Macbeth Unfriends Duncan

Above is the invitational video to my recent presentation at the National Council of Teachers of English Convention, "Macbeth Unfriends Duncan: Students Creating an Online Social Network for the 'Scottish Play.'"

If you are interested in the idea of creating a parody social network online for Macbeth, any of Shakespeare's plays, or any literary work that has a cast of inter-twining characters, then you may like to check out the online version of my 20-minute presentation here.  

At this link, you'll find resources and materials to replicate the project with your students.

The Magic of Saving PowerPoints as JPEGs for Collage

One of the greatest challenges with the incorporation of digital technology into the 21st century classroom is how much time it can take to do so. The exploratory, experimental, and collaborative nature or simply the learning curve students need to climb to use tech in an English language arts classroom can be a real threat to delivery and mastery of content. That's why I'm always looking for ways that tech can either save time, deepen learning, or at least come out even with traditional ways of teaching and learning.

One of my best successes in this regard is using PowerPoint for collage.  Especially the 2007 (2008 for Mac) version, PowerPoint can be "a poor man's PhotoShop." The application's editing ribbon boasts oodles of options to reformat text, shapes, and images.  With transparency, reflection, rotation, size, and color you can combine images in ways to create meaningful and poignant ways.  It takes students a class period to play once they find their images, which brings me to the time-saving aspect of PowerPoint for collage.

For such project I ask the students for one slide to be saved not as a PowerPoint, but as a JPEG. (Yes, you can do that!--just click the format option when you Save As, and the application will let you make every slide a separate image.)  To garner copyright-friendly images, they visit Creative Commons Search or Compfight and mark "non-commercial use."  Since both sites offer search engines, they find what they are looking for with method rather than madness.  Instead of searching blindly through magazines for an image that might do, they consider how what they are looking for might be tagged. My 12th graders found the one, two, or three images they needed in the first class period.  A few students did some further searching as homework to find just what they needed.

The particular project for which I used PowerPoint collage last month asked students to identify an instance of magical realism in Laura Esquivel's novel Like Water for Chocolate.  The fantastical, archetypal, and mythical aspects of magical realism called for images that were more likely "created" by collage and combination of images, rather than a singular one simply "found." Students were assigned to quote the line, and represent the instance with image (collage encouraged but not required), and of course, credit the source(s) of images.  Students spent three class periods in total on the project before submitting their JPEGs to me via our class wiki. (A color printer would work for a classroom display, or you could collect them on a flashdrive, but that might take another period.)

Once I had each JPEG file, I spent an evening casting them into one single PowerPoint and then posting to Slideshare. The next day students could view their individual work amid that of their peers to see the combined effect of the many instances of magical realism in the novel. You can see the results here.

Glad that the project showed students a new way to use a familiar technology, I accomplished both some digital as well as traditional literacy lessons in a timely manner. That's real magic!

A Media Literacy Lesson that Matters

As we teach 21st Century literacies, teaching copyright, copyleft, public domain, and other copyright friendly designations like those from Creative Commons often is met by disbelief if not resistance by the my so-called "digital native" students. (They may be native speakers but their digital literacy sometimes has as many problems as their English grammar!)

In November I noted the Center for Social Media recently release of the "Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education" which will help teachers and students in the United States navigate copyright in the digital age. Now there's an interesting case at hand.

While working on video projects, my students point to all of the music and image that is being used on YouTube, while I point to the same as copyright infringement.

"But I bought the album, myself" students argues when I question if one got permission to lay down a commerical track, and "that gives you the privilege of playing it for yourself, not re-posting it in a video on the Web" is my response.

"How do you know if a photo is copyrighted if it doesn't say?" another student asks. "Assume it's 'all rights reserved," I remind. "Ask for permission," I coax. "Whenever I've asked for a photo to use in a non-commerical project I've received a "yes." A collective harrumph, says the digital native as he tromps back to Creative Commnons/Flickr.

Having done lessons on propaganda and advertising in the past, I know sometimes it's difficult to find examples from popular culture that students can understand and care about. Enter the Shepard Fairey /Associated Press /Mannie Garcia squabble over the famous and "Hope" poster of Barack Obama's likeness.


The Associated Press has claimed rights over a photo taken by free lance photographer Mannie Garcia and sought damages from Fairey who found inspiration in the photo for the iconic poster. Fairey has peremptorily sued AP citing "Fair Use" protects his work.



The upcoming ruling on this case may affect creative media use of intellectual property in ways important to digital natives (and immigrants) who use artistic content: how we download, remix and upload media in public spaces including the Internet.

National Public Radio's Fresh Air with Terry Gross presents a synopsis of all sides with fascinating interviews with Shepard and Garcia, a couple of official statements by AP, and commentary by Law Professor Greg Lastowka. All presented in nuggets of audio that can used easily to illuminate the key points and prompt discussion with students about media, artist expression, and copyright. The contemporary hipness and recognizable nature of the Hope poster, the clarity with which Shepard, who started as a skater-street-artist, talks of appropriating images for his graphics, and the implications hanging in the balance for our students and 21st Century media use combine to make this case perfect for students to consider. Thanks to Ms. Gross for her thoughtful, logical line of questions that layout a story's subtleties and nuances.

Obviously this story stands on its own for a lesson on media literacy. Also, it would work in with any study of propaganda--think Animal Farm or 1984. Fairey makes insightful comments on propaganda, the arts, and consumerism throughout. You'll find more of his iconographic street-graphic art at the Obey Giant website, which is a topic of discussion that brings up Orwell as an influence of Fairey's politic.



Image credit: Photo by Mannie Garcia for the Associated Press and Graphic by Shepard Fairey.

Fair Use Guide for a Digital Age

The Center for Social Media recently released "Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education" which will help teachers and students in the United States navigate copyright in the digital age. At the focus is the U.S. Copyright Office's limit on copyright known as "fair use."

This code comes timely. As the "Code" reports, educators have often erred to liberal and conservative definitions, some believing anything used in the classroom was fair game while others believed they'd find police officers ready with handcuffs at their classroom doors if they so much as showed transparency of a magazine ad to their students and thus they "hyper-comply" to imagined rules.

What is are the limits on copyright, so called "fair use"? Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law states "the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered 'fair', such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. It also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

"The distinction between 'fair use' and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission."

Still, in the digital age which includes internet publishing of information and the natural inclination to encourage students to produce works for global audiences, the copyright office' definition of "fair use" falls short of clearly delineating what is acceptable and legal.

The "Code" document has been reviewed by five attorneys and endorsed by National Association for Media Literacy Education, Action Coalition for Media Education, National Council of Teachers of English, Visual Communication Studies Division of the International Communication Association, and Media Education Foundation.

The process was coordinated by Profs. Renee Hobbs (Media Education Lab, Temple University), Peter Jaszi (ProMedia, American Universitgram on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Washington College of Law, American University) and Patricia Aufderheide (Center for Social Media).

As teachers use the motivation of world-wide audiences for their students' voices by having them use and remix copyrighted material and produce their own copyrighted works (in America copyright is extent at moment of creation) via internet media, it become incumbent that we inform and guide them. The "Code" notes:

"In particular, educators should explore with students the distinction between material that should be licensed, materialthat is in the public domain or otherwise openly available, and copyrighted material that is subject to fair use. The ethical obligation to provide proper attribution alsoshould be examined. And students should be encouraged to understand how their distribution of a work raises other ethical
and social issues, including the privacy of the subjects involved in the media
production."

The "Code" is a sure step for teachers to prepare for such lessons and conversations with their students as consumers and producers of digital media. Get your copy now and school thyself.