Creative Commons Remix assignment

I'm about at the half-way point in the Creative Commons Accreditation course I am doing this summer. The video above is a submission for this task:

 Create a remix in any medium (e.g., photo, video, audio) for use in a course you teach. If you aren't currently teaching a course, create a remix for use in a future offering of the CC Certification course. Your remix must meet the following criteria:

• be comprised of at least five (5) pre-existing CC licensed works,
• contain appropriate attribution for each component work (remember to think TASL!), and
• be a legal remix (that is, the licenses of all component works must be compatible).

You are welcome to include your own original work in the remix but this is not required. Be sure to create a remix and not merely a collection.

For inspiration, see Montgomery College’s Open Pedegogy Assignments (click on one of the links under Assignments on the left): https://cms.montgomerycollege.edu/mc-open/unesco-sdg/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..

Post your remix online. License it with a Creative Commons license (be careful that the license you choose is acceptable given the terms of the component works included in your remix!). 

I will use this remix as part of my new module LN306 Developing Teaching in Languages. This year will be the second iteration of this course and I found from feedback last year that my students, although they appreciated open education as "a good thing",  it wasn't very clear to them what it meant for their practice. The student group are linguists who have worked in schools abroad and/or worked as tutors and are considering entering a career in teaching when they complete their degree. I wanted the remix to demonstrate what can be achieved and why it matters to engage with open practice. 

The remix (originally created as a contribution to video in education project ViLTE)  includes sections taken from RIP A Remix Manifesto (already a remix of many other works, licenced CC BY 3.0 and my own additions including an image from Flickr which uses a licence which prevents derivatives. It exemplifies the discussion I co-wrote about the issues faced by language educators when using contemporary cultural artefacts as produsage in their courses. I have messaged the poster of this image to see if he is OK with its use in this context. I have used the image without any changes but this licence would prevent me applying a CC BY licence on the finished work so I need the permission of the owner in order to include it. If nothing is forthcoming I will have to replace it with another image. Update: the video above is a remix again as no response came from the ship image creator. (UPDATE 2: The original image creator responded to me via Flickr messaging to ask a few further questions about the purpose I wanted to put the image to. Although I had already removed the image, it was good to see that contacting an owner through the community on Flickr could work). This serves as a good reminder of the detailed level of understanding of Creative Commons licencing needed by educators in order to operate in the digital domain. Real scholarship is required to work confidently online. 

Once the remix was ready to share I uploaded it to my YouTube channel. Another problem: YouTube do not have a full selection of CC licences available, just CC BY. This is my preferred licensing option in any case and (provided the Flickr image owner gives me permission) is fine for this remix. 

I am submitting my assignment within a blog post (my blog is CC BY) as I think the context and issues for remixing are as important as completing the assignment. Here are the questions that arise during the remixing process:

• when remixing using content which explicitly allows remixing (eg CC BY) where do you attribute? In the video itself? In the description on the streaming site? Is a link within the blog post enough to provide the TASL requirements?
• If the licence on an image (for example) is too restrictive for inclusion, can this be ignored if the owner gives his/her permission for your use?
• What if the sharing site used (eg. You Tube) does not support the full suite of CC licences? How can we influence site providers to offer better display of licensing options?

Finally I decided to create a further remix of my own resources around open educational practice:

Video in language teaching

The video above is a remix which uses extracts from RIP: A remix manifesto in order to convey the importance of copyright knowledge to the teaching profession and to explain how Creative Commons licencing can support a creative, sustainable learning environment online through open educational practice. I created it as a contribution to the ViLTE project, funded by the British Council.

Further detail about the importance of creativity in the digital domain and its relevance to language teaching in particular is explained in this jointly authored article on Produsage  published in the education policy analysis archives journal. 

I was also involved in the EU project Video for All where lots of teaching resources were shared for language teachers to help them cope with the complex landscape of digital media production in their teaching. Unfortunately for us the site (hosted by a pain project manager) has been taken down at the project's end of life as the budget has run out. I find that outrageous and I am trying to bring it to the notice of the funders. The resources were created as open educational resources and  need ongoing support. The Wordpress site which was the host for our work would not be expensive but I do not have any say in budget, I am just a teacher. Does seem strange to me though that tech companies and even project managers of EU projects proclaim their interest in education but often do little to support the real needs of educators or to maintain resources we need. It bears witness to the fact that some are clearly only in it for the money. 

