Copyrights and Technology Implemention Issues Discussion

     This blog will be going over three main topics today: copyrights and fair use, the implementation of technology and the issues that brings, and the new skills learned from the experience of creating a newsletter. 

    Copyrights can be explained as the protection and permission to use a creators content. This could be music, art, writing, and more. Fair use can be described as the doctrine that allows use of certain works without the creators permission and/or payment. This can be the case for research, reporting, etc. A way that these terms can be implemented into my classroom is by having students practice getting their work that they publish publicly online copyrighted. This will serve as practice and for deepening understanding about the process of copyright. Students can also take time to research material that can be used underneath fair use. 

    Two main issues of implementing technology into the classroom is decreased productivity and lack of funding. For the first issue, this stems from students becoming less productive when technology is introduced as a medium. This can be due to easy access to relevant material and to increase distractability while on a technological device. This can be solved by using educational websites that have goals or time logs recorded. This way I will be able to keep track of the students progress, and for those that meet their goals they can receive some type of reward as motivation. The second issue, the lack of funding, will cause problems such as a shortage of supplies and accessibility. This can lead to there not being enough computers, projectors, interactive whiteboards, etc. for the number of students and teachers. The solution for this can be approached through the use of petitions to the state board to encourage the increase of funding in the school systems technological materials. Another way is to raise funds through fundraising and reaching out for support from the community. 

    This week I created a newsletter for a first grade classroom using Word. This process allowed me to sharpen my skills using Word and served as a reminder for where many of the programs and services are located on Word. It gave me practice with word art, adding graphics, personalizing bullet points, formatting word such as columns and the margins, and more. It also allowed me to have a vital experience a teacher has, where it gave me the chance to plan out lessons, events, and plans for a class' week. I can improve in my knowledge of how to format word, as there were some troubles with designing the newsletter. In the future I can improve navigating around Word. Overall, it was a good experience that can be used when I make newsletters in the future for my students and will help me plan ahead.