This is one of the many photographs I have uploaded to Flickr.
One of the features of Flickr is that (combined with something like WordPress) it is very easy to “blog” your photographs to your blog.
I also like the fact that Flickr creates an RSS feed of your photographs and these can be embedded into a VLE or something like Jaiku.
I sometimes get asked what materials can I upload to a VLE, are there any materials I can’t upload due to copyright.
Basically what I advise is do not upload any copyrighted material unless you have the rights, a licence or permission from the copyright holder to do so.
Sometimes you will need to check multiple permissions for a single resource as the text, images and diagrams may have different rights holders.
Staffordshire University have a (obviously HE centric) guide on copyright and VLEs which gives a more detailed explanation of the issue.
There is also the JISC Collections activity which I wrote for them which also covers some VLE issues amongst others.
Copyright is a complex issue and there are a lot of myths about copyright and education. If you are not sure about something, check don’t assume it will be okay.
Unlike other social networking websites (read MySpace and Bebo) the college does not block Facebook (nor does it block Virb either).
I signed up or Facebook but to be honest found it quite a challenge to interact with, Virb was a lot easier, though I am hearing a lot about Facebook at the moment specifically about Facebook applications.
Not sure if I will stick it out with Facebook, can’t really see the purpose of Facebook from an e-learning perspective, though from a social networking perspective I am sure it works really well.
Hello and welcome to James Clay’s e-learning (and ILT) blog.
When I was director of the WCC I use to blog on a regular basis on e-learning issues, since then I have moved to what is now Gloucestershire College as their ILT & Learning Gateway Manager.
I have been meaning to restart my e-learning blog for sometime, but didn’t have the webspace or the software to do it. After much thought I have decided to try out WordPress and see how it goes.
James Clay