The key word in all of this work is the word open. Kaltura have worked hard to support open standards in video, as a practitioner I work in the open because I believe everyone should have access to education and I also believe that through an open web I can network and learn from other educators. If you get the chance to watch the whole of the RIP video on Vimeo you will see that openness (open data, open education, open source, open access, open practice etc) are key to making headway in solving big problems. Problems we should no longer assume will be solved by politicians - that ship has sailed and we can be clear that they also by and large are busy protecting their own interests. We need to ask ourselves what really matters.  I have of course kept a copy of my video, added it to my YouTube channel and Kaltura gallery and shared widely as well as passing the file to the ViLTE project to help ensure its existence as an OER beyond the confines of a project. 

Update: March 2019 - Kaltura have now closed my free open gallery - so just as well I maintain other ways to share my work!

Designing OER and becoming an Open Educational Practitioner.

This is Ufuk Balaman @ubalaman. He is a member of the Eurocall CMC sig (Computer-Mediated Communication special interest group) and we meet at Eurocall 2017 in Southampton. He invited me to work with a group of his students in Turkey who are working on learning design for language teaching. The session was planned together and ran on 20th March with me in my office in Warwick and his students in a large lecture theatre in Hacettepe University, Turkey. 

We ran it as an open session, collaborating using a range of web 2 tools and a live classroom (Bb Collaborate Ultra). Firstly I wanted to establish a shared presence and we used several tools for this:

• A shared gdoc which held the session plan and links
• A padlet board to share images 
• Hashtags to help aggregate and extend our online interactions: #ELT382

We quickly got down to the important reflection on why we need to design using digital tools through Mentimeter:

and then the deeper conversation about the risks and challenges:

This was really getting interesting! I started to talk about the Video For All project, an EU project looking at how to use video in language teaching. I shared the paper on produsage I wrote with Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou @sarahconf (then at Monash University) which showed just how tricky it is for language educators to navigate the many restrictions on use of commercial video to provide relevant, motivational content for learners. Intellectual Property in the online space is still a battleground and some decisions are still being contested through campaigns such as #fixcopyright and save the link. I shared information about Creative Commons licences and the coming accreditation available to those using them. I shared some useful tools for video creation such as Flipgrid, Lumen5, VLC player and 

There then followed some video based challenges:

• To share their thoughts on creating video for language teaching using the flipgrid here
• To create an OER and add the link to a Credly badge claim in order to get their own open badge. 

I raised the point about the pressure teaching systems are currently under and the importance of sustaining effective teaching practice manned by real, talented individuals. People who can make a difference. I shared this article on sustainability. 

Now I wait to see what they devise and share. Already the fliprid responses are encouraging. We have perhaps started a community of practice here for language education designers.

Meanwhile I hope that others are going to take a close look at the potential for Open Educational Practice for the improvement of educational opportunities everywhere. I have shared a collection of resources based through Thinglink in the graphic below which came from the Opening Up Education report by the European Commission. 

CALLing to TELL ALL !

I have been invited to meet with trainee language teachers at the Centre for Professional Education here at Warwick this week and I will be taking the WIHEA #knowhow message with me. I will be telling my personal language teaching journey and will also attempt to demystify a bunch of acronyms. This is in order to make it easier to see the paths that exist to finding suitable networks to support their work in schools. My professional journey has involved twists and turns and sharing will I hope make it clear that the most interesting journeys can arise from indulging in a little "flâneurie".

The session will demonstrate heutagogical principles, providing a set of resources for exploration covering "old school" Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), Online Intercultural Exchange (OIE), Mobile Assisted Language learning (MALL), Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) and many more! Possibly the most important acronym we will meet however will be the PLN - Professional Learning Network.  Embarking on a career in teaching will leave very little time to draw breath. Connecting with others who can support and share the journey will ensure that each individual will not find themselves alone as they make their way through the challenges that lie ahead. A vital network for me when I started that journey as a Secondary School teacher to Head of Languages many years ago was the Association for Language Learning (ALL) which still is there today. Life is more complex 30 years on and the haystack we know as the internet not always the easiest place to navigate. Together we will explore the many possibilities for creation and curation. I hope I can provide a touchstone which will help to illuminate their future path.

