This week we explored the perilous world of copyright.
We discussed how an awareness of copyright was crucial when searching for resources to use in our classrooms. One great option I already knew about is to use copyrighted material through fair dealing in Canada, which allows a certain percentage of a source to be used free of copyright for educational purposes.
Another option I have only dabbled in a bit is to find openly licensed sources called Open Educational Resources (OED). My experience with OED’s is primarily with historical documents and images. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a filter on their image webpage that allows you to search only open access images.
The National Gallery of Art allows open access to their images and data sets about art.
The Wellcome library has a collection of historical images that can be used without copyright restrictions.
Also, I learned that Archive.org has more than just free historical books; it also provides access to videos, images and websites.
What I haven’t yet been aware of is the OED’s created for lessons and lesson planning. I am drawn to the idea of OED’s because of the flexibility you have to use them free of copyright and even change or redistribute some of them. I took some time to explore the OER Commons webpage and found a variety of different teaching tools – everything from lessons/lectures to activities and assessments. I am happy to have this bookmarked for those moments I am looking for a jumping off point when making lesson plans.
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