Signing your life away? March 27, 2012
Posted by ianinsheffield in Musings, Twitter, Web 2.0.Tags: registering, terms & conditions, terms of service
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cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo by Judy **: http://flickr.com/photos/judy-van-der-velden/5396290870/
Last night I fired off a tweet providing notice of the latest post in my #366Web2.0 series. As it happens it was about Flixtime, an online application providing functionality similar to that of Animoto. Shortly afterwards a colleague replied asking:
Are the films created the property of Flixtime like Animoto? Is flix ok to use for pupil photos?
Well there are two things there I guess, so in the order they appeared:
1. This is a very valid question and one we perhaps ask ourselves all too rarely as we sign up for ‘free’ online services. How many of us take the time and trouble to read through the Terms of Service and simply put a tick mark in the checkbox saying we agree to them? On this occasion since I’d been prompted, I went back and took a look. Five and half thousand words later, I still couldn’t really answer the question fully. The ones at Flixtime aren’t particularly abstruse, but they’re still largely written in legalese, a language just fine and dandy for lawyers in a courtroom, but hardly accessible for an ordinary member of the public. I suppose I can consider myself reasonably well read, so how would the ToS appear to a 13 year old or to someone with learning difficulties? Yes a company has no choice but to protect itself from possible litigation, but is it reasonable to expect that a potential user will have read and understood over five thousand words of legally-oriented terminology? Here’s a sample from Flixtime’s terms:
This Agreement shall continue in perpetuity unless terminated in accordance with this Section 13. Flixtime at any time may terminate this Agreement in its sole discretion, including, without limitation, for breach by you of any of your representations, warranties or obligations under this Agreement.
I wondered if others were similar. Here’s a few words from YouTube’s three and half thousand:
14.3 You agree that if YouTube does not exercise or enforce any legal right or remedy which is contained in the Terms (or which YouTube has the benefit of under any applicable law), this will not be taken to be a formal waiver of YouTube’s rights and that those rights or remedies will still be available to YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/t/terms
And from Prezi’s four and half thousand words (which to be fair appears somewhat less inaccessible):
When you upload User Content on or through the Service, you represent and warrant that, with respect to all User Content that you upload, transmit, publish and disseminate through the Service, (a) you have all the rights and licenses necessary to use, reproduce, publish, display publicly, perform publicly, distribute or otherwise exploit such User Content in connection with the Service (and to grant to Prezi the licenses set forth in this Agreement);
http://prezi.com/terms-of-use/
And let’s not even think about PInterest!
Anyway, in answer to the original question, this phrase from Flixtime’s terms might help:
You hereby grant Flixtime a royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license to use your Submission for the purposes of providing the services contemplated hereunder.
Which suggests to me that Flixtime is at liberty to use your stuff, but doesn’t become the owner … however I’m more than happy to be corrected if my interpretation is too loose!
The second point is perhaps a little easier to answer … possibly!
2. “Is Flixtime OK to use with pupil photos?” I’d suggest requires pretty much the same answer as “Is it OK to post pictures of pupils on the Internet?” I’d guess that most (all?) schools have a policy regarding the taking and use of images, so that should be the starting point. If the policy doesn’t specifically discuss posting images, then a re-write might be in order. As do most schools, we post heaps of images of students on our official school website; we want people to be able to see students enjoying their time with us and we feel it’s important to recognise and celebrate student achievements. But we do so following guidelines which parents are aware of and have agreed with. Are sites other than the school website covered by the same terms? Should they be, or are they different?
Me? Well I’d be inclined to play safe and try to arrange my activities so that imagery used does not require inclusion of students, if I know the output will be posted to the Web. That way, the issue never arises. Or is that being too paranoid?
Edtechcc Assignment 7: Storytime March 19, 2012
Posted by ianinsheffield in edtechcc, Musings.Tags: edtechcc, edtechcca7, story, writing
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Assignment 7 brought with it a very different challenge and one to really test my mettle:
Generate two random characters, a location and an objective using the tool below and then try writing a plausible story based on the random elements. The story may be for a book, film or videogame.
I decided straight away that the first iteration would be the one I’d go with. No second chances, so here’s the output for me:

edtechcca7
As I have very little experience of videogames,that was ruled out fairly quickly. Given the current situation in the Middle East, a film about a soldier rescuing a child (or a child rescuing a soldier?) seemed just too trite. And anyway, how do you write a film?
It was at this point I think I got carried away because I then assumed I should write a story, but now looking back, I’m not sure that was Colin’s intention. Was the task more about saying how a story, film or videogame could be created (concocted?) based on these random factors, rather than actually creating the product itself? Perhaps I should have asked, because my mind then turned to exploring storyline possibilities. Clearly I couldn’t churn out a full story in a week, but a shorter one, maybe.
I’m comfortable writing at length; two 20k dissertations are testament to that, but here’s the rub – I haven’t written a work of fiction, a true story, since O Level English almost forty years ago. I had my characters, a location and a possible plot, but then I started thinking laterally and one thing led to another and … well if you’ve the time, by all means read for yourself.
What have I learned?
- Writing fiction is much, much harder than the other forms of writing with which I am acquainted, though maybe it becomes easier with practice?
- That using prompts generated randomly in the way they were here, encourages us to take paths we might not otherwise consider. I’ve always wanted to try John Davitt’s LEG (Learning Event Generator before you jump to conclusions!) with a class. Well this assignment put me in the place of a learner … and I have to say it was tough, though rewarding.
- How easy it is to publish material online with Page-O-Rama – no account needed
- There are some things I learned which I’m not yet comfortable with sharing here. Let’s just say I found this assignment incredibly cathartic.