#blideo challenge

This inspirational video clip was shared as part of the #blideo challenge. I wasn't nominated but couldn't resist the message on this one shared here: (with thanks to Whitney Kilgore)




There's more to this video than the powerful guilt-inducing recognition of triumph over adversity that makes our "first world problems" pale into oblivion. I don't know about you but the thought of waking up in the morning to the smell of landfill would be unlikely to get me strumming my guitar. What I find the most compelling about this video is the determination to work at something even though many may say it won't be "good enough". The instruments, created from everyday paraphernalia discarded by others, are not likely to produce the timbre of a Stradivarius or suchlike. Even after hours of crafting and practise their music is unlikely to be lauded as better than that of the LSO or other great orchestral organisations. However, the vision of these ordinary folk -  who are clearly transformed into musicians - allows them to see beyond mere musical perfection. Working with what they have - a not inconsiderable amount of talent and dedication - they are able to lift the spirits of all who hear them and show how the human spirit can overcome even the most dismal of circumstances. Playing side by side, each member has to listen to the others and harmonise, keeping in time and focusing on the performance. I cannot imagine anyone stomping off because " Victor's cello is out of tune!" If there is a lesson to draw from this then for me it is to understand that our efforts, no matter how imperfect others may consider them to be, are significant and should be celebrated. We are all fighting our life battles and will face our share of challenges. Harmony, no matter how imperfect the end result of shared endeavour, is better than egotism for so many reasons. If we understand this our lives will be richer for it. 

Here's my #blideo challenge to anyone willing to take it up:
(I nominate @sensor63 @mgraffin @bobharrisonset ) 

of eggs and baskets #blimage

This #blimage challenge was posted by Steve Wheeler here. 

I know it's a bowl in the picture but with a little poetic licence it is easily connected to the proverb:

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket"


and for those learning English here's a quick test of your understanding of the meaning of this advice. 

I'm looking at this advice in the context of educational technology and change. Ubiquitous technology means that we are all becoming increasingly dependant upon tools to support learning. I would argue that this is, by and large, a good development overall as education needs to capitalise on the learning potential offered by digital tools and help inform their use so that we are able to influence the users. We do not need more passive consumers of an ever increasing wave of expensive gadgets, we need critical thinkers who understand the relative advantages and affordances offered and can make informed choices. They in turn can then influence the evolution of the markets and use their democratic power to regulate when necessary. 

One of the risks we need to ensure that users of technology understand is that of "lock-in". You can read more about it here. Some technical tools for creation that may be very enticing insist on producing file types that require ongoing commitment to a particular technology, tool or licence. This brings an inherent reduction in future proofing for your creation. At a time when the pact of technical change continues to accelerate you could very soon find that your well thought-out digital package of content is no longer usable. Remember Betamax or Sony mini disc cameras? Think of the time and money wasted and the potential for wheels being reinvented endlessly. 

Fortunately there are folk out there who are working to convince the technology industry of the importance of open formats and interoperability. Look at the work of IMS on Learning Technology Interoperability here. Also the open source media streaming company Kaltura campaigns for open video formats.  As users of technology for education we should ensure that we know how to preserve our educational resources so that they can be repurposed, accessed by anyone. That way educators' great ideas do not become obsolete overnight. Here are a few practical tips:

• if you are making something using a browser based tool (a video, screen cast, audio recording) make sure that you can download the finished file so that you have a copy. Websites disappear regularly.
• find good file conversion facilities (e.g. Format Factory, Freemake) so that you can save your file in a range of formats.
• go open - use Creative Commons licences (CC BY) on your work so that others can remix, repurpose and develop your ideas. Sharing to a wider community increases the longevity of your work but you should get acknowledged as the originator. 

Video in teaching and learning

Recently I was involved in facilitating a workshop for H.E. language educators on using video. The session took place at Southampton University and my plan was very technically demanding. I had just one hour to bring a self selecting group with varying roles and computer experience to the point where they would create and upload a video they had made through an unfamiliar online portal in order to earn an open badge. No pressure! 

Digital video can be enormously challenging, different devices using different encoding and having different playback needs. From a professional development context I felt a need to tackle video with my colleagues. My experience within our Languages@Warwick VLE research was that 100% of our teachers use video in their courses. The nature of this use was largely playback, and in my session I wanted to extend this to show that in fact we can use video in many other ways and so we decided to play on!
Here are the slides from the session.



 Future #highered students want to be able to create and contribute media to the virtual learning environment #Bett2015

— Helena Gillespie (@helenauea) January 21, 2015

We used Languages@Warwick's inbuilt video tools provided by Kaltura which include:

• screen capture
• webcam capture
• video assignment submission
• media upload

Almost all the participants in the session completed the video creation and submission and earned their #openbadge. They inspired me with their excitement. The technical headaches were managed by the system, the interface is easy to understand so the creativity can thrive. Here's one colleague discovering the joys of screen capture.