gap between full copyright and the public domain. The Creative Commons project provides content creators the opportunity to state ahead of time how their images may (or may not) be used.

When an image creator posts an image online and applies a Creative Commons license to it, there are four conditions/restrictions they can apply to the image:…Read More

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3 must-knows about teachers and copyright

Report answers the question ‘Who owns teacher-created digital content?’

copyright-teachers-briefSchools and districts are increasingly urging teachers to use digital content for instruction, with many teachers taking innovative steps by creating their own digital content. But when it comes to copyright, ownership, and sharing, that’s where it gets tricky.

“In the era of digital publishing, which includes teacher-created, -refined, and –remixed materials, an important question has arisen: who owns this digital content?” asks a policy brief from the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), titled “Clarifying ownership of teacher-created digital content empowers educators to personalize education, address individual student needs.”

According to the brief, the confusion over who owns teacher-created content is due to three main reasons: 1) Lack of clarification in terms, 2) vague wording in The Copyright Act of 1976, and 3) Lack of specifications outlined by state and district leaders (including the state educational agency, state board of education, legislature, and/or governor).…Read More

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Feds still troubled by Google Books deal

Federal officials think Google's revised book-scanning settlement still gives the company too much power.
Federal officials think Google's revised book-scanning settlement still gives the company too much power.

The U.S. Justice Department still thinks a proposal to give Google the digital rights to millions of hard-to-find books threatens to stifle competition and undermine copyright laws, despite revisions aimed at easing those concerns.

The opinion filed Feb. 4 in New York federal court is a significant setback in Google’s effort to win approval of a 15-month-old legal settlement that would put the internet search leader in charge of a vast electronic library and store.

A diverse mix of Google rivals, consumer watchdogs, academic experts, literary agents, state governments, and even foreign governments already have urged U.S. District Judge Denny Chin to reject the agreement.…Read More

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Wrongful ISP piracy suspension raises questions

If internet service providers are going to become copyright police, then a recent case involving a Colorado woman suggests there’s a need for better safeguards to prevent people from being wrongly accused and cut off from the web, CNET reports. All Cathi Paradiso knew for sure, as she learned that her web access was being shut off, was that she was losing her struggle to stay calm. To Paradiso, the customer-service representative from Qwest Communications could have been speaking Slovenian for all the sense it made. Her internet service was suspended… Hollywood studios accused her of copyright violations… she illegally downloaded 18 films and TV shows…”Zombieland,” “Harry Potter,” “South Park…” South Park? What would a 53-year-old grandmother want with “South Park,” she thought to herself? Paradiso, a technical recruiter who works out of her home, would eventually be cleared. Last week, Qwest had a technician investigate—after CNET began making inquiries—and he discovered that her network had been compromised. So Paradiso is off the hook, but she wants to know what would have happened had she not gone to the media. There was no independent third party to hear her complaint. There was no one to advocate for her. “This goes to show that there’s a problem with due process in these kinds of situations,” said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “If you’re going to kick somebody off the internet, there’s a lot of procedures that need to be put in place to protect the innocent. It doesn’t look like those were in place here.”

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