Blog Journal #3

 

Copyright and Fair Use 

Copyright refers to the ability to copy the work produced by another person or entity. Whomever is copying the material or work must have the authorization from the person who originally created it. It is an exclusive right. 

Fair use can be defined as any kind of justification or defense against any copyright claims. Those who work with copyrighted works may claim that they are doing so in order to criticize or satirize those works, provide commentary on them, etc. Fair use policies are considerably general and thus give much leeway.  

As a teacher, I will be very careful in terms of how I handle copyright and "fair use". I will make it abundantly clear to my class that all works and sources that they reference - whether that be for an essay, project, or simple class assignment - must be cited. Furthermore, I will place limits as to how many references my students can use. My objective is to help them avoid over-relying on sources. While it will benefit them to gain exposure to other perspectives, I want to encourage more original thought. If I want my students to develop as free and independent thinkers, I need to place a greater emphasis on individual and original work. Additionally, I will outline the severe consequences for plagiarism, as it is a serious academic offense. 

Technology Implementation Issues 

• Academic Dishonesty 
• As a way to prevent academic dishonesty, I would form more connections between the course content and the career goals/interests of my students. In doing so, there would be little to no incentives to cheat. By showing my students that learning the class material will be beneficial to them, they will be more inclined to paying attention and making an effort to actively learn.
• Cyberbullying 
• To solve the pervasive cyberbullying issue, I would ensure that my students understand the gravity of cyberbullying. Not only that, I will create a very strict accountability - any cyber bullies will be held accountable for their words and actions and the repercussions will be extremely serious. One of my goals as an educator is to keep my students safe both in-person and online. More importantly, I want to teach my students that any kind of mistreatment and/or harassment will not be tolerated. 

Newsletter Design 

• I learned various skills while completing my newsletter, as I had to (essentially) start from scratch. I learned how to create my own border, as well as to how input hyperlinks. In addition, I never knew how to make column breaks prior to making the newsletter design. It was my first time manipulating that feature on Microsoft Word. 
• In the future, I will work on my spacing. I felt as though I did not have that much control over the column breaks and spacing; therefore, I sometimes bombarded one page with an excess amount of information. 
• Since I am looking to enter the field of education, I want to improve my computer skills. As a digital native, I also feel that it is my responsibility to educate myself and acquire these basic skills. If I become an instructor, I will definitely have to create newsletters and flyers for parents/guardians. Hence, a project like this one will benefit me, given that it is giving me more exposure to the tech world.