Tandem MOOC english

 

 

To download the script (pdf), please click here

Below are the key-elements of the video:

When you find material, you need to understand whether and how to use it in the classroom. Information you find online is not always reliable. In fact, anyone can upload content on the Internet, so some information may be of poor quality. 

Consequently, it is important to use critical thinking to evaluate and choose your materials. To choose your materials, the best thing to do is to verify the source. How do you verify the source? Let us imagine that you are researching the possibility that classical music makes children smarter. Surely, you will find a lot of information online on this very topic. Let's see how to select the most reliable one.

• Be careful where you find this information: the website of a scientific journal will certainly be more reliable than the website of a newspaper. 
• Assess the competence of the author: a paediatrician with a specialisation in neurology will be more reliable than a simple journalist.
• Be careful about the author's objectives: does he/she simply want to spread information or does he/she have other objectives such as selling a product or becoming famous? This is very important because the information could be influenced by ulterior motives.
• Check the date of publication: a more recent source may be more accurate and contain recent findings.

All original online content (articles, images, music, etc.) is protected by copyright, or authors' rights. It means that the original author of the content owns that content and is the only one who has the right to share and use it. Therefore, you cannot download and redistribute this content online or offline without his or her permission. 

In practice, if you use content you find online, you have to put it in inverted commas ('....') and cite the author. For example, if you quote a book, you must list the author's first and last name, the year the book was published, the title of the book, the place and the publisher. If you are paraphrasing someone else's content, you do not have to put it in inverted commas, but you still have to cite the source. 

For images, it is a bit different because you can only use images with free usage rights. For example, images from pixabay or unsplash.com are copyright-free. 

An exception to the copyright rule are materials protected by Creative Commons Licences. How do you find a Creative Commons image?

Go to Flickr.com. Start by typing in the keyword. Click on the drop-down menu and select Creative Commons images. This way you see all the images that you can use if you provide a backlink to the original image. This means that the author has explicitly granted some or all of the ownership rights to that content. 

Creative Commons Licences can be found at the bottom of the website, in the sidebar or on the information or contact page. Once you find the logo, you need to click and read the document to find out exactly what you can do with the image.

Does this mean that you cannot use copyrighted content when teaching? No! In fact, you can use copyrighted content in the classroom, but remember that you cannot distribute it and always cite your sources.

 

Do you want to download these key elements in pdf, click here