Copy That Copycat?

As we discussed in class, some copyright laws are very subjective and some are very clear. What law that we learned about in class surprised you the most? Why? Do you have any specific examples of teachers who have violated copyright law (don't use names)? Is it your responsibility as a teacher to teach students respect for copyright? Do you think teachers should have to pay attention to copyright? Will you model copyright ethics when you are a teacher? How?

I think the fact that all of the laws are so grey surprised me the most. The fact that I could resell cds for a profit yet couldn’t burn a cd from iTunes was also very shocking. This way if I buy a physical cd I can let my friend buy it off my for a dollar he can upload it and then I can buy it back with the same dollar. That is legal but burning a cd is not. It is the same thing yet the laws are different.

Teachers that I have had and teachers that I have worked with have all violated the copyright laws. At home teachers have photocopied whole workbooks for students because they have been discontinued or we can’t afford to buy a whole set. I believe that it is our job as teachers to show our students how to live a proper lifestyle and that includes following all of the laws.

I think that the rules for teachers should be slightly different. Using materials for educational purposes can make the situation muddled. For example if the teacher blows up a single copy of a book to make the text larger for a student with impaired vision- that should be allowed. Or to have the teacher write problems on the board for students to answer that should be okay as well. But the teachers should not be allowed to photocopy and distribute anything they want.

I plan to do my best to model the correct copyright ethics as a teacher. I won’t lie and say I will be perfect I’m sure that I will slip up because I don’t know the entire law or because it is something that my students truly need. I will show this by not photocopying dittos especially when they have the not intended for copy logo on them (this has happened to me before). I will instead hand write my own ditto sheets by using the copyrighted ons as an example. I will also be sure to cover copyright in my English unit, and social science unit (patents and inventors).

Smartboard, more like rightboard

Interactive whiteboards are becoming more common in the classrooms. How do you feel they enhance teaching and learning? Was the technology difficult for you to learn to use? What are the pros and cons to having one installed in your classroom? Think of some lesson plans you wrote in the past. How would you incorporate the Smartboard when teaching that content?

Whiteboards are becoming a key tool in the classroom I enjoy working with them very much. They definitely help keep the students focused on the lesson. The whiteboards also allow the students to be much more active and participate in the lesson. The students become more involved and take an active role in their learning- this can help build the students understanding and confidence when it comes to a new concept. The whiteboards are very easy to learn because they can work with existing programs such as powerpoint or youtube. The whiteboard itself is basically a dry erase board but the marker never runs out of ink. The whiteboard is usually pretty easy to work, the only problem might be that you need to either download the smart notebook software, or your internet isn’t working.

Having a whiteboard in the class is great because it allows the students to become involved, it allows the students to expand their ideas on the lesson, it allows the students to try new things, and it helps to build real world connections. But at the same time the lessons taught without the smartboard will need to be comparable to the smartboard lessons which could mean extra planning for the teacher. There also runs the risk of having the smartboard broken in the classroom. Some teachers also only use the smartboard as a game/distraction which may be a downfall to some lessons.

The previous lesson/content areas would be fun to include the smartboard in. For art the students could match/identify artists to paintings or do actual drawing on the board. For music the students could compose and then play the music back. They could also help create their own music video. For math the students could learn fractions by dividing and building wholes. For history there are maps and matching activities. For language arts there is dice to help build words, and also there are different pages to have students write on the lines on the smartboard. For science there are ways to incorporate different images, microscopes and movies.

Blogs in the Classroom

1. Give some specific ideas of how you could incorporate blogs into your classroom. What are the benefits and challenges to using this technology in your classroom? List some.
To use blogging in the classroom would be a wonderful change for the students. It would give them a chance to express themselves in creative new ways that they might not get to use elsewhere. I believe that the most common subject to use a computer with would be English/language arts. The children could each have their own blog and start a book discussion. They could all answer questions about a certain a book and then comment and compare answers with each other. Or in language arts the children could respond to the teacher’s blog of short story prompts. From there the children could critique each others’ work. For science the children could blog the progress of a project. For example I know that every third grade class does a seed project where they cultivate plants from the very beginning. This would be an excellent project to blog about. For history the students could keep a blog about the different characters that are discussed in class. Each night the children could go home and do a journal entry as the person we discussed that day. And finally for math the children could use blogging as a money journal. They could use the blog as a ledger for how much they have spent. They could also use the blog as an application journal; they would take the information used in that days class and explain how they would apply it to the real world.
The benefits of blogging are infinite. Children who blog in the classroom will learn how to use a computer and the internet in a way that could help them with their future career. They are also learning proper internet manners, something that there is no class for in the public school system. The children are also learning how to interact with one another without the teacher’s direct influence. As funny as that sounds the children are improving their people skills.
Blogging does face a few challenges though. Even in today’s high tech world there are still households that do not have a computer set up, and even if the family has a computer they might not have an internet connection. In addition some families are very strict and do not allow their children to be on the internet without their permission. Although these children could continue the project as a regular journal it would not be the same.

2. Why is it important to evaluate websites before using them in the classroom or in research? Do you think most people understand and apply these evaluation techniques? How would you incorporate them into your classroom and student projects? What ways could you teach students evaluation techniques?
A teacher needs to check any source before it is passed on to her students, and this includes web sources. It is important to evaluate an website used for educational reasons because you do not want to use the wrong information. As a teacher you do not want to teach your students wrong, and as a student you do not want to lose points for have incorrect information. I believe that the common person does not know how to evaluate a website correctly. Most people just go to the google and type in their search which can lead to some pretty interesting results. People also rely heavily on the first website they check, but if they are unsure of an answer the rule of thumb I was taught was to check 3 sites to see if they agree.
To teach students the evaluation techniques I would show the different incorrect information from the internet. I would show that things that are obviously wrong like author miscredits or science processes that are completely wrong. I would show them websites based off of what we are learning in class, that way they can compare the information. To teach kids the basic evaluation tools I would pick a different topic each day over the course of a week and go in depth at the beginning of the lesson and then at the end of the week I would have an entire lesson dedicated to a review. I would explain the importance of current information, the different website endings (edu, com, net, org, gov, ect.), talk about finding the author and who the author is, and in addition I would talk about where the site got its information from.