A Library Lesson On Copyright Using Authorfy!

This week in Library Lessons I’m working with Year 7 and 8 students to teach them about copyright and responsible researching.

To do this, I’m using the amazing web site Authorfy which I highly recommend to any librarian or teacher.

To start, I show them a brief video on copyright from Common Sense Education, which can be viewed by clicking on the image below.

I then show them three ways that students can find copyright free images. These sites are Stockvault, Pixabay and through Google Images usage right tool which allows you to search for copyright free images.

We then move on to Authorfy to watch Abi Elphinstone discuss her great new novel Rumblestar.

Within Authorfy, Abi provides a creative writing challenge, this provided the perfect opportunity to use the copyright free image sites I had earlier discussed.

Students were asked to create a short story that related to Rumblestar but I asked them to use copyright free images to tell the majority of it. They only needed to write a few lines of description for each one. At the end of the lesson I had a few students share their images and stories with the rest of the group.

It was a simple yet fun task that explained the importance of copyright to the students. My goal is that they will use these sites for their future homework assignments. The key for me is to repeatedly promote these sites and ensure students get into the good habit of following copyright guidelines as they get older.