This year is Google’s tenth anniversary and as part of their celebrations they have created a Google search that is so 2001…
In other words they are using their 2001 search database, and virtually everytime you will need to use the Internet Archive to see how the web looked back then.
It’s quite fun to use and see the sort of results that you got back then compared to today.
Disclaimer: ALL information containing in my post is for informational purposes only and should never be construed as legal advice. For proper legal advice you should consult a lawyer.
Imagine the scenario if you can, you are a Media Studies teacher. You wish to use some movie trailers in a classroom session, so that the learners can analyse the content and structure of the trailers and compare the features and similarities between each one.
Now you could use a computer suite and each learner could access the relevant movie site and view the trailer online. However this doesn’t really help as the video plays once and sometimes you want to see part of the trailer again and again. Now if only the learners could download the trailer, or even better could the teacher download the trailers and make them available to all the learners via a local network server, so enabling fast and easy access.
Well technically this is possible, however is it legal?
There are many tools available online which allow you to download videos from sites such as YouTube (usually through a Firefox extension or similar). They basically “scrape” the code for the video link from the website and then download the video file, providing you with a Flash based FLV file, some tools will convert this on the fly into an AVI or WMV if required.
However this article makes for interesting reading on the legality of doing this.The website in question (which is quite a respected tech blog) had given instructions on how to use video downloading tools to download streaming video from a site such as YouTube.
From the article YouTube states quite clearly that:
Currently, YouTube is a streaming-only service. We do not permit users to download the videos we host on our site. We believe our Terms of Use are clear on this point, but in light of the confusion which came to our attention today we are considering revisions to our Terms of Use to avoid any further confusion. It is important to many of our users who have uploaded and licensed content to YouTube that their content is authorized for streaming-only.
If a site streams a video to you, generally you don’t have the right to download that video as they are only making the video available as a stream.
Media-Convert.com which I have mentioned before, use to do this via it’s web based video conversion service, enter the YouTube URL and before you could say “is this legal” you would have a video in the format of your choice. They were soon stopped from doing this.
So downloading a streamed Flash based video is not an option, what about Quicktime based trailers from the Apple website?
For personal use, I can use Quicktime Pro on a Mac (and on Windows as well). What Quicktime Pro allows you to do is to save a Quicktime video to your hard drive. Once the trailer has loaded onto my computer in the browser I can save a copy to my hard disk for later viewing. I can even download the 1080p HD versions which look very nice even if they don’t fit on my computer screen as it’s too BIG.
Quicktime Pro is not the free video viewer but the paid for upgrade, which is about £12 per license for educational users (it’s £20 for “normal” individuals). There are other things you can do with it as well, I use it for making video and audio recordings on my Mac for example. I have also used it to trim audio recordings and some of the export functionality does make life easier…
Note the term “personal use”, most film trailers online are only available for personal use only. I would be surprised by any movie site which would allow a teacher to download movies for use in the classroom.
Apple in their terms of use for example make it quite clear what you can and can not do with any trailer you download from their website:
…no Content may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, publicly displayed, encoded, translated, transmitted or distributed in any way (including “mirroring”) to any other computer, server, Web site or other medium for publication or distribution or for any commercial enterprise, without Apple’s express prior written consent.
This would mean downloading and distributing it to students in a classroom situation would be viewed as illegal unless you had the permission of the movie trailer copyright owner.
Similar guidance is available on most other movie sites I checked. For example on Warner Brothers website is says:
You may access and display Material and all other content displayed on this Site for non-commercial, personal, entertainment use on a single computer only. The Material and all other content on this Site may not otherwise be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, distributed or used in any way unless specifically authorized by WB Online.
You could write and ask for authorisation and permission, sometimes this may be given, more often than not it won’t.
Legally students could download their own individual copy for their own analysis. However this may not always be possible, especially if you have network congestion or a slow internet connection.
So is there a solution, well yes, if you go for an alternative solution which is forgot online and go back to broadcasting.
Now an easier way would be to digitally record the trailers from the TV and use digital copies of them. You won’t even need an ERA licence, as the ERA does not cover adverts from the TV. Though if the trailers are part of say a film programme then these programmes probably are covered by the ERA licensing scheme and appropriate action should be taken accordingly.
