Creative Commons (and eLearning in Creative and Performing Arts)

At the bottom is my Prezi for the recent eLearning in Creative and Performing Arts workshop. Inspired by Judy O'Connell, and obviously with the nature of Music, Visual Arts and Drama, I really wanted to address 'Creative Commons' as an opportunity and moral imperative (timely, went to a Michael Fullan seminar today). To this end I set about gathering and attributing images licensed under Creative Commons, as described in Judy's post Find Free Images Online!, to model to the teachers in attendance. As we all do I wanted some catchy image at the start, and in using Prezi I wanted something to zoom in and out of with effect. Whilst searching I came across Charis Tsevis' awesome photostream on Flickr. I found his Steve Jobs mosaics and wished to use one of them in particular as this was timely with the recent death of Jobs plus iPads are almost de rigeur at the mo'.

by tsevis

(This was incredibly easily to embed and attribute simultaneously using ImageCodr as outlined in Judy's blog).

However, I wished to use this as the background yet I noticed the Creative Commons licence was 'No Derivative Works'

i.e.

This left me in a potential quandary as I would essentially be modifying the image by adding text, images, links and YouTube on top of it within Prezi.

The solution was found at CreativeCommons.org where is stated:

Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder

That said, I contacted Charis via Flickr to seek his permission. Charis was more than happy to help out. Having already been assured that I would attribute him all he asked was that I share my work with him: win-win! This was a fantastic, collegial and collaborative exercise! Simple, effective, I've added another great person to my PLN and feel good for operating ethically and making a positive digital footprint. This is also a great exercise for students to do. A few years back some of my Physics students contacted Sneaky Sound System to use their music in a video competition - they graciously agreed. The students were not only stoked that they had permission but also that they received a letter back from one of their favourite bands!

As a postscript, Judy mentioned that I should include the great Kiwi Creative Commons video. Enjoy and enjoy the prezi below.

Creative and Performing Arts eLearning Day 2011 on Prezi