Open Digital Media Resources for Project-Based Learning with Technology

Open licenses such as creative commons have led to the proliferation of sites that offer free and open digital media resources. These websites offer music, audio, video, clip art, and pictures under open licenses that allow you to edit remix and mash up media files for project-based learning experiences. See a quick and dirty guide to copyright on my blog here. Media files on these websites can be downloaded and incorporated into educational projects. Using open-licensed media in project-based learning can save students and teachers a lot of time and difficulty. This post is an excerpt from my book, Educational Technology for Teachers. In a master's project, we used open digital media resources of the Nixon Kennedy debates to create a video about blogs and wikis. This video shows that students can use these resources to show their learning in many different and creative ways. Here is a list of my favorite websites that offer open digital media resources for project-based learning:

MULTIPLE MEDIA FORMATS
• Creative Commons Search - Search for open-licensed media
• Wikimedia Commons - Open photographs, videos and sounds
• The Internet Archive - Open photographs, videos and sounds
• The Library of Congress - Public domain media

PHOTOGRAPHS AND CLIPART
• WP Clipart - Public domain clip art for education
• Open Clipart - Public domain clip art
• Morguefile - Free and open photographs
• Pixabay - Public domain photographs and clip art

VIDEO
• YouTube - A vast collection of videos, some of which are open licensed
• The Open Video Project - A repository of digitized videos, some of which are open licensed
• Bottled Video - A collection of free stock video clips

AUDIO
• Freesound - Open-licensed sound effects
• CC Mixter - Open-licensed music
• Musopen - Classical public domain music

When students and teachers download a media file from one of these sites, they must pay close attention to the license under which the media file is released and be sure to meet license requirements. Usually this means attributing the original author by mentioning them in a credits or citations section. Another way to attribute the original author could be to link online to the location of the original media file or to the profile page for the author.

EdTech for SD Teachers Podcast - Episode 23: Teachers Share their Favorite Digital Media Apps and Websites

This week, South Dakota Teachers share their favorite websites and apps that relate to digital media. These websites and apps allow teachers to create media projects.  The teachers also share some examples of how they use these websites and apps for learning activities. Here are the websites and apps discussed in this podcast:

Garage Band - iPad app

iMovie - iPad app

Weebly

Wix

Google Sites

PicMonkey

Digital Media Camp: Teaching Media Literacy and Digital Media Skills

Information, media and technology skills are vital for success in the 21^st century (Dani, Wan, & Henning, 2010; Partnership for 21st century skills, n.d.). Information literacy, media literacy and computer literacy comprise these important skills. Media literacy and digital media skills have been connected with civic engagement and knowledge of community issues (Hobbs, 2013; Hobbs, Donnelly, Friesem, & Moen, 2013). Yet, media literacy educational opportunities are not as abundant as they should be in an educational system that places great value on basic skills as measured on standardized tests (Rogow, 2011).

In a suburban area of South Dakota, I have developed and implemented a yearly Digital media camp to support media literacy and to help enhance digital media skills among students. See dmcamp.tumblr.com for more information and sample projects. This camp is the first of its kind in this area of the state, and it has been designed to supplement a school district in which students do not gain sufficient knowledge and skills in these areas as part of their regular schooling. The goals of the camp – now in its third year – include helping students to increase their digital media skills, create digital media projects, and increase their media literacy.

Camp participants are ages 9-13, and the camp is held in the end of May each year after school is out. During this camp, participants design and develop a variety of digital media projects. Participants also learn the purposes of media and the process of media creation for each format. At the end of Digital Media Camp, participants hold a showcase in which they show all of the projects they created during the camp. These projects include a dramatic audio recording featuring sound effects, a documentary video recording produced and directed by participants, a dramatic video recording featuring plot structure, and additional audio and video projects.

On the last day of camp, students create a final project as part of this camp experience that represents the culmination of their learning about digital media. The equipment that students use at Digital Media Camp is purposefully kept simple so that students can transfer their learning and continue to create video and audio projects after the camp is over. 

We'll be setting the dates for the 2015 digital media camp soon. Let me know if you are interested in being a part of it!

ReferencesDani, D., Wan, G., & Henning, J. E. (2010). A Case for Media Literacy in the Context of Socioscientific Issues. New Horizons in Education, 58(3), 85–98.Hobbs, R. (2013). Improvization and Strategic Risk-Taking in Informal Learning with Digital Media Literacy. Learning, Media and Technology, 38(2), 182–197.Hobbs, R., Donnelly, K., Friesem, J., & Moen, M. (2013). Learning to Engage: How Positive Attitudes about the News, Media Literacy, and Video Production Contribute to Adolescent Civic Engagement. Educational Media International, 50(4), 231–246.Partnership for 21st century skills. (n.d.). Framework for 21st Century Learning. Retrieved December 4, 2013, from http://www.p21.org/Rogow, F. (2011). Ask, Don’t Tell: Pedagogy for Media Literacy Education in the Next Decade. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 3(1), 16–22.