Wordle Goes Offline, Seeks Legal Advice

Update: Wordle is back online!

I just learned from Larry Ferlazzo that Wordle has gone offline indefinitely. A visit to Wordle.net reveals this message from the site's owner:
I am seeking pro bono legal advice, to evaluate a trademark claim against my use of the word "Wordle" for this web site. If you're an intellectual property lawyer, with expertise in trademark law, and you wish to offer professional advice on this matter, please contact me.

Until Wordle returns, you might want to try Word It Out which I reviewed earlier this month.

On a related note, Remix America has been down for nearly a month. My emails to them regarding the status of the service have been unanswered.

A 7th Easy Way for Students to Create Videos

Last week I ran a post titled Six Easy Ways for Students to Create Videos Online. I don't know how I did it, but I totally forgot to include one of my favorite services, Remix America.

Remix America is a free service that allows you to create your own documentary videos. Using the video editing technology developed by Kaltura, users can grab video clips, add images, add soundtracks, and mix them together. The editing process is made easy by the drag and drop interface. Drag and drop the elements you want included in your video, arrange the sequence and Remix America does the rest. You can use the media hosted on Remix America to create your video or use media that you already have saved on your computer to create your video. Remix America is intended for making videos about US History, but it can also be used for making other documentary videos.

Remix the News on Link TV

Through a post on Larry Ferlazzo's excellent blog (if you haven't subscribed to it, you should) I learned about Link TV's video editing tool that allows you to create your own mix of news stories in one video. Link TV's video editing tool is called Know the News.

Using Know the News students can grab news clips from Link TV's library of news and mix them together to create a unique news show. Link TV's news library contains segments from major news outlets around the world. The process of creating a news video is fairly straight-forward. Watch and select video clips to place on a timeline, organize the clips through a drag and drop feature, then add text narrations using the video text editor. After previewing the video it can be published on the Know the News network. To see examples of academic uses of the Know the News video editor, visit the Know the News wiki.

Videos published on the Know the News network can be rated by viewers. The rating system asks viewers to rate videos on fairness, accuracy, presentation, and trustworthiness. The image below shows the rating scale that appears below each video in the Know the News network.









Applications for Education
Know the News provides teachers with a good tool for teaching lessons about media bias, accuracy in news reporting, and global perspectives of an event.
The terms of service for Link TV's Know the News video editor require users to be at least thirteen years old. Therefore, this probably a tool best reserved for high school and college students.

A related resource that may be of interest to you is Remix America on which students can create their own US History documentary.

Update: the original link I gave to Larry Ferlazzo's blog was incorrect. It has been corrected. My sincerest apologies Larry.