Let’s be interaRtive, with respect (LS-GR-58)
This lesson binds technology and art, aiming at the understanding of digital copyrights of artwork and the importance of sharing art online while respecting the creator. Secondly, students practice acquired knowledge on Creative Commons, by using properly licensed artwork from Europeana to create an “artistic” (or interaRtive) Scratch Project. Finally, the lesson can be implemented mainly to students of age 10-12, who already have a basic knowledge of scratch programming.
Lesson structure
The lesson consists of 3 parts, about 45 minutes each. The first part starts with the presentation of Europeana. It emphasizes on the Creative Commons licenses used to share artwork online. At the end of the lesson, and after a few interesting and fun activities (Creative Commons explanation video, “The respect factor” Presentation on Creative Commons, mind mapping –Images to use in mind mapping activity, Kahoot quiz) students should then be able to distinguish the different CC licenses and understand their importance.
At the second part of the lesson, students implement what they have learned, as part of a Scratch programming project. Therefore, to make a connection between art and programming, the question “Is programming an art?” is used in an online presentation titled “Forms of art and a surprise!“. Students express their opinion on the “Express Your Self” padlet. Then, a simple, half-finished Scratch project is given to the students along with simple directions. They have to finish the project and then change it, by uploading images found in Europeana. They are free to search Europeana about any kind of images they want. Nevertheless, they always have to respect the CC licenses of the artwork.
The third part of the lesson, allows students to have more time to finish their projects (if needed) and then present them to the class. The teacher concludes the lesson, by asking the key questions: How much time did you spend creating? How would you feel if someone used your creation to present as his/her own? What CC license would you choose for your work?
Conclusions
A theoretical issue, as this of sharing and using online material, was approached in an exciting way with the proposed activities. The “Express yourself” padlet proved to be very controversial but helped to achieve a very “warm” learning environment.
Overall, Europeana was used as a trigger point to understand the subject of copyrights in art and as a rich source of artwork images for the scratch project. Students were excited to search the Europeana collections. They often “dag” into it. They explored other parts of the collection (like music and geography), giving ideas for the next lessons.
The final scratch projects can be uploaded in the schools’ site to create a “Let’s InteraRt with respect” gallery, choosing a CC license for the students’ work.
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The featured image used to illustrate this article is free for commercial use and has no attribution required. It belongs to Michael Gaida from Pixabay.