Making classroom videos for learning resources

There have been a few mentions lately about making classroom videos for learning resources on Wikiversity, and as companion media for textbooks on wikibooks (see talk page). This resource is about how to make these videos, upload them, and integrate them into materials on Wikimedia's wikis.

Permissions, and how to document them

British schools I know now get parents to sign a coverall permission as their school enters education. It can be that some students have prents who object but they know who they are and will volunteer that they should not be photographed. In the uk there is a lot a paranoia about pictures but this approach enables photography to take place. 86.145.218.207 20:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

For minors

As far as I know, here in the U.S., the image or voice of a minor may not be used in any way without the express permission of that minor's legal guardian. I taught Mass Communications for a time at my high school in Washington, D.C. (McKinley Technology). Part of my lesson planning involved students creating audio and video for class projects. Since the idea was to create audio or video podcasts and to make those available on our McKinley Tech Web page, I created a "permission form" for parents/guardians of minors to sign. In that form, I made it clear that the intent was to allow my students to learn how to edit audio and video.

This permission form expressly said that the images and voices might be posted on the McKinley Tech Web page. That implies the viewability of all images by the entire Internet community.

When my students went out on a video/audio taping assignment, they took some of these forms with them. If any of my students recorded the voice or image of another student, the subject of the taping was handed a form to take home and return signed. Legal experts may point out that this appears to be an after-the-fact grant of permission. Strictly speaking, that's probably true.

Our school also has a working relationship with a DC-government-owned TV station. None of our in-class projects advanced to the level of broadcast-quality material so we never explored the need to get a separate, signed permission form to broadcast the images of students.

There is probably a legal distinction between granting permission to Webcast an image or voice and granting permission to broadcast an image or voice. At the moment, I don't know how to define that distinction.