Blog #3

Throughout Week 4, we have been talking about the importance of copyright and fair use. Copyright means that a creator has legal protection over the things they put online. Those would wish to use, copy, or buy their work must receive permission in order to do so. Copyright is so important when it comes to protecting the original works of writers, artists, producers, etc. Fair use means that anyone can use any creative works without getting copyrighted. However, fair use is limited to the amount of the work that is used, the purpose of why it is being used, whether or not you want to rework it into something new, and if what effect it will have on the original content. As a teacher, it is incredibly important to stress these ideas in your classroom as your students are exploring things online. You don't want to get into a situation where a student could plagiarize someone else's work and get into a lot of trouble. When coming up with lesson plans, I think it is super helpful to see what other teachers have done in their classes to engage their students, but you must remember that the lesson plans posted online are not always fully "up for grabs" and you must give credit back to the creator when necessary.

As more and more technology has been introduced into classrooms, it has created a higher number of issues that can arise through student interaction with the internet. 

• Academic Dishonesty - If I were a teacher, I would teach my students about the importance of creating work that is fully your own. I would provide them with resources that would help them navigate through researching and citing things online to limit the risk of plagiarism. I would also have them turn in assignments through Turnitin.com or another plagiarism website to check if their work is their own. If I did feel as though a student was plagiarizing something, I would confront them about it and try to work through why they chose to plagiarize, then I would have them re-do the assignment in their own words.
• Decreased productivity - This is definitely a major problem seen in students today because they have access to so many resources online and feel as though they do not need to try as hard. I would counteract this mindset by having times in the day when my students were not working with technology and, instead, actually having to sit and collaborate with one another about different topics. I feel as though having a time that is "technology-free" during the school day would be very beneficial to students' productivity and motivation levels because it allows them to grow their learning through reading or collaboration with others, instead of through a computer screen.

I really enjoyed designing my Newsletter! It was fun to envision what my future class might look like and the different activities that we might be doing. I chose to make my class 1st grade because I would love to be able to teach younger students in either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade. While making my newsletter, I learned how to utilize the column function and how to make certain parts of the document have columns and some not. It was nice to be able to have control over the formatting and how I wanted it to look. In the future, I can improve my newsletter by possibly adding a bit more color and possibly reworking how I lay it out so I can fit more on each page. Overall, I enjoyed this assignment and felt as though it was great practice for having to create weekly newsletters in the future!