Block YouTube Ads and My CUE Presentation on Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons
Last week I attended the CUE conference in Palm Springs. I got lots of lots of great stuff from the conference, which I will share as I process it all. Right now, here's a small but powerful tip I learned that you can use RIGHT NOW if you ever watch or show your class YouTube videos. Get the free Adblock Plus extension for Chrome (also available for other platforms). It will prevent those annoying ads from running at the beginning of your videos. It also blocks banner ads and more.
I also wanted to share that I presented a session on "Inspire Creativity While Respecting Copyright with Fair Use and Creative Commons" as part of the special Saturday Digital Citizenship Summit sponsored by California School Library Association. I wish you all could have been there! Here's a link to my presentation file, but please contact me or visit me (remember - I have complimentary coffee and tea in the library lunch room :-)) for a one-on-one talk through of it. The very short version of my message was that you and your students have a lot of latitude taking advantage of fair use in the classroom, but when you publish (in a public blog, website, etc.), fair use is much more limited, and you should, instead, be taking advantage of the wealth of Creative Commons material out there. And, I urged all the attendees to "join the Commons," by licensing all their own works with Creative Commons licenses. Again, please get in touch with me for a one-to-one talk through.