However if it is an advert, under the Copyright Act you have a statutory right (therefore can not be taken away from you) to show recordings of TV broadcasts for educational purposes.
From the ERA website.
Are there broadcasts I can’t record under the ERA Licence?
Yes, only broadcast material owned or represented by ERA Members is licensed through the ERA Scheme for off-air recording. This means that some contents of certain broadcasts and material included in them, such as advertisements, are not covered by the Licence because ERA Members do not own or control the rights in them.
However, if you record these broadcasts for non-commercial educational purposes, your recordings in the ways relevant to the ERA Licence will not infringe copyright, unless a certified Section 35 licence applies. This is because Section 35 (1) states that where works are not covered by a certified scheme, then educational establishments may reproduce and communicate them electronically on-site without infringing copyright. You will need to adequately acknowledge, i.e. label, any broadcast recordings you make under Section 35 (1).
Also worth look at the ERA restrictions as well.
I have made recording just like this using an EyeTV device on a Mac (I have also used a Windows Media Centre as well, but never again…) I just set the video to record for a few hours (takes GB of space mind you) and then go through the adverts until I find the one I want (or one that’s similar). For movie trailers I would recommend recording the adverts during film programes on ITV or Channel 4, or during films.
If you do have an ERA licence then recording film programmes will help, as some of these will have trailers in them.
My Elgato EyeTV device captures from Freeview so I get a really good quality digital video file, it’s roughly the same quality as DVD. The editing tools make life really easy well to trim and edit the video you need. There are Windows TV Capture devices, some of them are just small USB sticks which slot into any USB port.
Though there are legal barriers that are getting in the way of the learning here, there are also solutions as well.
Photo source.
One of the things we seem to do in the world of e-learning is categorise ourselves and our learners into groups.
One of the key pieces of work on this was from Marc Prensky on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Now I was never really very happy about this idea that if you were old (like me, well I am not that old, but it’s sometime now since I first sent e-mail, 1987 I think it was) you were only a digital immigrant and young people were digital natives.
However when I looked at the students at my college, I couldn’t see this age divide at all. Yes it was true many of the students were very happy and capable with handing digital devices and playing games, but not all.
We had some digital natives that fitted the description, but we also had a fair few that didn’t. There were students who didn’t and in some cases couldn’t use the internet and the web, not because they hadn’t been immersed in a digital world since birth, but because they didn’t want to. Also there are issues with many students in relation to the digital divide; they may play video games, but don’t have access to the web.
I also couldn’t see how myself fitted into this, I may not fit the digital native sterotype, but I knew (well others told me) that I was very much immersed into a digtial world and used the internet in ways in which they couldn’t fathom or understand. Was I merely a digital immigrant?
From my experiences on the web I met many digital natives and quite a few of them were over forty!
So it was quite refreshing to read on Dave White’s blog a post about residents or visitors to the online world. Like a few others, notably Andy Powell and Josie Fraser, I quite like this concept.
There are some who live in an online world and see the internet as part of their everyday life. This I can identify with. It was for example very strange at ALT-C 2008 to meet Kev Hickey, someone I knew very well from Jaiku. Over the last year we had discussed many e-learning issues and shared experiences of applications, but also I had seen his photographs from Blackpool, I knew the names of his dogs, I felt he was someone I would call a friend.
So it was very weird to actually meet him in person at ALT-C. He is just one of many people I know from online in just my e-learning sphere, better wave to Lisa at this point…
I can quite easily see how that I can be a digtial resident, living part of my life in an online world. I do use the internet a lot and do use a range of online services and applications to make my life easier, to communicate, to share, to drink coffee and to have a bit of fun as well.
Working with many staff in the college (and quite a few students as well) I often find that they are merely visitors, using the online world when it suits them and meets their needs.
