What I Do When a Website Steals My Work

I've been writing this blog for fifteen years this year. For most of those years I have been battling with people about copyright. Some people think that because it says "Free Technology for Teachers" that they can take anything they want and republish it wherever they want. Other people have a misunderstanding of what fair use means. And some people simply don't care about copyright at all. That's often the case with super scuzzy and slimy websites that use automated scripts to take all of my blog posts and republish them. 

Unfortunately, over the last fifteen years I've become rather adept at finding out where websites that steal my work are hosted and how to file copyright infringement notices with those web hosting providers. I spent a good deal of time doing that last week (it puts me in foul mood) so I decided to try to make something useful with my time and recorded this video about how to file a DMCA takedown request with a web host. In this case the web host was Name Cheap. The process is largely the same regardless of the web hosting provider. 

Hopefully, you never have to go through the annoyance and frustration of dealing with people stealing your work. But if you do, I hope my video is helpful to you. 

p.s. I can't wait to see this blog post get stolen by one of the aforementioned spammy, slimy, scuzzy websites like Daily Dose, Trident of CNC, World New 5, and Star Kids Learn.

Geo Artwork - A Fun Game About Geography and Art

If you and or your students enjoy online geography games like GeoGuessr, you need to try Geo Artwork from Google Arts & Culture. 

Geo Artwork is a game in which you view an image of an artwork and then have to guess where in the world that artwork belongs. There are categories for visual arts, sculpture, textiles, books, and places. The places category is based on Google Street View imagery of places associated with or featuring an art work. 

Geo Artwork is played by looking at the image and then placing a pin on a map to guess at the answer. Once the pin is placed you're shown how close or far you were from the correct answer. After viewing the accuracy of your guess you can click through to learn more about the artwork. 

Watch my short video to learn how to play Geo Artwork. 

How Do Fireworks Work? - Another Question from my Daughters

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July and that means there will be fireworks displays in towns all over the United States. My little town is having small display that we'll actually be able to see from our backyard. And this year my kids are old enough to stay up to see the fireworks display. Of course, that also means they're old enough to ask "how do fireworks work?" 

If your kids are also curious about how fireworks work, take a look at the following videos from NPR's SkunkBear, National Geographic, and Reactions to learn about the science of fireworks.

If you're viewing this in RSS or email, you might need to click on the blog post title to see the videos.

Tomatoes, Templates, and Fireworks - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where sun is rising and it's going to be a nice summer day to start a long weekend. I'll be mowing before setting up a water bounce house for my kids to play in. The bounce house is one of the best "pandemic purchases" we made in the spring of 2020. My kids love it and I do too. I hope that you have something fun to do this weekend!

This week I wrapped up my Teaching History With Technology course. I'm not hosting any more courses until the fall, but will be hosting a series of individual webinars over the next six weeks. You can learn more about those webinars here. 

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. Flipgrid is Dead!
2. Tools for Asynchronously Collecting Stories
3. Ten Good Templates for Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts Activities
4. Transforming the Traditional Learning Environment with BookWidgets
5. 25 Ideas for Whiteboard Videos
6. Enroll in Tract’s Free Virtual Summer Creator Camp
7. Short Lessons About American Independence Day

July and August Webinars!
Starting this week I'm hosting a series of seven Practical Ed Tech webinars. You can register for one or all seven of them. Read about them here or follow the links below to register.

• How to Create and Sell Your Own Digital Products
• Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom
• Classroom Podcasting 101
• DIY App Creation for the Rest of Us
• Search Strategies Students Need to Know
• To Geography & Beyond With Google Earth & Maps
• Get Organized With Google Classroom, Calendar, and Keep

Other Places to Follow Me:

• The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
• My YouTube channel has more than 41,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of educational technology tools. 
• I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for fifteen years. 
• The Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page features new and old posts from this blog throughout the week. 
• If you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Instagram or Strava.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include Icons Daily and Daily Dose. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.

A Good Place to Find Free Images and Music for Classroom Projects

In my guide to finding media for classroom projects I provide a list and description of my favorite resources. The next time I update that guide I'll include Openverse. 

Openverse is the replacement for the old CreativeCommons.org search tool. The Creative Commons organization has handed-off oversight of Creative Commons search to WordPress. WordPress now operates Creative Commos search as Openverse.

Openverse can be used to find Creative Commons-licensed and public domain pictures and audio files. The best aspect of Openverse is that it provides a clear explanation of how you can and can't use a particular image or audio file. It also provides preformatted text to use when citing the source of an image or audio file. 

Watch this video to learn how to use Openverse to find free images and music for classroom projects.