Do as I say... not as I do...

Image by carlos pereyra from Pixabay 

I'm pretty good at teaching students to always search for media licensed for reuse. I'm pretty good about teaching them about Creative Commons and intellectual property and copyright and citing sources. Whenever they've worked on a project, I've made sure they included references to any websites and images they used. I've never been great at exactly how they should cite their sources, I'll admit. I've usually been okay with just a link below the image, or a page listing all of the links. I've generally only worked with elementary students on these types of projects so my excuse is that I'm having them do age appropriate citing. When I'm demonstrating to students, I do make a point to cite my sources and tell them they must do the same. I'm a good model... when I'm demonstrating to students.

If I'm going to be honest, though, I generally teach teachers, not students, and when I model for them, I grab whatever image I find. It's usually a quick lesson to show them, for example, how to use ChatterPix and make an image talk, or mark up an image in another app. Or maybe for a background for green screen. And I'm only use that image right then and there and not sharing it out and not keeping it and I can make a great case for Fair Use, BUT, if I'm going to be honest here, I don't do a good job remind them to cite their sources, to use OER.

So while I'm mostly good, I'm not good enough. So here's my pledge to be better. Every image, every time.