I’m reminded of a member of staff at a training session who was quite vocal about being a “technophobe” and didn’t want to use technology in her teaching (note the word teaching and not learning). So basically I ignored her, there were staff there who were interested. As we moved around the room, another member of staff started talking about how she used learning technologies, how she used the VLE and then she remarked on how she used MSN chat to converse with her students at a time and place to suit them. At this point the “technophobe” spoke up and said, “oh I use MSN chat all the time to talk to my daughter in Australia”. For me she is the perfect example of a visitor to the online world, using the technologies when it suits her needs and ignoring the potential that other tools, services and applications could offer her and importantly her learners.
Having said that, on Josie’s Blog there was a comment from Mike Amos-Simpson which I think is worth repeating.
I think that perhaps when its considered as a ‘world’ it maybe makes too many people feel like aliens!
I agree with Mike that calling it a world could alienate people, but then again so does using the terms like digital native and digital immigrant.
So are you a visitor or a resident? Or do you prefer native and immigrant?
Introduced to a funky little Twitter tool today called Tweet 3D.
So entered my Twitter username and, well this video says it all really!
Engadget reports on the growing increase in mobile phone ownership across the world.
…the United Nations communications chief has boldly predicted that half of planet Earth’s population will be hooked on some sort of mobile phone before 2009 dawns.
Though how many of those subscriptions will include unlimited data I suspect will be very small and I suspect an even smaller number of those phone users will be using them for learning.
Learning in a digital age – are we prepared?
4-7th November 2008
Register now for the third international JISC online conference. This important conference for practitioners and managers embedding e-learning into their practice focuses on the tension between the tried and tested and the wholly innovative. e-Learning may now have established a foothold in learning and teaching, but are the demands of delivering the curriculum restricting its innovative potential? How can we plan to ensure the best possible e-enhancement of learning in the future?
Keynote speakers are Professor Gilly Salmon, University of Leicester, on transforming curriculum design through technology and Professor Rose Luckin, London Knowledge Lab, on the relationship between learners, their tutors and institutions. The closing keynote is being delivered by John Davitt, writer, broadcaster and education technology specialist.
The conference has two themes each running over two days and will also include guided tours in Second Life facilitated by the JISC Emerge team. During the reading weeks, the two weeks prior to the conference, there will be orientation sessions for delegates new to Second Life. We are pleased to have James Clay, mobile-learning enthusiast, as the conference blogger. Some sessions will make use of the Elluminate real-time web conferencing system.
Finally, the e-Learning Showcase will provide a shop window on innovative work from JISC e-Learning projects and services and social events include a virtual fashion show.
Details of the programme are available at www.jisc.ac.uk/elpconference08.
Delegates from further and higher education and from overseas are welcome to take part. The conference takes place in an asynchronous virtual environment which can be accessed wherever and whenever is convenient to you. Book now. The fee is £50 per delegate
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I do the Twitter.
One of the things about Twitter is the interconnections between different people on Twitter. Tweetwheel allows you to show who follows who via a very nice graphical wheel.
View my “proper” interactive Tweetwheel here. It was interesting for me to find out that though I follow a fair few people, they rarely follow the same people I follow. There is some interconnectivity, but not as much as I thought.
Apple has announced an interesting development for US Universities, the iPhone Developer University Program.
The iPhone Developer University Program is a free program designed for higher education institutions looking to introduce curriculum for developing iPhone or iPod touch applications. The University Program provides a wealth of development resources, sophisticated tools for testing and debugging, and the ability to share applications within the same development team. Institutions can also submit applications for distribution in the App Store.
Alas this is not a program(me) to develop learning applications for the iPhone, but merely a programme to teach students how to develop applications.
Though getting a large amount of criticism from various sources (including this list), the Becta Software for Educational Institutions Framework (SEIF) was never about banning software, but about getting a framework in place to allow schools to “purchase” software avoiding many of the problems and pitfalls that may arise from a school going it alone.
The problem that many found with the SEIF was that it favoured proprietary software vendors and discriminated against open source.
The Sirius Corporation revealed yesterday that it was among 12 software suppliers to have been awarded places on the £80m Software for Educational Institutions Framework (SEIF) agreement.
This means that schools that wish to use linux, Open Office, Moodle, etc… now have a framework which allows them to use the software more easily.
Sirius press release.
Are any colleges out there looking at open source alternatives beyond Moodle?