Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

 I am old enough to remember the excitement of not just the TV on the cart, but the reel projector on the cart day at school.  One of those gems that we watched was the film version of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce.  I'm sure you've heard of the story and you may even remember watching that film version in school.  

Now, finding a good copy of this film is a bit harder (or rather, finding a YouTube of it that doesn't get taken down for copyright infringement is a bit harder, to be more accurate).  However, I have the solution for you - Amazon Prime.

The film version we all know and love is a French version made in 1963 that later aired on The Twilight Zone in 1964 with the audio redubbed.  I am not sure if the "I Want to Be a Living Man" song was in the original or made for the Twilight Zone episode.  

Whatever the case, Amazon Prime has The Twilight Zone available for streaming and you will find our story as season 5 episode 23.  There is one small snag - you can't stream it in your classroom.

I know that under the Fair Use Act we can watch any film as long as it is relevant to the content and lesson; however, this only applies to watching it.  If you have an Amazon Prime account, one of the details you agreed to is that you can only stream for personal, non-commercial purposes and while showing it to a bunch of children is certainly non-commercial, it does not qualify as personal.  

But wait!  There is an easy fix.  Since this is on Amazon Prime, you can purchase one episode of a TV series.  You can get a copy of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" for either $1.99 or $2.99 depending on the quality of video you want and then you are not streaming it - you are watching a purchased copy.

Now, I am not a lawyer, and it is hard to find information about a streaming platform that does not talk specifically about streaming, but I do know that under Fair Use Act you can show a movie that you own or rent and I have seen nothing that excludes digital format from that.  All that said, you may wish to discuss this with your school librarian if you are worried about the stickier points.  

Now, if only I can get them to air "The Lottery"...

Learn more at: https://marymount.libguides.com/c.php?g=957363&p=6911055

Simple, but Helpful Tip

 I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far!  We'll be back in the swing of things before anyone knows it!

Here's one little handy-dandy tip - when you are signing up for online programs that are not tied into your school's funding (like Kahoot, Common Lit, Socrative, Quizizz, etc.), do not use your school email address.  Why?  Because hopefully you will find your teaching career to be long and fulfilling.  As such, it is likely that you will need to switch schools at sometime in your career from any variety of reasons.  If you have it under your school email address, you lose everything or have to scramble to switch accounts over before you lose email service (they are usually pretty quick to turn that sucker off) and even if you do so, think about how many services you have!