Assignment+11a

 Explore: Creative Commons [] and follow links on the Copyright Free Resources Page to find examples of copyright free and public domain materials (E.g. Flickr, Teachertap, iStockphoto) Post two examples of very useful sites on this page with your comments. Put your name by your post.

Sandra: I looked at several of the links and was quite disappointed with the lack of Jewish material. One would think that there would be more around, considering all the copyrighted material that is online!

Curriki ([]) has a Basic Judaism course, and I also found some Jewish material on The Open University ([|http://openlearn.open.ac.uk])

Both Flickr and iStockphoto are excellent resources for images and videos, although I also use google images as a initial search and then check out the images that are copyright free.

On Slideshare I found a good slide show about Creative Commons and copyright issues which can be used with students who are ready to understand the issues involved: []

Giving our students access to copyright free material is very important as it stresses out to them when you CAN use material and when you CANNOT. Most students do not know what is appropriate and what is not, and with the virtual world being the place where they go to for resources, it is important that they learn appropriate etiquette.

Ruth: This is a great resource for those in Jewish education with smartboards (we don't have them). The first page walks you through lessons beginning with thinking about a lesson to incorporating Bloom's taxonomy complete with guides to mapping. In a funded world. we'd all have access to smartboards. The site Scribd offers downloadable presentations, books, text material, etc. which represents the works of anyone who decided to upload material. Most of the links I clicked on had costs for downloading however (Google Books offers Free e-book downloads of some classic titles). The "Jewish" link to Scribd is [|here]. I also found an interesting site that offers downloadable sounds called [|freesound] that has sounds of amazing things. Students can add real sounds to videos, powerpoints, etc. to make a presentations exciting and either realistic or surrealistic.

Eliezer: I chose to examine the image resources on the copyright free resources page.

Of the many links, only Flickr and Morguefile proved to be useful. The other links had either, limited images, or required a fee to download. One would think that royalty free images implies free use. It doesn’t. Royalty free means that one does not have to pay for each subsequent use. But, many of the royalty free sites charged for the initial image download. Paying for images might be ok for a business that is eventually going to pull in revenue from the image use. However, an educator cannot afford to pay even 2 or 3 dollars an image. Morguefile was the best site of the group. This site had a good selection of images. The search engine was good and the files were workable. Flickr was also workable. But, many of the images were from amateur personal albums. Morgue’s images were much more professional. The other sites listed were not helpful. They either had a small selection of images or required fees to download the pictures. Stick to Morguefile. Picfindr was not that useful. The photos, while royalty free, required a fee to download. Freebyte.com was also not that useful. It required a variety of clicks to work one’s way through the menu to find the appropriate images. The images when found, were very basic. The quality would be similar to something found software from the 90’s.

Morguefile – excellent variety of high quality images. One can use them for whatever purpose as long as one does not claim ownership of the image and try to resell it. Great high quality images. Free Photo – not a useful site. Only 12 images came up for chicken. Unlike morgue file that had page after page. Istockphoto has unique high quality images. But, it takes “credits” i.e. it costs to download and use the images. Dreamstime images here also require a fee to use.

Scott - My first site I wanted to check out was Morguefile due to the excitement on this wiki so far. This site really does offer a great product. When searching for images on flikr or even google image you never know what quality you may find. With morguefile you can be assured that the quality of the photograph will be good enough for any presentation. The images for searches like Passover or Jewish are not that great, but the images for something like Israel turn up a great deal of nice photos representing some beautiful shots in Israel. http://jewishsmartboards.wikispaces.com/ is an interesting wiki even when simply considering it's funders. To see the AVI CHAI Foundation putting funds into a wiki is an interesting foresight into the future of education that we are seeing in this class. AVI CHAI is a large foundation that puts a great deal of money and effort into Jewish learning and camping. To see them break into the world of wiki's truly gives the idea of wikis greater traction in the education world. The website is laid out very well, giving a great deal of applications for those with smartboards. Most importantly, the site gives information in a way that any tech-newbie would understand. While this is a great idea that is laid out well, the lessons assume a great deal of judaic and hebrew knowledge by the learners. If the website could accommodate the less judaic learner they could be a one-stop shop for any Jewish teacher with a smartboard.

Debbie- I was interested in checking out some of the media clip sites. I looked at [|www.masternewmedia.org] which had a few interesting sub-sites: I spent a fair amount of time on [|www.footage.net] because it had a fascinating group of old WWII reels. [|www.opensourcecinema.org] wasn't working when I checked it out--not sure if they are revising the site. [|www.vimeo.com] had a real variety of clips. I found myself watching some psychiatric interview clips which were used in teaching psychopathology. Our developmental psych teacher here at Gratz reviews a lot of more formal films for demonstration, so it got me wondering if some of the more amateur productions might not be less expensive ways to help students visualize developmental stages.

Jeff I too was disappointed by the lack of Jewish material available at Creative Commons sites. [|Shutterstock] is another resource for CC pictures. It does cost money, but often for my purposes I am happy with a picture with a watermark across it. I found a lot of nice Israel snapshots, some of which I could find useful to illustrate a lesson or Power Point.

I am very fond of the Open Course Ware started by MIT, including one interesting course titled "Interactive and Non-linear Narrative Theory and Practice." From the catalog: "This course explores the properties of non-linear, multi-linear, and interactive forms of narratives as they have evolved from print to digital media. Works covered in this course range from the Talmud, classics of non-linear novels, experimental literature, early sound and film experiments to recent multi-linear and interactive films and games."

And although they are not part of the CC, Daat (Hebrew) and Chinuch.org and the Lookstein Center have a tremendous amount of freely available material for Jewish Studies teachers.

Lisa I've heard a lot about flikr.com so that's where I went first. I typed in Israel and watched the slideshow of photos of Israel's history for about 10 minutes. It would be wonderful having this slideshow playing on a screen during our school's Yom HaAtzmaut celebration. There were also excellent photos available pertaining to the ritual objects used on various Jewish holidays. Another site I went to, I'm embarrassed to say, is soundbible.com. Not sure what I was thinking - I believe I inverted the two words and thought I could get sounds related to what we might be studying that the students could put as background to their work. It is, instead, an extensive list of sound effects, which someday I might use anyway! And I do love Chinuch.org and Lookstein.org, too!