Naacely does it. March 11, 2012
Posted by ianinsheffield in CPD, Inspiration.Tags: #naace12, conference, CPD, naace, teachmeet
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Attended the Naace Conference for the first time today, albeit just the final day of what had been a three day conference. Have to say there was an enticingly extensive set of sessions from which to choose, so spoilt for choice, here’s what I experienced in chronological order:
“BYOD” – delivering ICT to students’ own devices reliably, securely and effectively. Given our plans for exploring the affordances of BYOD, it would have been remiss for me to miss this session. Well actually no! I neglected to spot it was a sponsored session and as such proved little more than a sales pitch for Meru Networks, but that was my fault (I’d forgotten my specs and was struggling to read the programme!)
Leon Cych (@eyebeams) provided some case studies of how social media are being used in schools and the strategies employed to enable the school to be comfortable in their use. In addition Leon introduced the Social Media for Schools service which aims to connect senior leaders across schools making use of social media and thereby enable interesting practice to be shared.
“A mobile in the classroom isn’t a distraction, it’s a teaching and learning tool.” Kevin McLaughlin (@kvnmcl) allowed us some hands on time with a variety of mobile devices as he extolled their virtues, suggesting the balance should tip in favour of potential that they offer to enhance student learning, rather than possible problems they may cause.
“Rethinking CPD – Exploring the Vital In-House PDP Model.” Peter Twining brought us up to date with the work Vital have been undertaking over the past couple of years, what factors make for good CPD and how their new model delivers that.
From there I was able to catch the tail end of the panel session discussing whether the fundamental model of school education which has been in place for decades, will still be relevant in twenty years’ time. I actually dropped in where the point was made that the formal examination system is driving much of what is done and that it has an unduly significant influence. Whilst agreeing with that general principle, Ollie Bray also observed that there are many schools succeeding in being innovative in their approach, thereby suggesting that exam culture needn’t drive all that we do. I wish I’d been there for the whole session and I guess that was part of the problem for me – an embarrassment of riches from which to choose.
The morning and conference proper closed, but we moved into the afternoon over lunch and a chat with some familiar and friendly faces, then on to TeachMeet Naace to enjoy an incredibly eclectic series of presentations:
- @theokk talking about scoop.it as a way of curating useful web content and offering invites for accounts
- @edintheclouds wanting to ‘engage the rest.’ i.e. those not at TeachMeet who perhaps don’t access PLNs.
- @lordlangley describing a collaborative Kindle project in which the devices were used to share and read student-written chapters of stories.
- @boydon1967 whizzed through how eTwinning enables teachers to collaborate across countries.
- @advisorymatters described the AdMission project and “ambient” advertising
- @grumbledook – how to plan your broadband provision using the toolkit developed by the Schools Broadband Working Group.
- @Teknoteacher explained how to fire up the minds of tomorrow’s coders through Hack to the Future.
- @milesberry asked his trainee teachers Why teach ICT? And the degree to which their findings correlated with those of dICTatEd.
- @digitalmaverick described how using ‘live’ data from the Fantasy league to made spreadsheet work more meaningful.
- @bevevans described how important it is to give SEN pupils (and any others!) choice in what they use to support their learning and using technology that is appropriate to their needs.
- @stevebunce showed us how to knit … and how similar that was to learning about computers.
- @kvnmcl exhorted us to throw out the 3 step teaching model and our lesson plans and try something new.
I learned during the morning that for CPD to be effective, it needs to be strategic, relevant, enquiry-based, sustainable, reflective, involve collaboration with peers and require findings to be shared.
I think the £50 my school spent of getting me to the conference was probably money well spent. All the morning sessions (and some of the TM presentations) were related to points in our school ICT development plans and school strategic plan. All the presentations were relevant for me; everything and anything related to ICT in school matters and informs my thinking one way or another. The morning sessions in particular were somewhat enquiry-based in that I could explore areas of interest with the presenters and indeed could extend that enquiry by discussing with my peers over coffee and lunch. And finally here I am sharing and being reflective.
What might I have changed? With hindsight I might have opted for different morning sessions in some cases and I’m sure I would have found the panel sessions challenge my thinking. As for the TeachMeet, my only criticism is one I and others have mentioned before and that’s that I’d welcome the opportunity to ask questions of the presenter immediately after their delivery. A couple of minutes extra perhaps? I know we have their contact details and can follow things up later, but sometimes things just pop into your head … and then a short while later are gone. Or perhaps that’s just my age?
Edtechcc Assignment 6: Mapping it out March 4, 2012
Posted by ianinsheffield in edtechcc.Tags: assignment, edtech, edtechcc, edtechcca6, Google maps
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Our next assignment (unfortunately missed the last one – the previous post might explain why) is:
Use Google Maps to create your own custom map that includes photographs of places.
So I thought I might take the opportunity to add a little background about where I’ve been hiding:
View Larger Map
Perhaps one of my most memorable bike rides … so far!
What have I learned?
As I was already familiar with creating Google maps and adding supplementary information, there wasn’t much new ground turned here. However, what the task did remind me was that despite how easy (relatively speaking) it is to get information onto a map in this way, a mechanism for automating the system still appears to remain elusive. So for example whilst it’s possible on GPS enabled phones to geo-tag images (or sounds using Audioboo for example), getting them all onto a map under a single theme seems to be still awaiting an app. I wonder why this is? John seems to have been beavering away at various solutions, but it clearly isn’t as straightforward as it might first appear. In my naive little mind, the workflow ought to be something like:
- Create a blank Googlemap as a placeholder.
- Go on the field trip or walk.
- Take photos, record Audioboos or videos.
- Upload them to the named Googlemap, having the map grow (perhaps for viewers elsewhere) in real time.
How hard can it be?!



